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Naming of places

The present naming convention has been screwed up lately. If you're going to write a list about cities, and you want no redirects, you'd have to check each and every city for the correct article name. There has to be reform or the very least clarification on what to do. Our only problem is disambiguation. –HTD 11:08, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation Nomenclature Example(s) Support Oppose
Barangay
only when necessary <barangay name> OR <barangay name>, <municipal/city name> Forbes Park, Makati, Bangkulasi
  1. - Born2cycle (talk · contribs) Only disambiguate if necessary per WP:D and WP:UNDAB.
always <barangay name>, <municipal/city name> Forbes Park, Makati, Bangkulasi, Navotas
  1. –HTD
  1. - RioHondo (Forbes Park is a dab page, but for unique barangays and all other LGUs needing no disamb: plain names as per WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE)
  2. - Born2cycle (talk · contribs) See WP:UNDAB.
Identical barangay and town/component city name <barangay name>, <municipal/city name>, <province name>
  1. –HTD
  2. - RioHondo (but i prefer a shorter format, like <barangayname>, <provincename> or <barangayname>, <cityname> and for poblacion: <city/municipal name> (poblacion)
  1. - Born2cycle (talk · contribs) See WP:UNDAB.
Municipality
only when necessary <municipal name> OR <municipal name>, <province name> Paoay
Marcos, Ilocos Norte
  1. - Per WP:D and WP:UNDAB --B2C 21:20, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
always <municipal name>, <province name> Paoay, Ilocos Norte
Marcos, Ilocos Norte
  1. –HTD
  2. - P199
  1. - RioHondo (WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE)
  2. - Per RioHondo + WP:UNDAB
Component city
only when necessary <city name> OR <city name>, <province name> Catbalogan
Toledo, Cebu
  1. - Per WP:D and WP:UNDAB --B2C 21:20, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
always <city name>, <province name> Catbalogan, Samar
Toledo, Cebu
  1. –HTD
  2. - P199
  1. - RioHondo
  2. - WP:UNDAB --B2C 21:20, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
City name identical with a name of a province <city name> City Sorsogon City
  1. –HTD
  2. - P199
  3. - RioHondo (only those identical with names of provinces)
  4. - --B2C 21:20, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
City renamed from a person upon cityhood <city name> City Roxas City
  1. –HTD
  2. - RioHondo (but only for Quezon City and other cities built from scratch, meaning excluding those with histories as former pueblos e.g, Lapu-Lapu was formerly Opon; Ozamiz=Misamis; Roxas=Capiz; Legazpi=Albay)
  1. - P199 (why?)
  2. - It depends. If the city is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, it should be at the base name. --B2C 21:20, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
Independent component and highly urbanized city
none <city name> Makati
  1. –HTD
  2. - P199
  3. - RioHondo
  4. - Of course if the city is not the primary topic then it still needed to be disambiguated. --B2C 21:20, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
City name identical with a name of a province or region <city name> City Quezon City
  1. –HTD
  2. - P199
  3. - RioHondo (only those identical with the names of provinces; Zamboanga City and Davao City should be the primarytopic for Zamboanga and Davao respectively IMO)
  4. - --B2C 21:20, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
City name identical with a name of a component city <city name> (<region name>) Naga (Bicol)
  1. –HTD
  2. - P199 but region name should be with a comma as per WP:NATURAL
  1. - RioHondo (Region names are hardly used, not even in addresses)
City name outside Metro Manila identical with a name of a place elsewhere <city name> (Philippine city) Santiago (Philippine city)
  1. –HTD
  2. – User:Wkjt14 I support this move. Or Santiago (Cagayan Valley) instead just like in the proposed move of Naga (Bicol)
  1. - P199: use <city, region>. Santiago is a good example because there are several Santiago's in PH, so the example here would still be confusion.
  2. - RioHondo (use <cityname>, <provincename>. That is still the most natural and common way to do it. Region names are hardly used.)
Metro Manila city identical with a name of a place elsewhere <city name>, Metro Manila Valenzuela, Metro Manila
  1. –HTD
  2. - P199
  3. - RioHondo (this should be the only exception to the cityname, provincename rule as MM has no actual province)
Province
none <province name> Bulacan
  1. –HTD
  2. - P199 (Moot discussion - already the case)
  3. - RioHondo
Province name identical with a name of a place elsewhere <province name> (province) Aurora (province)
  1. –HTD
  2. - P199 (Moot discussion - already the case)
  3. - RioHondo
Island
Island is not coextensive with a province case to case basis Corregidor, Polilio Islands
  1. –HTD
  2. - P199 (Moot discussion - already the case)
  3. - RioHondo
Island name is identical with a province's name <island name> Island or <island name> (island) Cebu (island), Basilan Island
  1. –HTD
  2. - P199 (Moot discussion - already the case)
  1. - RioHondo (i still maintain that islands are primarytopic and should take precedence over the provinces especially for Leyte and Samar; and i suggest merging the island and province for Cebu, Masbate, Palawan, etc)

Discussion

In what way is the naming convention screwed up lately? I agree with the naming convention you laid out, just trying to understand how things are like now. TheCoffee (talk) 20:53, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
All component cities are in <cityname> form (for example, Malolos, Bulacan), there's no consistent way of disambiguating (Valenzuela, Philippines, San Juan, Metro Manila, Lapu-Lapu, Philippines. Granted these would only affect a handful of articles, but these are our most profile ones. –HTD 16:08, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Just for reference, an extensive discussion on this already took place, see here. The current naming convention still closely matches what was decided then. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 17:44, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I still disagree with the naming convention as it currently stands, and I still support simplifying the entire thing, or coming up with a new convention if need be. The system as it stands is still very confusing for editors and for readers, as far as I'm concerned, and without consistency as to how articles should be named, it defeats the purpose of the convention as being a guideline for clarifying proper use. --Sky Harbor (talk) 04:01, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
I agree with the above observation that the current WP:MOSPHIL is too complicated, and disruptive in the sense that the article titles on municipalities and cities have to be changed every time their status changes. Since the adoption of mosphil for example, ive seen dozens of title changes on newly ratified cities.(or recently converted ICC/HUC). Now we're close to 150 cities, and it looks like we will be adding more and retitling more in the coming years. So i guess we need to come up with more permanent article titles by doing away with this city vs municipality clause in our mos. They both belong to the same third-level country subdivision anyway, so the treatment shouldn't be any different for municipalities. The municipalityname, provincename format also runs contrary to the general wp:mos guidelines on concise article titles as i discovered recently, so i suggest we use their plain names (where possible) from now on. And this applies to fourth level subdivisions too or barangays. In fact, ive seen user @Seav initiate this convention on Pandacan and Santa Mesa articles citing WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE.--RioHondo (talk) 09:50, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
As for provinces sharing the same name as their island location (e.g, Samar and Leyte), I would like to propose that the islands be made primary topic and the provinces moved to Samar (province) and Leyte (province) instead, as islands are THE primary divisions of this archipelagic country. In fact, these islands associated with Douglas MacArthur and the Pacific war gained prominence again in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, with international media coverage on the devastation of those islands from Guiuan and Tacloban. And clearly from watching both foreign and local news, most references to Samar dealt with the island and not just its western third (of which Guiuan is not even a part of and which was mostly referred to as Western Samar provincr) and Leyte mostly pertained to the whole island not just its northern half.--RioHondo (talk) 10:02, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

It is not that bad!!! And really, we can't have 1 simple rule that applies to all of the Philippines, because article names need to be unique for all places worldwide, and many Philippine place names are just not unique. These naming discussions happens every few years, and whatever we'll decide now, will most likely not be the last discussion either. To me it is much more disruptive to reinvent the wheel every time. So I'm against whole-scale renaming. But I do support renaming component cities to the <city, province> format. See other support/oppose comments in table above. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 20:09, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Most people here know my opinion. I prefer WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE names and I do not like unnecessary/pre-emptive disambiguation. Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro should be at Puerto Galera and Sagada, Mountain Province should be at Sagada. If there are conflicting names, then we add disambiguation, the system of which can be discussed further. But for now, I'd like to push for applying WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE. --seav (talk) 13:32, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Coming from the previous discussion, this is where we will disagree. Coming from the viewpoint of WP:UCN, preemptive disambiguation is acceptable if that's what most people are accustomed to. My response to RioHondo is that we need to rationalize the existing system of naming LGUs, as the current elephantine system of naming Philippine LGUs is extremely unwieldy. Dropping province names from article titles, however, is too extreme. --Sky Harbor (talk) 23:15, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
Why is it extreme? Using WP:UCN as the basis, we Filipinos may seem accustomed to adding the province name to cities and municipalities but we only do that for context and not because it is part of the name of the city/municipality. If the context can be inferred or is already known or if the place is well-known, then we drop the province name. "Where is Barasoain Church?" "In Malolos." "Saan ka magbabakasyon?" "Sa Puerto Galera."
Note that the purpose of the article title is to identify the article's subject and not to provide any other additional information (such as in which province it is or whether it is a HUC, component city, or municipality). The reader can simply read the first sentence of the article if he wants to know a bit more. We only add additional text for disambiguation purposes as is generally prescribed in Wikipedia. The convention used for U.S. places is actually an exception to the general naming convention.
I'll give examples of sources that mention a city or municipality without tacking on the province name:
  • "Diving, drinking and dining (in that order) top the list of activities in the dive colony of Moalboal (hard to pronounce - try mo-all-bo-all)." —Lonely Planet
  • "Aparri, town, northeastern Luzon, Philippines." —Encyclopedia Britannica
  • "For residents of Guiuan, the first city to meet the fury of Typhoon Haiyan head on, the help could not have come a moment too soon." —The New York Times
  • "After “Yolanda” brought unprecedented devastation to the town of Guiuan, officials are now looking at alternative livelihood for survivors of the Eastern Samar coastal town, a statement said." —Philippine Daily Inquirer
  • "The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) on Wednesday deployed two additional rescue teams to the towns of Basey and Guiuan in Eastern Samar which were also badly hit by super typhoon Yolanda. —The Philippine Star
  • "The municipality government of Loon, one of the hardest hit towns in Bohol during Tuesday’s 7.2-magnitude earthquake, has declared a state of calamity and state of emergency following the massive devastation in the area." —Manila Bulletin
In addition, if you look at seals or charters of cities and municipalities, you don't usually see the province name tacked on with a comma, which indicates that the province is not an intrinsic part of the name of the city/town:
Finally, when the province of Dinagat Islands was created, the constituent towns did not change names. Basilisa did not change from having a "common name" of "Basilisa, Surigao del Norte" to "Basilisa, Dinagat Islands". The official English name is still "Municipality of Basilisa" and the commonly used name is still "Basilisa". So Basilisa should be the title of the article on that town instead of Basilisa, Dinagat Islands. --seav (talk) 01:41, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Note: the most recent discussion on this topic was in the middle of last year. You can re-read the discussion if you want. The only change in people's opinion that I see is that RioHondo now seems amenable to removing the province name. --seav (talk) 08:16, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

There's no WIkipedia-wide rule on this. Each WikiProject makes up its own rules according to what's commonly used in the country, and on the different conditions. Article names on places do not have to be the same Wikipedia-wide. I haven't seen any movements on such things here.

I previously gave a thought on the simplest format: <placename>. This really good looks on paper. It's tempting. But we'd have to be disambiguating individual places it'lk up as a more complex rule that we'd have now.

On having disambiguating province names on towns and cities: as what I've said, they are disambiguators, they're not a part of the article name per se, same way that "Pateros, Metro Manila"'s article name is actually "Pateros" and not "Pateros, Metro Manila". The article is still called as <townname>. I guess the question is if we'd disambiguate by default: given that we'd even more confusing rules if we'd go on having the simple <placename> nomenclature, I'd say yes. After all, we do this at some point. We're not alien to this nomenclature. This is actually used in real life.

On city renamed from a person upon cityhood. The reason why I'd prefer "<newcityname> city" is that it's a clean break. People love inserting the word "city" once a town gains cityhood. I'm opposed to adding the word "City" unless its for disambiguating except on this one because people actually call the newly renamed place as "<cityname> City" instead of "<cityname>", or even the old town name.

@P199 on Santiago, the city in Cagayan Valley: I don't think very, very few uses "<cityname> <regionname>" except Valenzuela and Pateros in Metro Manila, that why I'm hesistant on doing that. I'd rather go to "[[Santiago (city in Cagayan Valley)".

Ultimately, once we agree on adding the province name to component cities' article names, our only "problem" would be the HUCs and ICCs as don't have provinces (in name and on paper), and we'd have to devise other disambiguators in some special cases. –HTD 09:05, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

There is a Wikipedia-wide rule. It's Wikipedia:Article titles, which espouses that article titles should be recognizable, natural, concise, precise, and consistent. All other naming conventions should follow and build on this Wikipedia-wide guideline and should not contradict it unless there's a compelling reason. If you look at WP:PLACE, majority of country-specific naming conventions actually say to use the simple <placename> format as what Wikipedia:Article titles would dictate. The United States and a few other countries like Japan are in the minority. I'd like for the Philippines to be in the majority.
Also, based on your reasoning, it seems the only reason to add the province name as a preemptive disambiguator (which I maintain is unnecessary) (even for component cities) is that it's less complex/confusing. Well, most of the rest of Wikipedia handle this kind of complexity/confusion just fine. To give an example, here are the article titles of three U2 songs with various levels of disambiguation:
This is not a problem for WikiProject Songs, why should it be a problem for us? --seav (talk) 09:44, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
The "address" nomenclature fits all of the criteria in WP:ARTICLETITLES, but I'm not sure how disambiguation fits into that that. Remember, the article title is lnly the <townname> part. Even with the disambiguation it still fits all criteria. One can argue it is not concise but considering we are so accustomed to the "address" nomenclature, it is irrelevant. The <placename> nomenclature won't be consistent. Sure there be no 100% consistency, but there be significant enough deviations from the standard if we'd go by the simple placename nomenclature. As for U2 and songs in general, songs aren't disambiguated naturally. Placenames are. –HTD 12:17, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
"Remember, the article title is lnly the <townname> part."" Actually, the <townname> part is the name of the article's subject, which is different from the article title, which includes any disambiguation (either in parentheses or separated by a comma). Article title or naming conventions should include how to disambiguate precisely because any disambiguation is part of how articles should be titled.
First, the argument that we Filipinos are accustomed to the "address" nomenclature (I think the term used in Wikipedia is "comma convention") and so we should use it, is the same sort of argument for adding the word "City" in all of the city article titles since we Filipinos are used to appending "City". But we have specifically agreed to leave out the word "City" unless required for disambiguation and the city is not the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. So being accustomed is not a reason to make the article title less WP:CONCISE. Also WP:PRECISE says that "titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that". The comma convention, when unnecessary, definitely makes the article overly precise. Besides, it's quite easy to find examples where we don't use the comma convention in everyday writing as my examples for Moalboal, Aparri, Guian, and Loon above show.
Second, the three U2 songs is just an example to point out that complexity/confusion is not a good reason for always adding the province name. But if you want place name examples, here they are:
Lastly, being consistent simply means that article titles should adhere to some well-defined naming convention. It does not mean that we should adopt the naming convention that makes article titles the most consistent (or else all U2 songs should have "(U2 song)" in their titles).
Also, I took a list of cities and towns in the Philippines and when only compared to each other, around 78% of the names are unique. This means that (unless there are other non-city/town topics with the same name), 78% of cities/towns can possibly be under the title <placename>. I don't quite agree that ~22% is a "significant enough deviation" to avoid the simple <placename> format. --seav (talk) 01:32, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
The comma convention is not quite alike with the "City" convention. When we're writing addresses, or say in cases like typhoons making landfalls, or earthquake epicenters, we always use the comma convention for towns. People do not usually add the word "City" all the time in normal discussion, or even in WP:RS.
In U2 songs, we don't say in normal conversation "Dude, 'Stuck in a Moment that You Can't Get Out Of, U2 song' was awesome!". However, we say "The epicenter was at Maribojoc, Bohol", then we'd stick with "Maribojoc" the rest of the way. The comma convention is used in normal conversation, as long as place names are concerned.
As what I've said, since there's no agreed-upon rule in naming places, we don't have to follow French, British, Ugandan or Ecuadorian conventions. The comma convention meets all of the requirements in WP:ARTICLETITLES. –HTD 08:25, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
I'll argue that the basic <placename> format meets the requirements. And even more so since it is not overly WP:PRECISE and more WP:CONCISE.
WP:PRECISE precisely excludes WP:NCGN, although at first glance I didn't see how adding the province name violates either of those two, as the province name is a disambiguator, and not exactly part of the article title, the same way that Firefly (TV series)'s article name is "Firefly", and you'd be using "Firefly" to denote the subject of the article on another article unless you precisely need clarification.
I think you're interpreting WP:PRECISE wrongly. It says that exceptions may be done for places (such as the U.S. convention) but it doesn't mean that place article titles are always exempted as exemplified by other countries' naming conventions, which use precise names, but not more precise than necessary. Besides, the WP:CONCISE criteria still applies and the comma convention, when unnecessary, is less concise, as you have already agreed.
Also, disambiguators are included in the article title. In your example, the article title is "Firefly (TV series)" which is a separate concept from "Firefly" the name of the TV series and the subject of the article. Wikipedia:Article titles provides lots of examples showing that disambiguators are part of article titles. A good such example is that we should use the article title "Queen (band)" instead of the article title "Queen (rock band)" as it's more concise and still precise. By your argument, there is no difference between the two since the article title, by your definition, is "Queen". But by applying the WP:PRECISE and WP:CONCISE criteria for article titles, we should use the "(band)" disambiguator instead of "(rock band)".--seav (talk) 12:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Of course you don't say that for "Stuck in a Moment that You Can't Get Out Of" because there's no other song with that title. That's a strawman argument. But if I said, "Dude, the 'Fire' song is awesome!" You might reply, "The Bruce Springsteen song?" And I'd say, "No, the U2 song!". I should have said something like, "Dude, the Fire song by U2 is awesome!"
Exactly. We never say "Stuck in a Moment that You Can't Get Out Of (U2 song)", but we do say the exact phrase "Iba, Zambales", even if there's probably no other place called "Iba" in the Philippines, in real life. We use this comma convention everyday for place names, and we don't disambiguate song names if it is a uniquely titled song.
"We always use the comma convention for towns". I strongly disagree with this statement. While we Filipinos do tend to use it, it's not all the time. Just try to look at local reliable sources for Puerto Galera. Furthermore, foreign reliable sources eschew this convention. I very rarely see the phrase "Guiuan, Eastern Samar" while browsing the Yolanda news reports from CNN, The New York Times, BBC, Al Jazeera, and the Washington Post.
Why would we use foreign sources as arbiters on how we'd name local places? This is exactly the problem we had on "Libingan ng Mga Bayani" where a news source from India(!!!!!!) was used as proof that the most commonly used name in English, when we all know that virtually all English sources in the Philippines call that place "Libingan ng Mga Bayani" even in English.
As for Puerto Galera, perhaps there should be article about the result called "Puerto Galera" separate from the town that is called "Puerto Galera", as those two aren't essentially coextensive. –HTD 06:03, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
The Libingan ng Mga Bayani situation is not a good example because the argument should be on how to determine what is the commonly used name by looking at all reliable English sources and not simply trying to ban foreign reliable sources. More generally, no Wikipedia guidelines say that we should ignore foreign reliable sources.
No one says ban foreign sources; I'm saying they shouldn't be the primary arbiters on what we should call a place is. Most reliable sources in the Philippines are in English, and most reliable sources about Philippine topics in English are in the Philippines. –HTD 16:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Puerto Galera is just an example. You shouldn't try to argue against one particular example since I could use any number of other examples where local reliable sources do not always add the province name such as El Nido (though this definitely needs WP:DAB because of a town in California), Sagada, Aparri, Baler, etc. My statement stands: I strongly disagree that "we always use the comma convention for towns". See my examples above for local news articles taking about Guiuan and Loon.
Besides, what can you say on an article about Puerto Galera, the "result" (whatever that is), that you can't discuss on the town article? If you did try to split it up, somebody is bound to successfully argue for a merge. --seav (talk) 12:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Here's my problem on using non-PH sources: their audience aren't Filipinos, so adding any context isn't to be of much use. On the NY Times report about Haiyan, it doesn't even mention that Guiuan is at Eastern Samar; Britannica doesn't even mention on what province Aparri is located, although it is located at the nicely titled "Aparri (Philippines)", and it seems there aren't any articles about another Aparri.
Now for local sources, by the end of November, most local news sources must know by now that most of their readers that Guiuan is at Eastern Samar, so it doesn't need introduction any longer. Apparently, by mid-November, it wasn't the case, hence "The Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) on Wednesday deployed two additional rescue teams to the towns of Basey and Guiuan in Eastern Samar." Note that if you're using the convention on this one it would be extremely unwieldy: "rescue teams to the towns of Basey, Eastern Samar and Guiuan, Eastern Samar", although they could've probably went that way if the two were from separate provinces.
The comma convention is unwieldy when writing in prose, one doesn't write, at the lead of Gloria, Occidental Mindoro, "Gloria, Oriental Mindoro is a town in Oriental Mindoro" (because they are disambiguations); fortunately, article titles aren't composed of sentences, so the comma convention is perfect. –HTD 16:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Basically you now agree that the comma convention is not always used. So, outside of Wikipedia, we use the comma convention in 2 ways: (1) for use in addresses, and (2) to provide context. We are not writing addresses in Wikipedia and so the question is, do we need to provide context? Wikipedia's articles on PH towns and cities are targeted to everyone, not just Filipinos. And the WP:LEAD is the place to provide context, not the article title, which needs to be short yet precise. Adding the province name, when no disambiguation is needed, is not necessary in the article title. --seav (talk) 20:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
TBH, the comma convention is actually used in breaking news stories in local media, but once we get the hang of it, they use the <placename> convention. Of course they don't use it in HUCs, some ICCs and some old component cities.
Do we need to provide context? I can't believe this is still being asked. We're not the New York Times reporting on a disaster on a faraway place; we're an encyclopedia. The easy answer is "of course." –HTD 17:54, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree that as an encyclopedia we need to provide context. But the proper place to provide context is in the article's lead section (WP:LEAD), not the article's title (WP:AT). If you look at Wikipedia in general, we generally don't add context to the article title unless it's needed for disambiguation. --seav (talk) 04:34, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
There's nothing in WP:AT that explicitly forbids providing context at the article titles per se. Sure, it does say you can provide context when one disambiguates, but if disambiguation is naturally done by an average person, is recognizable to an average person, consistently done for all articles, and balances brevity with sufficient information to identify the topic in a way the average person searching for it will recognize, then it satisfy WP:AT. –HTD 13:54, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Sure, there's no prohibition saying something similar to "do not add context", but if you read the definition of precision and conciseness in WP:NAMINGCRITERIA then adding context, when unnecessary because the place name is already unique, would violate those 2 criteria since it provides over precision and is less concise. When unnecessary, adding the province name for such a unique name does not change recognizability since the town name is recognizable by itself. When unnecessary, adding the province name is naturally done but only to provide context and not to identify the place. --seav (talk) 18:08, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

The word "context" only appears thrice: once in the section in which disambiguating is totally needed, and twice in historical contexts. It doesn't prohibit the addition of further context when disambiguation is naturally used, even when it is not needed. Again, WP:CONCISE doesn't mean "shortest 'formal' name as possible". –HTD 18:56, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
The town name may be recognizable by itself, and is certainly more recognizable with the province name. –HTD 18:56, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
Actually you can make an article about the resort that's on Puerto Galera the same way one can create a separate article about Misibis Bay. When people talk about Puerto Galera, people usually talk about the resort, not the poblacion. –HTD 16:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
The barangay in Bacacay is actually named just "Misibis" so there's no conflict. But I get your point that a resort may be more well-known than it's namesake town. However, there is no actual resort in Puerto Galera that is named "Puerto Galera". When people say Puerto Galera, they actually refer the the town's beach tourist spots as a whole. --seav (talk) 20:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
There might be no "resort" of that name (as in the Misibis Bay example or even Dakak), but as you've said, if one should write or look about the beach tourist spots called "Puerto Galera", one can place it at "Puerto Galera". –HTD 17:54, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
You've said before that the <placename> format looks good on paper and is tempting. What are other reasons do you have why it is no longer tempting that I haven't addressed sufficiently yet? --seav (talk) 13:59, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
Because it would be inconsistent. We'd be making up disambiguation rules every step of the way, resulting in inconsistently named articles. –HTD 06:03, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Consistency is just 1 of 5 criteria for naming articles. We also need to take into consideration the other criteria like WP:PRECISE and WP:CONCISE. In addition, the consistency criteria says "The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) in the box of Topic-specific conventions on article titles." The keyword here is "pattern", which explicitly indicates that naming conventions should be used as stated in the definition of the Consistency criteria (the "box of Topic-specific conventions" bit). The "comma convention" is a pattern and so is "use <placename> whenever possible". I hope this makes it clear that article titles like Puerto Galera and San Miguel, Bulacan are not inconsistent if we use the "use <placename> whenever possible" pattern. --seav (talk) 12:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
One's at "Puerto Galera", one's at "San Miguel, Bulacan", where's the pattern in that? Are we saying that Peru and enzyme are patterns? The addition of province name in all article titles as disambiguators are the very essence of "patterns", since everyone, with no exception (unless further disambiguation), has it. If one is different from the other, that's the opposite of patterns. The fact that San Miguel, Bulacan is "commaed" while Puerto Galera isn't means that it is not consistent. –HTD 16:58, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
The pattern is: if no disambiguation is needed, the format is <placename>, otherwise, the format is <placename, provincename>. You seem to be missing the point that "pattern" is just a short term for a "naming convention". The comma convention is a naming convention and is a "pattern". The <placename> convention is also a naming convention and is a "pattern". Both are consistent for the definition of "consistency" according to the Wikipedia:Article titles policy. --seav (talk) 20:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Let's all drop the use of the term "pattern", shall we? When we speak of patterns, it's a strictly defined sequence of things. For example, "<league> Season <mumber>" is the pattern we use of college sports seasons; "<year> Metro Manila Film Festival" is the pattern for individual MMFFs; "Legislative district of <placename>" is the pattern for legislative districts. When we speak of patterns, there should be more than one "element" in the title. –HTD 17:54, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
It seems it doesn't violate WP:PRECISE: because it is commonly enough used, and people precisely know what it is especially if there's disambiguation involved. It violates precise if a name is something people do not easily know, such as renaming University of Santo Tomas in to Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines". This is explicitly stated in the example at WP:PRECISE when dealing with geographic names. –HTD 16:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
"...people do not easily know". This is not the precision criterion but rather the recognizability criterion.
"...when dealing with geographic names". If you are referring to the "Bothell, Washington" example in WP:PRECISE, then you are misreading the precision criterion. By applying the precision criterion, "Bothell" should be enough, but the American community decided that the recognizability and naturalness criteria are more important than the precision criterion so they adopted the overly precise "Bothell, Washington" title. This still doesn't change the fact that "Bothell, Washington" does not meet the WP:PRECISE criteria when compared to "Bothell". --seav (talk) 20:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
How could an example be treated as a violation? If it's there, either it meets the requirements, or it is exempted. –HTD 17:54, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
The Bothell example is treated as a violation, but an exceptionable violation, because the policy page says so. Read again: "Exceptions to the precision criterion ... for instance: Bothell ...". This means that Bothell does not meet WP:PRECISION but this violation is acceptable to the American Wikipedia community when using the naturalness and recognizability criterion. This doesn't change the fact that Guiuan, Eastern Samar does not meet WP:PRECISION while Guiuan does. --seav (talk) 04:10, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
An exception is very rarely a violation. It's like saying you violated something when you're exempted from taking a final exam if you earned enough credit to pass whatever happens. The Bothell example is an exemption, nothing more, nothing less. –HTD 19:30, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
First of all, if "Bothell, Washington" already meets the precision criterion, then it doesn't make any sense to say that it's an exception. You would make it a normal example like the "Mother Teresa" example.
Second, let's look at the definition of precision: "The title is sufficiently precise to unambiguously identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects." Also the first guide sentence: "Usually, titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that." Now let's look at the exception example: "Bothell is precise enough to be unambiguous...." It means that "Bothell" meets the precision criterion. Any longer would make it "more precise than that" which goes against the criterion. So "Bothell, Washington" does not meet the criterion, i.e., a violation.
Lastly, I never said anything here about "exemptions" but rather "exceptions". (So exemptions from exams don't even enter into the picture.) The American Heritage Dictionary defines "exception" as "One that is excepted, especially a case that does not conform to a rule or generalization" while the Collins Dictionary defines "exception" as "anything excluded from or not in conformance with a general rule, principle, class, etc".[2] So "exception" = "does not conform" = "violation". --seav (talk) 22:46, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
It also seems it doesn't violate WP:CONCISE: because an average person will still recognize what "Iba, Zambales" is. –HTD 16:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Now this one is just plain wrong. You are applying the recognizability criterion ("... will still recognize what Iba, Zambales is") and not the conciseness criterion. If you applied the conciseness criterion correctly, then "Iba" is more concise (i.e., shorter) than "Iba, Zambales". "Concise" simply means "short". --seav (talk) 20:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Concise does not simply mean short. Otherwise, we might as well move "Quezon City" to "QC" (or QC (city)"?). WP:CONCISE says "The basic goal of conciseness is balancing brevity with sufficient information to identify the topic in a way the average person searching for it will recognize." In other words, it means it could be of any length, as long as the reader recognizes it. New Bataan, Compostela Valley and New Bataan both satisfy WP:CONCISE; "Municipality of New Bataan" doesn't, even if it's actually shorter than the first one. –HTD 17:54, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm actually using the definition of conciseness as indicated in WP:NAMINGCRITERIA (located higher up on the same Wikipedia:Article titles policy page that contains the WP:CONCISE subsection): "Conciseness – The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects." By that definition, New Bataan, Compostela Valley is less concise than New Bataan because by itself, it is not longer than necessary to distinguish it from other subjects. The description (not definition) in the WP:CONCISE section is a guide and specifically points to the recognizability criterion for additional guidance.
The way I'm reading it, WP:NAMINGCRITERIA#Deciding on an article title is a summary of five points, while WP:PRECISE and the other 4 sections are the details. The devil is in the details. –HTD 12:52, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

The way I'm reading it, WP:NAMINGCRITERIA shows the actual definition of the 5 criteria and not just a summary. Here are my 2 reasons:

  1. If WP:NAMINGCRITERIA is a summary, then where are the sections on the naturalness and consistency criteria? (There's a subsection with the label WP:NATURAL, but that pertains to "natural disambiguation" and not the naturalness criterion.)
  2. My view that WP:NAMINGCRITERIA holds the definition of the 5 criteria (and the other later sections are additional guides) is supported by the discussions on the talk page of WP:AT that try to clarify the particular wordings in the WP:NAMINGCRITERIA section. Most participants in the discussion certainly view the wordings as very important and whose interpretation should be exact. Some examples:

--seav (talk) 18:08, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

The "additional guides" cannot possibly contradict WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. I view WP:NAMINGCRITERIA as the preamble of sorts and the specific sections as the articles and sections of a constitution. As for "naturalness and consistency criteria," this should have been self-explanatory: article names should be natural: so therefore, it is not "Province of Benguet" or even "Benguet Province" (no one actually uses those in normal conversation) but "Benguet". Consistency is trickier since how consistent is consistent? Again, for the most part, consistency is for a subset of articles that should have identical patterns: "2011 PBA season, 2012 PBA season, 2013 PBA season, etc.", "Angat, Bulacan, Balagtas, Bulacan, Baliuag, Bulacan", "Department of Agrarian Reform, Department of Agriculture, Department of Budget and Management, etc.". –HTD 18:56, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
The naming criteria is actually placed in its own special template: Template:Principal Naming Criteria. It says in the documentation: "Use of this template transcludes (or substitutes) the principal naming criteria list from the WP:PRINCIPALNAMINGCRITERIA section of WP:Article Titles." This means that the naming criteria is meant to be a standalone object meant to be quoted by itself. It is not just a summary—it is the actual criteria. For instance I could quote it here. --seav (talk) 22:46, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.
  • Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.
  • Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects. (See § Precision and disambiguation, below.)
  • Concision – The title is not longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects. (See § Concision, below.)
  • Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) as topic-specific naming conventions on article titles, in the box above. (See § Consistency, below.)
"Use of this template transcludes (or substitutes) the principal naming criteria list from the WP:PRINCIPALNAMINGCRITERIA section of WP:Article Titles." means just that, you can transclude this to any page. It doesn't mean the contents of the template is the policy itself. –HTD 03:41, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
As for the 3 really long discussions, nothing was really resolved on those, just like this one. –HTD 18:56, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
As for "QC", (you may even add "Dasma", "LP", "P'que" and other nicknames and abbreviations) your argument for moving is actually valid, but only if we consider the conciseness criterion by itself. But when considering the 4 other criteria, the nicknames and abbreviation may be less recognizable and/or less natural, and our long-standing fundamental naming convention for consistency is to make use of the actual base name of the place, not abbreviations and nicknames.
To be fair to "QC", it's the most widely used short-name of a place. "Dasma" and others don't come close; actually, Dasma might be a joint far second, along with the likes of "CamSur". QC, and to a lesser extent, Dasma and CamSur, are still recognizable and natural as their original base names. –HTD 12:52, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
Besides, all else being equal (both are recognizable under the recognizability criteria), New Bataan should be given more weight than New Bataan, Compostela Valley since it is shorter. --seav (talk) 05:24, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
As what I've said, WP:CONCISE is not about shortness/brevity. If we're talking about conciseness as a Wikipedia guideline, we should look at WP:CONCISE, and not on its summary. –HTD 12:52, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
See my reply above saying why WP:NAMINGCRITERIA contains the definitions and not just a summary. --seav (talk) 18:08, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
As for the 22%, how many is this 22%? –HTD 08:25, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
About 350. --seav (talk) 13:59, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
Are these 350 towns and cities the popular ones? –HTD 06:03, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
The names of popular towns and cities may or may not be unique. Example: Puerto Galera and El Nido are unique (belong to the 78%) while San Fernando and Naga aren't (belong to the 22%). --seav (talk) 12:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

This entire discussion just proves that we're back at the start line, or reinventing the wheel, with the PH place names. Doesn't anyone else get tired of going over the same old discussions over and over again? Once a decision has been taken, let's stick with it! Well, a decision was made a long time ago to have PH place names follow the American format (<place, province>), so let's move on! -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 20:32, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Which brings me to consistency. If we're having <placename> convention for towns too, we'd have this situation on cities which aren't consistent. –HTD 16:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
As I've said above, to meet the consistency criterion, you simply need to have a well-defined naming convention, which can certainly include cities. --seav (talk) 20:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Simple. Use the comma convention on all cases that it is possible, which is my proposal. –HTD 19:17, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
The "comma convention on all cases that it is possible" is a valid naming convention. And so it using the <placename> format whenever possible. Both meet the Consistency criterion which is what I indicated in my table but which you mistook as a violation for the <placename> convention. So would you agree that the <placename> convention does not violate the consistency criterion? --seav (talk) 04:34, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
Actually, there was no real decision when WP:MOSPHIL was created back in 2006 and we specifically did not look to the U.S. convention as inspiration. I was an advocate of the comma convention but after reading more about naming conventions and seeing the debates on the notable U.S. cities, I became convinced that adopting the <placename> format as is used in majority of other countries is the way to go for reasons I have explained many times. --seav (talk) 23:47, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
I've looked at British addresses, and they don't usually mention county. For example, BBC Radio Leeds' contact address is "BBC Radio Leeds, Broadcasting Centre, 2 St Peter's Square, Leeds, LS9 8AH". It doesn't mention that Leeds is at West Yorkshire. Therefore, it is right for the British places not to be named in the comma convention, since it seems to be unnatural for them. This is unlike writing to someone in the provinces, there's always the province name. –HTD 16:58, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
That's because the United Kingdom has a very well-established postal code system. If you really want examples of countries that include the province/county/state in addresses but then use the <placename> convention in Wikipedia article titles, then we have Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia, and Thailand, among others. --seav (talk) 20:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
I could be quite possible one of many who has been very pissed on the Premier League being axed from Fox/Star Sports, but on those games that I saw, they very rarely mentioned at which county the match was held, unless it's a derby match. However, UK counties are mostly like our regions and do not have much power. Compare, say to WWE, which always use the comma convention (check out the first moments in every WWE broadcast). How does this to translate to Philippine usage? It's not much of any help, TBH, as the towns are usually underdeveloped to have pro sports tour their places.
I dunno about other countries, and indeed we don't have to presume that we know. As stated in WP:PRECISE, what they do is their business, which probably means anyone can do what they want, as long as there's consensus involved, and WP:PRECISE is being invoked. –HTD 17:54, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Summary of seav's position

Article titles should follow the Wikipedia:Article titles policy. The policy has 5 criteria for good article titles: recognizable, natural, concise, precise, and consistent. The basic question is whether to add the province name by default (comma convention) to article titles of towns and cities in the Philippines or to leave it out if unnecessary (<placename> format convention). The table below shows a comparison between the two. (Note that this question does not yet address what to do when disambiguation is necessary. That is yet another discussion which should also include other places like provinces, regions, islands, barangays, and the like.) --seav (talk) 12:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

You may also refer to the following official article title naming criteria for the definitions of each criteria in the table:

  • Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.
  • Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.
  • Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects. (See § Precision and disambiguation, below.)
  • Concision – The title is not longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects. (See § Concision, below.)
  • Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) as topic-specific naming conventions on article titles, in the box above. (See § Consistency, below.)
Criteria Comma convention <placename> format convention Remarks
Recognizability checkY checkY Both conventions make use of the actual name of the town or city so both are automatically recognizable to people who are familiar with the place.
Naturalness checkY checkY Both are used naturally as can be seen in numerous examples from reliable English sources.
Precision ☒N checkY The comma convention is overly precise.
Conciseness ☒N checkY The comma convention is less concise.
Consistency checkY checkY By definition, making use of a pattern (aka, naming convention) is consistent.

Looking at the table above, we should be using the <placename> format convention instead of the comma convention. And while we are under no obligation to follow the convention of other countries like the United States (comma convention) or the United Kingdom (<placename> format), the fact that the majority of countries (as seen in WP:PLACE) adopt the <placename> format should be an indication that the results of the table above is valid. --seav (talk) 12:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

All true. But since the comma format has long been established and "we are under no obligation to follow the convention of other countries", it is far more disruptive (and unproductive) to rename everything than it is worth. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 13:38, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Well, consensus can change and there is no deadline. If you agree that the <placename> format is better since it follows the policy better, then it is worth it to adopt the change no matter how much effort is needed. One example where hundreds of articles were renamed that others would argue is not worth the effort is back in 2008–2009 when articles like Malaysia–Philippines relations were moved from the hyphenated title to the title with an en dash. This is a very pedantic change and some would say was unneeded and unhelpful because people cannot easily type en dashes, but the move happened and I agree is better since we really need to use proper punctuation marks. Also, because of redirects, there should be no real disruption. Have I addressed your concern? --seav (talk) 14:27, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Seriously, all five ticks? Lemme try too.
Does it violate... Comma convention <placename> format convention Remarks
Recognizability No No Both conventions make use of the actual name of the town or city so both are recognizable.
Naturalness No No Both are used naturally as can be seen in numerous examples from reliable sources.
Precision No — It seems that countries use the <placename> convention precisely because the comma convention is alien to them, or is depreciated. We use the comma convention because it is natural for us at this point. This should not be considered as it is an exemption.
Conciseness No No "The basic goal of conciseness is balancing brevity with sufficient information to identify the topic in a way the average person searching for it will recognize." People would still recognize the comma convention.
Consistency No Yes No article would have a pattern with any other article, since there are no patterns to build with, and may have different disambiguation procedures from other articles.
Violations 0 1
To be fair, I'm not buying the argument that "We'd have to move thousands of articles so let's not do it anyway"; if a bot can do it the bot do it. If anyone's bothered about precision and conciseness, these are easily remedied: if typing long names bothers anyone, the Wikipedia search bar is smart enough to tell you what article you're looking for even without the typing the full name, and we can create redirects on unambiguous placenames. The fact the people recognize the comma convention, that it is natural, and that it will be consistent for everyone means that the comma convention is the way to go. For me, this all boils down to consistency; if you're making a list that involves places in the Philippines across multiple provinces, and you're OC on "no redirects", you'd have to double check if it has a province name or if it doesn't. Most cities are component cities; if we add back the province name, we're making it easy for people in creating lists. Now we'd only have to deal with ICCs and HUCs. –HTD 16:58, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Also, if people were looking for a specific town, most of they would necessarily be looking at the province name too (think of it as phone directories), unless they're totally sure on what they're looking for (if they're from that province, for example). So adding the province name is beneficial in this regard. –HTD 16:58, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Ultimately, I'd be supporting a <placename> convention if people have completely dropped the comma convention when talking about places, except when disambiguating is necessary, even in news reports such as "The landfall was at Guiuan" instead of "The landfall was at Guiuan" at the first instance in the report. –HTD 17:06, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
I'm looking at your table and here are my comments:
Precision: "It seems that countries use the <placename> convention precisely because the comma convention is alien to them, or is depreciated." I disagree. Examples of countries that use the comma convention naturally yet still use the <placename> convention for Wikipedia articles are Canada and Mexico.
Precision: "We use the comma convention because it is natural for us at this point." Your argument is for the naturalness criterion and not the precision criterion. You cannot mark precision as N/A because we need to apply all criteria and see the whole result.
Conciseness: "People would still recognize the comma convention." Your argument is for the recognizability criterion and not the conciseness criterion. The conciseness criterion refers to the "brevity" bit in what you quoted. When applying conciseness/brevity, it means that the title should be as concise/brief/short as possible. So the comma convention actually violates WP:CONCISE since it's not as short as possible even if you meet the recognizability criterion.
Consistency: As I mentioned above, "pattern" simply means "naming convention". Both the comma convention and the <placename> format convention are naming conventions (aka "patterns"). So I strongly disagree with you saying that the <placename> format violates the consistency criterion. Sure, Puerto Galera and San Miguel, Bulacan do not have the same format, but that does not mean there is no pattern to it.
In short, I think you have misunderstood the 5 criteria. --seav (talk) 21:00, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Nope. I think you misunderstood:
  1. WP:PRECISE can be overruled by consensus. The fact that other WikiProjects, that don't involve geography had ignored this one means we can safely do that too.
  2. WP:CONCISE is not about "brevity, full stop". The word "concise" is about "brevity, full stop", but the Wikipedia policy on conciseness is about "balancing brevity with sufficient information to identify the topic in a way the average person searching for it will recognize."
On consistency, just call it "naming convention" instead of pattern. "Pattern" speaks of elements and their arrangement in a name. Drop the use of the word "pattern", and just use "naming convention". –HTD 18:13, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
For WP:PRECISE, only by local consensus can it be ignored or at least be given a smaller weight when compared to the other 4 criteria. For example, the U.S. WikiProject has decided by consensus to ignore the precision criterion when they adopted the comma convention. But simply because the other WikiProjects have done so doesn't mean that we should. All I'm saying is that the comma convention does not meet WP:PRECISION and we need to take that into account when determining our own naming convention.
For WP:CONCISE, please see my reply above re New Bataan.
On consistency, OK I will just use "naming convention". Does this mean that you agree that the <placename> format convention does not violate the consistency criterion? (So the "Yes" in your table is a "No"?) --seav (talk) 05:26, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
I've made a short read of the discussions in the talk page of that page, and many discussion revolve on whether local conventions trump WP:PRECISE. There's no short answer to this. The fact that other WikiProjects, from the likes of royalty and nobility, UK parliamentary districts, even road names, ignore WP:PRECISE means we can do so too. –HTD 13:10, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
If you look at the WP:LOCALCONSENSUS subsection of the WP:CONSENSUS policy page, it says "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope." Now, I'm not privy to the discussion on the other WikiProjects but at least for our WikiProject, it means that we should try to follow the WP:AT policy as much as possible, which means that the precision criterion applies unless there's a compelling reason not to (and we can convince the broader community of that). I don't see any compelling reason that we should ignore precision especially when all other considerations are mostly equal. --seav (talk) 17:03, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
But this isn't "one place and time", sure this has been "one place" but the naming conventions has been talked about for years now. No one outside the WikiProject has questioned this naming convention (except for this guy, who wanted preemptive disambiguation on all cases (Ilocos Norte Province, New Bataan Town, Gingoog City) but even RioHondo wasn't convinced), but again it all boiled down to local practice; the only province we call "Province" with regularity are Mountain Province and Quezon Province, we sure call cities as "City" but we do call cities without the word "City", and we never call towns with word "Town", even in disambiguating (for example, "Bulacan, Bulacan" appears even on bus signs). If "all other considerations are mostly equal", and we originally have the comma convention, then on normal Wikipedia discussions, this ends in a "no consensus", right? –HTD 17:42, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
The fact that no one outside has questioned our naming convention can mean one of 2 things: It may mean that they approve of it, or it may mean that they have never seen it. We have no idea which it is. --seav (talk) 18:23, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
See my reply above on WP:CONCISE.
The naming convention has to be identical for a vast majority of articles, if there'd be any exceptions, the number of articles would be in single digits of percentage, or even single digits in absolute numbers. For example, NHL team articles are in <place> <nickname> such as the "New York Rangers"; there's only one exception, St. Louis Blues (hockey) because it has to be disambiguated. That's the thing, if we're making exceptions, there only has to be a couple of articles, otherwise, it's as if we'd be having more one naming convention. If we'd disambiguate for 22% of articles, that's a problem. The fact that naming conventions for ICCs and HUCs are a mess is a problem. –HTD 13:10, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
Where did you get that rule ("vast majority", "single digits", etc.)? This isn't supported by WP:AT at all. --seav (talk) 17:03, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
WP:AT states that "the title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles." Now what's consistent for you may not be consistent with me, and indeed there's no threshold. But if we'd look at articles of a particular subgroup, they are almost 100% consistently titled unless there's like history involved. If we'd going with <placename> convention, we'd be having <placename> convention on most, comma convention on some, parenthetical convention on a few, and God knows what convention on some special case. You'd avoid this with the comma convention, unless a province has identically-named towns and cities. –HTD 17:42, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
But the question of threshold does not even enter into the picture. WP:AT does not say that some naming conventions are better than another just because the pattern of names is simpler or less complex, which again leads to the point about convenience which is not a factor in naming articles. If some are on "<placename>" and others are on "<placename>, <provincename>" and the rest are on some other format, I don't see that as a problem. --seav (talk) 18:23, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
It's not about simpler or less complex article titles as far as consistency is concerned, but whether any naming convention, whether it will be simple or complex would be consistently applied to almost all articles. If the articles have different naming conventions, as the <placename> convention would do, then it is not consistent. –HTD 18:56, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
In addition, if I understand you correctly, you dislike the <placename> convention simply because it's inconvenient when making lists with no redirects. There is no Wikipedia guideline that states that convenience for editors is a criterion for article titles. For the record, France has 36,000+ communes and they created lists of communes per department such as Communes of the Ain department. They're not bothered that some of the listed communes need the department name (like Chevry, Ain) while others don't (like Cleyzieu). Ultimately, we have redirect bots that take care of your particular problem. --seav (talk) 21:09, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
I dunno, but the naming convention for a subset of articles is usually identical. For example, election articles are in "<demonym> <type of election> election, <year>"; for people it is usually "<given name> <surname>", except for East Asians and some others. Now, this exception creates a big deal of confusion on people like Li Na (see that article's RM on the talk page) and Yao Ming. If a subset of articles have different naming conventions, that's not just an inconvenience to editors, but a disservice to readers, who might be confused if they landed on the correct article. If the French have inconsistent naming conventions for their communes, it's their problem.
So OK, I can't speak for the French Wikiproject, and like I said, we should not base our naming convention on French, Canadian, American or Malaysian naming conventions, if those exist. We should use what's being used in the Philippines. –HTD 18:13, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
The comma convention is more convenient for editors than it is for readers, Im beginning to see now as majority of Philippine LGU's are actually unique placenames and need no disambiguation. At least 908 of the 1,634 cities and municipalities that we have are actually redirects to their long forms and I didnt include the other LGU's that can be made primary topic. See my list of unique LGU names here. I understand google search results include the intro lines of wp articles where the LGU's province locations are mentioned for our readers hence there really is no need for disambiguators for majority of our LGUs. Cheers!--RioHondo (talk) 05:11, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
There's two schools in this: the comma convention is more inconvenient for editors, since we'd all have to type longer names (which is the crux of WP:CONCISE), and that it is convenient since it is consistent with everyone and has no exceptions and you can make lists and articles without going to redirects. It is more beneficial for readers since most of the time, when someone is looking for a place s/he hasn't known before, they go with the comma convention. It's natural for readers to go with the comma convention for places that they don't know and need disambiguation, and the simple placenames for places that they do know. Now we can't possibly find out what places every single one of us knows, so that's why we have naming conventions. –HTD 13:10, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

This discussion is really dragging on... We are all experienced editors, we all know the policies and guidelines, and still, it's open to interpretation. As HTD says above, there are two schools of thought. Ultimately, there is no absolute right or wrong in this case, so personal preferences play major part to which school of thought one belongs. I will gladly submit to the consensus, but there clearly isn't one. No doubt in 1 or 2 years, there will be new editors who will reopen this debate. I propose to close the discussion for now. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 19:30, 2 January 2014 (UTC) I just noticed the poll below, so it's a bit premature to close. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 19:36, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Province name on ICCs and HUCs

RioHondo's position is to include the province name if ICCs and HUCs if disambiguating is necessary. This will lead to factually wrong article titles as these cities no longer belong to any province. Another means of disambiguation would have to be used instead of this, primarily using the "<cityname> (<region name>)" or "<cityname>, Philippines". –HTD 19:02, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

They do in fact belong to provinces if you ask the National Statistics Office. Provinces are also what's commonly used in writing addresses and it's perfectly fine to see Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Ormoc, Leyte, Mandaue, Cebu, Lucena, Quezon and Dagupan, Pangasinan used to this day. What's rare and probably unheard of are Puerto Princesa, MIMAROPA, Ormoc, Eastern Visayas, Mandaue, Central Visayas, Lucena, CALABARZON and Dagupan, Ilocos or Dagupan, Ilocos Region. And i dont think people will ever get used to that convention. :) --RioHondo (talk) 03:19, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
The NSO is not the arbiter on who belongs to what province, it's just for statistical convenience. Also, the NSO actually excludes HUCs from population counts of provinces. For example, in Eastern Visayas, they exclude Tacloban's population total from Leyte's. They did include Ormoc though which is an ICC
Also, I'm not advoating for the <cityname>, <regionname> convention except for Metro Manila cities. That's a straw man. I'd go with <cityname> if there's no disambiguation needed, <cityname>, Philippines if there's an identical name outside the Philippines, and <cityname> (<regionname>) if there's an identical name in the Philippines. So in the case of Santiago, it should be at "Santiago (Cagayan Valley)", not "Santiago, Cagayan Valley", which I never suggested. –HTD 03:30, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
So independent component cities are included in their historical and geographical provinces and highly urbanized cities are not. Maybe we should create a separate convention for them then? But then, that complicates things even further which is not what we all came here to do, which is to streamline the whole mosphil system. I'd go with plain names, or comma provincename/Metro Manila for identical lgus to keep it simple and consistent for our newbies and new editors in line with the general wp mos. :) --RioHondo (talk) 05:13, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
If we'd be going with the plain placename convention, we will not be "streamlining" the whole mosphil system since all of the exceptions and ways of disambiguations used in naming cities will now be applied to towns as well. The problems of whether we.d use "Santiago, Philippines", "Santiago, Cagayan Valley", "Santiago (city)" or whatever way would now be used for everyone. The comma convention for town and component cities streamlines the naming conventions for a great majority of articles. If ICCs and HUCs were part of provinces too, I could've suggesting the comma convention for everyone, depending if it was actually used; we won't necessarily know as these independent cities have been independent for a long time. –HTD 06:08, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
Also, these ICCs are relatively few and are like historical artifacts. I don't think there are any new ICCs lately; Component cities upgrade directly to HUcs. –HTD 06:19, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Summary of points

Basically, the points are:

Comma convention Placename convention
This is necessary to provide context. Context should be provided in the article's lead section and not in the article title.
WP:PRECISE can be safely ignored or exempted. WP:PRECISE should not be ignored.
Meets WP:CONCISE as it "balances brevity with sufficient information to identify the topic in a way the average person searching for it will recognize." Is more concise than the comma convention and meets the definition of the conciseness criterion: "The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects."
This is consistent as there should be no exceptions, and each article would have a pattern. The 22% deviation would still be consistent with respect to the consistency criterion.
The WP:NAMINGCRITERIA at WP:AT is built upon by further sections in that policy page. The WP:NAMINGCRITERIA at WP:AT is the primary source, and that the rest of the policy page are "additional guidelines".
The change to a placename convention provides no improvement to the current setup. This follows WP:AT better especially the WP:PRECISE criterion.
What is done on other WikiProjects are immaterial as WP:AT allows exceptions at WP:PRECISE. This would be consistent with most other countries' naming conventions.

Straw poll

HTD and I (seav) have been discussing the basic naming convention for several days now. I'd like to see what the rest of the community thinks. There are 3 alternatives we can adopt moving forward:

Status quo

Comma convention always

  1. This is my preference. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 19:33, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
  2. –HTD 19:35, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
  3. Yes, with one modification: major cities may be exempted from the comma convention. This is similar to the U.S. convention, where they observe Associated Press guidelines mandating that the city name alone be used for the top 20 cities/metropolitan areas in the United States. --Sky Harbor (talk) 06:09, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
    This is already done for HUCs, ICCs, cities which were renamed upon city hood, and cities with identical names with other places. The only changes will be component cities that weren't renamed upon city hood and do not need disambiguations. This avoids city fanboys of clamoring their town to be renamed once they actually become a city; city hoods are still pretty much a regular occurrence but upgrades to HUCs aren't; I think ICCs are just historical artifacts now, component cities don't upgrade into IcCs any,ore, they go straight to HUCs, and these are like rarer than upgrades to city hoods. –HTD 06:17, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
    This convention makes sense for HUCs (as these are the major cities of the Philippines to begin with), but not all ICCs should be covered by this. For example, everyone knows where Naga is, but not everyone knows where Santiago, Isabela is. Conversely, some component cities can be exempted from this convention (such as Tagaytay, Vigan or Malolos). I would suggest codifying exemptions somewhere, or we find a source that does this for us already. --Sky Harbor (talk) 02:25, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
    If there's a third party style guide that does this we could very well use that. –HTD 06:27, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
  4. Good arguments all around, but this is my preference. TheCoffee (talk) 17:07, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
  5. Upon further thought (and after perusing the case of San Fernando, La Union and San Fernando, Pampanga, I have to shift my vote from "status quo" to "comma convention whenever possible", seconding the modification proposed by Sky Harbor. - Alternativity (talk) 20:35, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
  6. Straightforward. Reduces the likelihood of name clashes and hat-notes. Makes names more predictable. The less likely a title can refer to other things, the more likely the corresponding page can have that title forever. Androoox (talk) 06:21, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
    Comment This is also less disruptive than the below method, since it is only a little modification of the status quo. Androoox (talk) 19:26, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

{placename} format (undisambiguated) whenever possible

  1. —seav (talk) 19:49, 2 January 2014 (UTC) — I once advocated for the comma convention for municipalities. Heck, I made the first suggested naming convention for towns back in 2003 which is the comma convention. Since then, I've seen the development and discussion regarding article titles, and observed lots of page move discussion (such as Chicago, Illinois to Chicago) and I've come to the conclusion that the comma convention does not meet the Wikipedia-wide consensus for article titles since it violates WP:PRECISE and WP:CONCISE.
  2. —RioHondo (talk) 03:30, 3 January 2014 (UTC) — The Philippines is a small unitary state divided into numerous provinces (82 as of the latest count) whose areas and powers are ever decreasing with the continuous addition of new provinces and the granting of independence to cities via the LGU Code (now total 40). We have provinces with as few as five municipalities and provinces so new barely anyone is familiar with. Malita, Davao Occidental? In a year or two we will again be renaming Caramoan and surrounding municipalities with the creation of Nueva Camarines. More provinces will be created, more cities will gain independence, which makes provinces less and less relevant. Plain placename format allows a more permanent WP:AT that is consistent with the WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE guidelines. It is also the least disruptive as only those few LGUs needing disamb will be affected with the changes in their provinces unlike the current wholesale renaming like those done in Davao Occidental and Dinagat Islands LGUs, not to mention the short-lived Shariff Kabunsuan which had 11 municipalities renamed only to find out later it was nullified. And finally, it also takes care of our problem with newly ratified cities (i.e, there's no more RM for every change in status, whether it be an upgrade to citihood or a new province.) --RioHondo (talk) 08:50, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
  3. —Ian Lopez @ 12:24, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
  4. -JinJian (talk) 21:25, 3 January 2014 (UTC) - Municipalities should also be treated with respect as individuals, and not something existing under the shadows of other entities. The details can go to the body of the article anyway.
  5. Bluemask (talk) 05:58, 7 January 2014 (UTC) - The topic in question is the municipality or city. The title should reflect the subject of the article. Disambiguate only as needed. Like RioHondo said, the province as a disambiguator is not stable enough as provinces split like amoebas nowadays. If diambiguation is required, we need a better one.
    I think the upper level administrative division is still the most common disambiguator for towns and cities across WP. So inevitably, we would still need to use provinces especially between two identical LGUs in the country. E.g, Santa Catalina, Ilocos Sur and Santa Catalina, Negros Oriental. Now there are some countries that use the Placename, Countryname convention for when disambiguation is only required with a place outside those countries. This we could probably adopt for El Nido, Palawan Philippines and Madrid, Surigao del Sur Philippines. I wouldn't recommend using regions as disambiguator as these are even less stable than provinces. (i.e, their names alone are not stable: SOCCSKSARGEN. Enough said. LOL) :)--RioHondo (talk) 03:17, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
    @RioHondo:, when this suggestion is accepted then we will discuss the disambiguator. --Bluemask (talk) 03:17, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
  6. This entire discussion is very difficult to understand and follow, but I presume adding myself to this list signifies that I support {placename} format (undisambiguated) whenever possible as a proposal. Because I do. Reason? WP:UNDAB (yes, it's an essay, but it's essentially an argument based on policy).

    I'm still confused about the huge table above and what all the choices indicate/signify. There really needs to be more explanation about that. I probably messed something up earlier. --B2C 00:10, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

    • @Born2cycle:, the table above is used when an article has to be disambiguated. At the current standards, only cities aren't disambiguated; there are two kinds of cities: those which are under provinces and those which aren't. The current discussion is to either apply the naming convention cities to towns, or to apply the naming conventions of towns to cities, if applicable. –HTD 15:56, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
  7. The general principle for having concise names is easy enough to follow. The province a city is in is not part of the cities name. Disambiguation is meant to alleviate confusion, and tacking province names on does not do so. Within-country conflicts are easily settled with province names. For conflicts with territories outside the Philippines, adding ", Philippines" as a disambiguator would help the global readership more than a province name, and a mandatory province name would hinder this. CMD (talk) 01:56, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Get more straw poll participants

I'm really curious what the rest of the community thinks. I don't think we can establish any move from the status quo unless much more than 5 people participate. So try to contact Wikipedians you know to participate in this poll. I've already messaged some people to take a look here. Please try to do the same. --seav (talk) 09:48, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

More discussion

It's funny how no one chose to keep the status quo, but that's probably what's going to happen. TheCoffee (talk) 17:59, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
Thats because the current mosphil code has so many if, else conditions thats just so hard to follow. If the city is a provincial capital, if the city is a component city, if the city is a highly urbanized city, if the city is an independent component city..etc. a lot of irregularities there too. Like why is Santiago, Isabela at Santiago, Philippines while Naga, Camarines Sur is stuck at Camarines Sur. (If we go by what the codemaker intended under When to use the word "Philippines", Naga should be Naga, Philippines as it is also an ICC and Naga in Cebu is only a component city. At least thats how i understand the whole thing as i am reading it now). Mosphil then has become like a bible open to different interpretations LOL. And it shouldnt be. A singular MOS for all Philippine LGUs whether municipality or city and regardless of status as HUC, ICC or CC is what we need to get this recurring problem fixed once and for all. :)--RioHondo (talk) 04:59, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
Somebody made an unauthorized edit that's why you misinterpreted and were confused what should have been the title for Naga, Camarines Sur. It should remain as Naga, Camarines Sur, not as Naga, Philippines. Somebody removed the word "no" from the sentence. --JinJian (talk) 02:29, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
We would still have this problem under <placename> format anyway, since the only articles which have this problem are the articles which are not disambiguated at all, either by choice or not. Those which are not disambiguated don't have naming problems; for example, no one's raising a stink on Guiuan, Eastern Samar. So once we'd de-disambiguate articles which don't have to be disambiguated, we would still follow these rules for articles which do have to be disambiguated, so same problem for the same articles, and problem this same problem on some new ones. –HTD 10:34, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
The cities stay where they are, plain names, no provinces, just as the league of 16, league of 20, the city fans club want them to be. Municipalities would have no problem adjusting either, as majority of them are redirects from their plain titles. Those that are not unique enough would have no choice but to keep their provinces. Simple. They can't move those pages as the plain titles are already taken. I have not seen an RM to your long comma format, but RMs to plain names, that happens a lot. Guiuan had its last move attempt just 2 months ago. Ive seen recurring attempts also at Nasugbu, Puerto Galera, Bulalacao, etc. As JinJian above said, municipalities deserve respect too. :)--RioHondo (talk) 06:14, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, we still respect municipalities too. Take a look at most of their seals. It tells you what province they belong. The reason why no RMs were made is because we'd have to move cities to a new article name; if we'd use the address format, there won't be RMs at all except for upgrades to HUCs. Upgrades from component cities to HUCs are not as many as upgrades from towns to component cities. Municipalities would be adjusted because they'd have to moved; it's immaterial if they'd be moved to their redirects, because they'd be moved anyway; what we'd have are thousands of RMs -- adjustments -- for town articles. As for Guiuan, the talk page doesn't mention an RM, and just recently, on storm Agaton, people still referred to it as "Guiuan, Eastern Samar", and to think people must already know where the heck that place is. Sure your pet resort towns can have articles about the resort areas on the plain name article name. No conflict there. –HTD 05:01, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, not RM but move attempt or adjustment. Take a look at Guiuan's page history and the page move that i reverted last november 2013. Did the same for those other articles i mentioned. So what does that tell you about the preferred MOS of many? As for cities that have been moved to plain names upon ratification, what i meant was I have not seen any attempt to revert their titles back to their original long comma titles prior to citihood. And again, it only means that is really the general preference among filipino wp editors. No problem with moving thousands of articles now as that is the whole point of introducing a new mos.-RioHondo (talk) 05:20, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
Ah, I see. It was probably a drive by move that probably didn't know about WP:MOSPHIL. As for the "preferred MOS of many", it just tells you the mover preferred the plainname version, an action of one user doesn't mean it is the preference of many. As long WP:USPLACE is totally depreciated everywhere, there's no reason not to follow it, all things being equal.
As for cities, city articles have always didn't have the province name attached to it, at least from the the time I got here; when I first started they were either at "<cityname> City", with the comma, or the rarely plainname version (Manila). I don't think there the original was a long comma form for most cities. You know with the city (or, generally, "upgrade") fanboys everywhere, they either want to remove the provincename or add the word "City" (or do both) to the article name once a town becomes a city. It's like they're scrambling to have the bragging rights in moving the article to a title that doesn't include the province name or the word "City" even it doesn't change much anyway, at least on political terms as they'd still be under a province, their mayor just gets more IRA; think of it as colleges becoming universities, at least that upgrade has real and lasting consequences such as more revenue, autonomy and courses. The only upgrade worth changing a name is to an HUC, as it changes everything on political terms. Ultimately, that's how we should be naming second-level LGUs, if they're connected to a province or not; if they're not, it's as if they're a province and should be named as if it's a province; if it isn't we'd follow WP:USPLACE. –HTD 15:33, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
Let's not forget we are an independent unitary state so I don't know why you insist that we follow the US example. We are the size of just one state, Arizona, and yet we have like almost double the number of US states already. As a unitary state, our provinces are not like the fifty states in that they have no autonomy at all under the supreme central government. And look at the other former US colonies like the Federated States of Micronesia. Do they follow your WP:USPLACE? It's a federation too but they use plain names for their municipalities. Look at Palau and the Marshall Islands. See, these three sovereign nations even have a compact of free association with the US , but they don't try to copy them. Or maybe, they just didnt get the memo from the US Interior Office of Insular Affairs? :)--RioHondo (talk) 21:28, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes, if the Philippines is a U.S. state, it'll be four times as populous as California, the most populous state, and U.S. presidential candidates will flock here every four years due to the electoral votes. But that is irrelevant, nor if other places follow it or not. Indeed, what we are doing here boils down to: is WP:USPLACE valid or not? If it is, do we need to follow it? Ultimately, it boils down if it's our discretion. As long as WP:USPLACE is used, there's no reason not to follow it. It's up to people who'd want a new system to convince others if another naming convention would be better. All things being equal, we'd stick with the current format with towns; it's the cities which are confusing. –HTD 04:14, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
If the Philippines was a U.S. state or even a commonwealth still like Puerto Rico, then we would have the <placename>, Philippines format for all cities and municipalities, only using the counties, or in our case provinces, if disamb is needed. But we are not a US state nor a US commonwealth anymore, so like Palau, Micronesia and Marshall, we just quit with comma Philippines, leaving the cities and municipalities with their plain names. Is WP:USPLACE valid in our case? Is it applicable to us given our status as a small unitary island state? BIG NO. --RioHondo (talk) 04:52, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
You're focusing on its name, WP:USPLACE. It is irrelevant. It could be WP:TIMBUKTUPLACE or WP:MARSPLACE. It's just the name of the comma convention. The question is if the comma convention is appropriate. Disregard the name. And we're not a small island state; we're a country of 100 million people. We're not Fiji or Samoa. –HTD 05:06, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Or... it could be WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE and our discussion is over. --RioHondo (talk) 05:17, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Nope. WP:AT actually allows WP:USPLACE. We use WP:USPLACE. And again, WP:CONCISE isn't about conciseness. And again, don't be transfixed on the name. WP:CONCISE=/concise. Therefore it's over. –HTD 05:20, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Heh. This is what I'm talking about. We can argue all day, but as long as WP:USPLACE -- the comma convention -- is explicitly mentioned in WP:AT, any WikiProject can locally adopt at their own discretion WP:USPLACE because it is allowed. Now if it isn't allowed, and any argument against it utterly fails unless it's removed at WP:AT for good, then we shouldn't use it. The question is of discretion, not if it's allowed or not, or if it violates WP:AT or not, because it is allowed and isn't a violation of WP:AT. –HTD 05:37, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
WP:AT is policy. WP:USPLACE or any other naming conventions are just guidelines. So while WP:AT may allow all these WP:USPLACE, it can not override it, as WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE are wikipedia POLICIES. See explanation here. Also: What problems are caused by naming conventions that apply even when disambiguation is not required? Now we know what @Seav has been saying all along. It is the same AT policy that allows the page move on Talk:Binondo, Manila even if it is contrary to your conformist guideline. Again, WP:Concise = Policy, WP:MOSPHIL = just a guideline that should not dictate on the general WP policies. So, when do we start making mosphil conform to wp:at? Or do we change it one article at a time? :)--RioHondo (talk) 06:14, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
WP:USPLACE is at the same level with WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE, they're parts of WP:AT. All 3 follow WP:AT. All 3 don't violate WP:AT. WP:MOSPHIL is derived from WP:USPLACE, which follows WP:AT. I don't see the problems with following WP:USPLACE since it conforms with WP:AT.
As for Binondo, Manila, Binondo isn't a politically defined place; there's no government official that claim to represent solely the interests of Binondo, so anyone can devise of ways to name it. It's not a province, city, town or even a barangay. It's fair game. –HTD 10:16, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
As for insisting in using WP:PRECISE and WP:CONCISE. Again, the section that WP:PRECISE leads to precisely allows WP:USPLACE. WP:CONCISE explicitly states that it isn't solely about conciseness. I don't understand your insistence in saying that WP:USPLACE violates these two when it explicitly allows for it. The definitions that you are espousing for "WP:PRECISE" and "WP:CONCISE" are either not found on those sections, or are explicitly allowed. There's no violation at all of WP:USPLACE as far as policy text found at WP:PRECISE and WP:CONCISE are concerned. –HTD 10:29, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Whoa. Even supporters of WP:USPLACE like MelanieN (talk · contribs) recognize that, at best, US naming of cities is unique. They argue that in the US, the city, state construct is a valid name for the city, used as commonly, if not more commonly, in reliable sources, than is the city name alone. And that's the primary defense for USPLACE. Really, it's the only reasonable defense. It's certainly the only way to claim it's supported by WP:AT (especially if you ignore concision - but let's not argue the validity of USPLACE here).

Anyway, I know little about PHIL place names, but I suspect the case for the comma convention being used in reliable English sources is not nearly as strong, if it can be supported at all, as it is for US places. Is that not true? --B2C 00:02, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

US naming of cities is far from unique. Look through the category system to see how places are titled. Consider that places can be smaller than towns, and include suburbs, and then review again. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:21, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
B2C, the Philippines was a U.S. colony. The comma convention as used in the Philippines is a direct legacy of American colonization. As far as I know, the comma convention in the Philippines is like the comma convention in the U.S.: it is used as commonly, if not more commonly at times, in print reliable sources than the city name alone. --Sky Harbor (talk) 13:36, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
This definitely is one US legacy they don't teach you in history classes in the Philippines. I should be taking down notes then. ;) But then again, its hard to believe as the more recent US colonies F.S.Micronesia, Palau, and Marshall Islands have not carried this "legacy" at all. So Sky, how's the weather in Tagaytay, Cavite? Or is it Tagaytay, Batangas (as most filipinos mistake it for)? :) --RioHondo (talk) 14:50, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
Like you saying Santiago is in Isabela? As what I've been saying here, it's immaterial what other countries do. What matters is what we do. If we start imposing on Philippine articles what other countries do, articles about Filipino people would have to moved to proper Spanish orthography, with diacritics! LOL yes, Spanish-born Marian Rivera's article is wrongly titled.
Just like the Puerto Galera example, when people think of Tagaytay, they think of the resorts overlooking Taal Lake, not the actual town per se. Do people say "Rosario, Cavite" or "Rosario"? Actually, that's a bad example as the place has too many names. For some reason, people always say "GMA Cavite" (sure, there are many GMAs) and even "Tanza, Cavite" (I dunno of other Tanzas), and the best example of all, "Kawit, Cavite", which is almost never "Kawit" by itself, unless "Kawit, Cavite" has been said earlier. –HTD 23:51, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

  • Only the comma convention comes close to meeting the consistency criterion. Seav's "By definition, making use of a pattern (aka, naming convention) is consistent." statement defies logic, is plain wrong. The comma convention better meets recognizability and precision. A single comma in a place name remains concise. The comma convention is natural, it is commonly seen in everywhere in the real word, especially where the place is being introduced for the first time. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:21, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
    • It's good to see new perspectives on the subject of naming conventions, and thank you for participating in this discussion. I just need to comment on recognizability and how you said the comma convention provides it better. I would say not always, especially if you're not an expert on the subject, say you're googling this place in Russia that will host this year's winter olympics. For me, more readers would better recognize the name Sochi by itself than the disambiguated Sochi, Krasnodar Krai (that would probably the last id click being unfamiliar with Russian provinces or states). The same with Cancun and Los Cabos. I dont think many are familiar with the name Cancun, Quintana Roo or Los Cabos, Baja California Sur. If there were two entries for the place where the Taj Mahal is located, would you click Agra or Agra, Uttar Pradesh? I think Agra has always been known as Agra. :) --RioHondo (talk) 06:48, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
      • Thank you RioHondo. I suppose it is possible that for famous city in a province that is rarely named, that the unfamiliar name of the province might confuse a reader. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:15, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
        • Indeed, and not just famous cities. You see I try to watch the news everyday. CNN, and all those stuff. And whenever i hear about an attack or tragedy somewhere, i try to google it right away. Im sure most people do this too. Cos whats usually reported or flashed in the headlines on the screen is just the town and the country where the event occurred. Sometimes, the region is mentioned, sometimes not. So an attack in Quetta in Northern Pakistan, i turn to google and see Quetta, Balochistan... ? Hmm, i search again. I hear Mosul in Iraq, look it up in google and find Mosul, Nineveh? Mandela laid to rest in Qunu. Google qunu south africa and i get Qunu, Eastern Cape. I go, Could this be the place? You see what i mean with disambiguating even when not needed? :)--RioHondo (talk) 10:15, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
          • Why are we using standards from other countries? Sure WP:USPLACE is from another country, but it is actually used locally. Do local reliable sources omit province names at the first instance of news reports, such as this one during the recent flooding in Mindanao? Why do some local media still use the provincename format, even in cities, and even in cities that don't have provinces? To drop provincenames completely means the reliable sources no longer use provincenames when identifying places in the first instance. Even in Metro Manila, media still use naming such as "LIVE from Quiapo, Manila" on TV telecasts during the Black Nazarene feast. –HTD 23:51, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
            • We've already established before that some reliable sources (foreign, local, whatever) add the province name while others don't. So looking at reliable sources to decide whether to add the province name or not to the article title is not conclusive. (Basically, we both agree, in our respective tables, that both conventions meet the recognizability and naturalness criteria—unless you want to backtrack just to advance your own position. So the only contention is regarding conciseness, precision, and consistency.) Furthermore, adding the province name is a convention in reliable sources in order to quickly provide context in regular textual prose (and news article bylines). However, in the limited scope of Wikipedia article titles, you have not established the case that providing context in the article title (as opposed to the article's lead section) is demanded by the WP:AT policy. On the other hand, per the WP:PRECISE and WP:CONCISE criteria of WP:AT (and I acknowledge that you dispute my interpretation of WP:CONCISE), the argument for not adding the province name (when disambiguation is not needed) is very much rooted in policy. —seav (talk) 05:36, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
              • There some confusion on quoting WP:PRECISE and WP:CONCISE (WP:CONSISTENT is a different page altogether). When we're quoting these two, it's understood that only the sections enclosed within those links are cited. Therefore, any citation of WP:CONCISE not found at WP:AT#Conciseness is wrong. Same for WP:PRECISE. I fail to see how the comma convention fails these two. –HTD 09:11, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                • For CONCISE: I think you already know that I refer to the conciseness criterion as both just that ("conciseness criterion") and WP:CONCISE. If you insist on saying these two aren't interchangeable, then I will use "conciseness criterion" from now on.
                • As for PRECISE: I know you haven't replied to the last time we discussed this criterion but haven't we established already that "Bothell, Washington" violates the precision criterion (because "exception" = "violates")? Your silence must mean you agree that adding the state name or province name when the base {placename} is already precise enough to be unambiguous violates WP:PRECISE. —seav (talk) 09:34, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                  • It's this simple, actually; when we're citing WP:CONCISE, only the text enclosed within WP:CONCISE is at play. Same thing for WP:PRECISE. If you wanna cite another passage from another section, don't use WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE. As for your definition of an "exception = violation", if this is another logic-defying statement of yours, then I give up. –HTD 09:42, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                    • Seriously? You think exception = violation is a logic-defying statement? If this is a logic-defying statement, then surely you can write out logical argument to rebut my logic:

                    • "Bothell, Washington" is declared as an exception to WP:PRECISE.

                      Definitions of "exception":

                      • "a person or thing that is excluded from a general statement or does not follow a rule." —Oxford English Dictionary
                      • "One that is excepted, especially a case that does not conform to a rule or generalization." —American Heritage Dictionary
                      • "anything excluded from or not in conformance with a general rule, principle, class, etc." —Collins English Dictionary
                      • "something excepted; an instance or case not conforming to the general rule." —Webster's College Dictionary

                      Based on the definitions it can only mean that "Bothell, Washington" does not conform/follow WP:PRECISE.

                    • What's logic-defying above? I can only conclude that you're ignoring my valid argument simply because it does not advance your position. —seav (talk) 10:08, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                      • All I see are (not) conforming, not violating. As those are two different words (or phrases), they should be two different things. OED has the best definition, an exception is an exclusion. Exclusion? Yes. Nonconformity? Yes. Violation? Still to be proven. –HTD 10:13, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                        • OK, if you insist:

                        • Definitions of "violation":

                          • " a breach or infringement, as of a law or promise." —Webster's College Dictionary
                          • "the act of doing something that is not allowed by a law or rule" —Merriam-Webster Dictionary
                          • (for "violate") "break or fail to comply with (a rule or formal agreement)" —Oxford English Dictionary

                          In all definitions, there is the act of not meeting a law or rule, which is what "exception" also means.

                        • It may be that the word "violation" is a rather extreme version of "exception" but the basic idea is the same: not following/conforming/meeting a law/rule. So to put it in simple terms (without using the terms "violation" or "exception"): "Bothell, Washington" does not follow or conform with WP:PRECISE. —seav (talk) 10:29, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                          • Sky blue and navy blue may be both blue, but only sky blue is sky blue. Nonconformity is not a "violation", a word you had frequently used. Now, since you're using the phrase "does not follow or conform", which is not a "violation", then having an "exception", which is defined as "does not follow or conform", it shouldn't be a problem, as long as WP:PRECISE is concerned. –HTD 10:37, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                            • All I'm arguing is that blue is blue. If there is no other policy in Wikipedia aside from WP:PRECISE, then "Bothell, Washington" will not meet WP:PRECISE and should be moved to "Bothell".
                            • And if you're still insisting that exception is a totally different matter from violation, we've already established that an exception does not follow or does not conform to a rule. Well the OED definition of "conform" is "comply with rules, standards, or laws". So "does not conform" = "does not comply". But the OED also says that "violate" is "break or fail to comply with (a rule or formal agreement)". Thus: "exception" = "does not conform" = "does not comply" = "violate". They're different shades of blue but still all blue. —seav (talk) 10:58, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                              • No. I'm arguing "exception" (sky blue) is not a "violation" (navy blue); we both found out that is non-conformance (eh... the entire hue of blues?). You're making a WP:SYNTH on what exception means via the definition of "violation" when we could've perfectly used the definition found at "exception" which never mentions "violation". –HTD 11:07, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                                • If I understand you correctly, you are simply objecting to my use of the term "violation" when the "milder" phrases "non-conformance" or "does not comply" would work just as well? Your original argument is that "Bothell, Washington" does not violate WP:PRECISE. Now that we have picked apart the definition of "exception", then are we in agreement that "Bothell, Washington" does not comply with/conform to/follow/meet the WP:PRECISE policy precisely because it is stated as an exception? —seav (talk) 11:20, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                                  • Yes. It's not a violation. It's an exception. The entire crux of the matter is that you're saying that an exception is a violation. You've even supplied the definitions that it doesn't. Ergo, it doesn't violate WP:PRECISE, and it can be validly used without anyone saying that it shouldn't. Glad to have that out of the way. –HTD 11:29, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                                    • "it can be validly used without anyone saying that it shouldn't". Actually, the opposite of that is my point all along. Per WP:PRECISE, the comma convention does not conform and would not be used at all if WP:PRECISE is the only policy there is. Thus the "X" mark on my table for the comma convention under precision is valid. —seav (talk) 12:02, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                                      • I couldn't understand you. If it's not a violation, then why would someone say that it shouldn't be used at all? It's tantamount to saying people who are included in tax exemptions pay taxes because they don't "conform" to the rule. If the rule specifically allows for an exception, how can someone say that you can't use the exception on actually case IRL? So, the exceptions mentioned in WP:PRECISE cannot be used at all? Then why are they there? It doesn't make sense. As for your "X" mark, frankly it doesn't matter, your (or my) opinion has little bearing on what's actually mentioned in WP:PRECISE: which is apparently the exemptions can't be used (LOL). –HTD 12:11, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                                        • You're still missing the point. I said, the comma convention cannot be used "if WP:PRECISE is the only policy there is". Fortunately for you, there are other criteria and it is precisely the fact that other criteria were given more weight by the U.S. community to justify the article being titled as "Bothell, Washington". But if we are talking about WP:PRECISE alone (which is why we are itemizing each criteria into their own rows in our tables so that each criteria is considered on its own) the article title should be at "Bothell". Hence my 'X' mark.
                                        • But let's ignore the exceptions for the meantime. WP:PRECISE says: "Titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that" (emphasis mine). By adding the comma disambiguator even if not needed, you are making the article title more precise than what is needed. So the comma convention does not meet WP:PRECISE. —seav (talk) 12:47, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                                        • Oh, BTW. You gave a tax example. But you used the term "exemption" which is a totally different concept from "exception" (just like your example from way before about exemption from taking tests). Tax exemption is part of the rules of taxation hence there is no exception if one is tax-exempt since you are conforming to the rules. —seav (talk) 12:54, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                                          • Ooops. Sorry on the exemption. Exemption and exception are two different words, with two different meanings.
                                          • So ok, even if WP:PRECISE, and by "WP:PRECISE" meaning the words within the section that includes "WP:PRECISE", is the only rule that we have on naming articles, it will still pass solely because it is an exception. In fact, WP:PRECISE explicitly allows exceptions. Following one of your cited meanings of exception: "a person or thing that is excluded from a general statement", meaning anything that's on WP:PRECISE does not apply. Ergo, if we're talking about comma conventions, it doesn't violate WP:PRECISE solely because WP:PRECISE precisely allows for the comma convention to be used without it being a violation, even if it doesn't "conform" to the rule. Thus, arguments that "the comma convention doesn't conform to WP:PRECISE so we shouldn't use it" doesn't hold. –HTD 13:31, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

The exception section of WP:PRECISE says "Exceptions to the precision criterion, validated by consensus, may sometimes result from the application of some other naming criteria" (emphasis mine). For the Bothell exception, the naturalness and recognizability criteria are given as explicit justifications. For the energy exception, it's the conciseness and recognizability criteria. So when I say considering only WP:PRECISE and only that, I mean the first paragraph of that section since that explains what precision is in Wikipedia terms. The succeeding exception paragraph shows examples of articles that do not meet WP:PRECISE but are allowed in Wikipedia because of other criteria. Again, if WP:PRECISE were the only criterion, the comma convention is against policy. —seav (talk) 13:48, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

  • But according to you, WP:PRECISE's exception explicitly mentions other criteria, so it's invalid to even consider WP:PRECISE as the sole criteria, since apparently, it is dependent on other criteria if would even be applied at all, as opposed to other criteria that can stand on their own. Ergo, insisting on applying WP:PRECISE singly is not only invalid, but immaterial. –HTD 13:56, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
    • The fact that WP:PRECISE has some exceptions written while other criteria (apparently) don't have exceptions written is immaterial. Heck, the naturalness and consistency criteria doesn't even have their own sections much less a place to show exceptions (and there are plenty of exceptions to both). I think of the first paragraph of WP:PRECISE as the normative part while the exception part is the informative part to show why articles like Bothell and Energy are where they are even if they don't meet precision. And I never said anything about applying WP:PRECISE singly in the way you mean it. What I'm saying is that when considering article titles, we look at each criterion in turn on its own without referring to the other criteria, just like as if you were judging a beauty contest (talent, Q&A, evening gown, etc.) and then decide on the final article title based on looking at the results of all the criteria. Hence why I made the table above. —seav (talk) 14:37, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
      • You're right on other sections having no exceptions and it being immaterial, and whether they have their own sections or not. What I'm saying is, WP:PRECISE always (100% of the time) has to be consulted with the other 4. This is unlike, say, WP:CONCISE which you judge on your own whether the title is concise or not by just looking at what WP:CONCISE says, and ignoring the others. So, unlike the other four, WP:CONCISE has to be checked with the other 4 criteria solely because of the exception clause. –HTD 15:06, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
            • We have always tried to use the standards of the broader EN WP, being part of the community. We not only rely on local English sources, but also those of ChannelNewsAsia, Al Jazeera, CNN, BBC World, CNBC, Arirang World etc. :) Thats what makes us different from WikiPilipinas that only rely on local sources as our readers are not just locals, discussions, RMs, etc are not only participated by locals, this is EN WP a public encyclopedia by international english users and readers. Your ABS-CBNnews source employs a lot of the "Cityname City" too. Tagum City? Butuan City? We don't do that here. And we have agreed not to, in order to comply with the WP standards. Plain placename format is just another step closer to meeting those standards. :) Going back to Al Jazeera, BBC World, ChannelNewsAsia, etc, notice how even these english media outside the US always mention the state in their reportings on the US? It is never Denver, U.S. or Atlanta, USA but Denver, Colorado and Atlanta, Georgia. Whereas all the rest are Cityname, Country, like Mosul, Iraq and Guiuan, Philippines. :)--RioHondo (talk) 05:50, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
              • Oh good, supposedly we're using foreign sources to determine how Philippine articles are to be named. Why are basing our decisions on how Philippine articles are named on how Channel News Asia calls stuff instead of ABS-CBN? Are we using ABS-CBN on naming Singaporean articles, since after all, The Filipino Channel must be seen by more people, right? This didn't go well with the now very badly titled "University of the City of Manila" aka PLM (seriously, even local sources don't refer to PLM as "University of the City of Manila" in English). There are two problems with these: a great majority of reliable sources on Philippine articles are in the Philippines, and a great majority of these Philippine sources are in English. Therefore, since a great majority of WP:RS about Philippine-based articles are from the Philippines, and a great majority of these Philippine-based sources are in English, it makes sense that we'd give primacy to Philippine based sources in English when we're making decisions on Philippine-based articles. Unless of course someone actually proves that there are more foreign-based sources than Philippine-based ones (this is actually true for cases such as the Philippine-American War]]). –HTD 09:11, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                • But you did not completely follow the convention of local media with your proposed format cos you know it's not good for wikipedia. If you really wanted to promote the local media usage, you know you'd have proposed the complete "Cityname City, Provincename" as in Tagum City, Davao del Norte and Malolos City, Bulacan. You know you don't approve of the use of "City" suffixes either and you know the local media usage of it is unencyclopedic. Change your proposal to this, and maybe then your local media RS will be a more believable argument. :) --RioHondo (talk) 10:10, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                  • Actually, there are instances where "City" is dropped, such as this, this, this and this; it's not as if dropping the word "city" is entirely alien to people. Well, they're newspapers/websites, and while they must have the their own MOS, I dunno if they follow it if they have one. Fortunately, we're an encyclopedia, and we have an MOS that we should follow. –HTD 10:26, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                  • And if we're not following local media, whom do we follow? Non-Philippine media? There are even foreign media which described Congress as a "parliament" and congressmen as "MPs", so are we like renaming Congress of the Philippines to Parliament of the Philippines (and indeed, all national legislatures would have to be renamed to "Parliament of Foo")? U.S. media referred to national government institutions as "Federal" institutions when the country, as you said it, is a "small unitary state" of 100 million. Let's remember that the audience of these foreign media are not Filipinos but to their home countries; they'd structure their reports in a way their audiences will understand. –HTD 15:51, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                    • Can you cite a foreign article that refers to PNOY as PM and not President? Btw, you still have not changed your position to use local philippine media's Lipa City, Batangas and Talisay City, Cebu if you're sticking to that defense. :)--RioHondo (talk) 02:45, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
                      • I didn't say anything about Noynoy. That's a straw man. As what I've said, local media both use the nomenclature with or without the word "city". I dunno if they have MOSes, or if they even follow it, considering certain websites both include the word "city" and not (inconsistent use LOL), but we have one. –HTD 04:30, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
        • This is why I suggested that famous cities be allowed to drop their province names, while all other towns and cities keep their province names. The solution is determining which cities are allowed to do so (whether that be decided by us through common sense, or through a third-party style guide like WP:USPLACE), not by dropping the province name altogether from all LGUs. --Sky Harbor (talk) 08:42, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
          • We already drop the province name from almost all cities that are famous enough, simply because they have no provinces. As for famous towns, as what I've said, someone can make an article about the towns famous spot (such as a resort or group of resorts) on the <townname>, then the article about the actual town per se's at <townname>, <provincename>; two birds, one stone. As for Seav's consistency argument, yeah my mind was blown on that comment. –HTD 09:25, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
            • What blew my mind is the fact that you want to have a potential article titled "Tourism in <famous town>" be titled as "<famous town>". Now that's a really creative argument for avoiding famous towns from violating the comma convention. If you really want to have a separate article about a town's tourism industry, then article titles like Tourism in Paris is the established convention, not Paris.
            • In addition, some famous towns are famous not for its tourist spots but for other reasons. Aparri comes to mind, thanks to Eat Bulaga's theme song. —seav (talk) 09:54, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
              • This is not an article about "Tourism in <famoustown>", this is an article about a tourist spot in a famous town, clearly two distinguishable things. We're seriously not moving Bonifacio Global City to Tourism in Taguig (or is it Tourism in Makati?), right? –HTD 10:00, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                • Where a particular tourist spot has its own name, we use that name like "Bonifacio Global City". But when we're talking about a group of tourist spots in a town that has no name of its own, naming an article about that group of tourist spots as "<town>" and discussed separately from the town itself has no precedent here in Wikipedia. Using Puerto Galera as an example, there are individual tourist spots like White Beach (where Filipinos usually go), Sabang Beach (where foreigners usually go), Aninuan Beach, Tamaraw Falls, Ponderosa Golf Club, etc. These are spread out all over Puerto Galera's coastline. There's no other way to refer to all of them except to refer to the town itself: "Puerto Galera". Ignoring for the meantime that Baguio is a HUC (and let's pretend it's a town in Benguet), you are essentially arguing to have an article about Baguio's tourist spots under the title "Baguio" while having the LGU itself under "Baguio, Benguet". —seav (talk) 10:48, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                  • What you said is right. For the lack of a better name, when a tourist spot (or group of tourist spots), or even an event or object associated with a place (such as Balangiga, which can either be about the town, one of two massacres, or church bells), we use the name of the place where it is associated. This practice is not limited to Filipinos: Marathon can be a sport or a place, Hastings can be a battle or a place; Gettysburg can either be a speech, battle or place. For some reason, if "tourist spot/s" is/are found at a city, and this is very generally, there's usually a specific place for it. Like Baguio has Burnham Park, Cebu City has Magellan's Cross, etc.; we'd only have this issue in resort towns where there are plenty of resorts (or tourist spots) in one "area" but the split it up amongst themselves. Now, I dunno if there's precedent in Wikipedia, but as long as it's not a violation of anything, survives AFD and becomes a relevant article, there's no reason not to try it. –HTD 10:55, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                    • I did say that the tourist spots in Puerto Galera are spread all over the town. There is no one "area". There's no reason for having an article about these separate tourist spots under "Puerto Galera" separate from the town article. Either discuss these tourist spots under the town article or as a separate "Tourism in Puerto Galera" article. The same argument can be made for other famous touristy towns like Sagada, El Nido, Pagudpud, Nasugbu, Kalibo, etc. —seav (talk) 13:03, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
                      • TBH, I dunno. I had the impression that Puerto Galera should be like Boracay or Subic where most of the coast are beaches, and the coast can be considered as one "huge resort", albeit encircling Boracay, that they've split up among themselves. Same thing for other beach towns. And even if they're from different generally non-contiguous places, one can safely assign the name "Boracay" (the resort) to the beaches, while leaving places such as schools (there's apparently one there) as a separate concept of "Boracay, the island." –HTD 13:52, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
    • @SmokeyJoe:, I'm not disputing that the comma convention is dictionary-definition consistent. All I'm saying is that the {placename} convention still meets the WP:AT definition of consistency ("The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles.") The pattern (or convention) in simple terms is: "use the base {placename} as the article title, unless disambiguation is needed". What's illogical or plainly wrong about that? If you want an example of inconsistency, just look at the article titles in the Category:Roman Catholic churches in Metro Manila. However the article in Category:Communes of Ain are still WP:AT-consistent even if some have ", Ain" while others don't. —seav (talk) 05:28, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
      • Category:Communes of Ain contains inconsistent titles with regard to the presence or absence of ", Ain". A creative "WP:AT-consistent" definition doesn't make the titles consistent. You can't redefine common words. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:31, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
        • Who says I'm redefining the common word "consistent"? You can't simply use the dictionary definition without considering how the word is used in the context of Wikipedia editorship. On the other hand, if you insist on using the dictionary definition, take note that "consistent" does not mean "same". Heck, even the wiktionary entry you linked to says "compatible" and "accordant" as a definitions, which fits with how the communes in Ain are titled. They may not be titled in exactly the same way (which is not what consistent means), but they're still consistent since they're compatible with a pattern (use the base {placename}, unless disambiguation is needed wherein you add "Ain" as the disambiguation) and accordant (which means "in conformity" or "harmonious"). —seav (talk) 06:58, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Requested moves

Apparently, these moves started today, and the people weren't notified yet, so I'm doing that now

–HTD 09:57, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

See also:

-- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 00:12, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

  • Interesting discussion down there. And i discovered another advantage of the <placename> format. Taking off from what Seav said about having 1 article for the island and its coterminous administrative unit that is common practice in WP, if we actually remove the unnecessary disambiguations and do away with too much content forking, we would have also addressed the problem of ambiguous placenames and redundancies, clear up the many confusions and in the end, help editors better manage these articles, starting with island municipalities. Many of our towns were actually named for the islands they are situated in. Why not merge them to make life easier for both readers and editors?

Some examples:

And then you have islands which are plain redirects to their island municipalities. e.g, Limasawa Island, Maripipi Island, Capul Island, Cagayancillo Island and Culion Island.

Result: conflicting names for the same place.--RioHondo (talk) 19:06, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Ambiguous names of provinces

Plain name content DAB Province Islands Other items in the Philippines
dab Abra Abra (province) Abra River
province Aklan (disambiguation) Aklan Aklan River, Aklan languages
province Albay (disambiguation) Albay Albay Gulf
article Antique (disambiguation) Antique (province)
province Apayao (disambiguation) Apayao Apayao River
dab Aurora Aurora (province) at least two municipalities
province Basilan (disambiguation) Basilan Basilan Island
province Bataan (disambiguation) Bataan Bataan Peninsula
province, island, island group Batanes (disambiguation) Batanes Batanes island, island group
province Batangas (disambiguation) Batangas Batangas City, Batangas Bay
province Benguet
province Biliran (disambiguation) Biliran Biliran Island Biliran, Biliran
province Bohol (disambiguation) Bohol Bohol (island) Bohol Sea
province Bukidnon (disambiguation) Bukidnon Bukidnons - Bukidnon (tribe)
province Bulacan (disambiguation) Bulacan Bulacan, Bulacan, Bulacan River
province Cagayan (disambiguation) Cagayan Cagayan Island, Cagayan Islands Cagayan River
province Camiguin (disambiguation) Camiguin Camiguin Island, Camiguin Island (Cagayan)
province Capiz (disambiguation) Capiz Capiz City
province Catanduanes (disambiguation) Catanduanes Cavite City,Cavite Peninsula
province Cavite (disambiguation) Cavite
province Cebu (disambiguation) Cebu Cebu Island Cebu City,Rajahnate of Cebu,Republic of Cebu
province Cotabato (disambiguation) Cotabato Cotabato City
province Dinagat Dinagat Islands Dinagat Island island group, Dinagat, Dinagat Islands
province Guimaras (disambiguation) Guimaras island
province Ifugao (disambiguation) Ifugao Ifugao language,Ifugao people,Ifugao River
province Iloilo (disambiguation) Iloilo Iloilo River,Iloilo City
dab Isabela Isabela (province) municipalities
province Kalinga (disambiguation) Kalinga Kalinga language,Kalinga people
province La Unión La Union
dab Laguna Laguna (province)
island Leyte (disambiguation) Leyte (province) Leyte, Leyte
province Maguindanao (disambiguation) Maguindanao Maguindanao people, Maguindanao language, Maguindanao Sultanate
province Marinduque (disambiguation) Marinduque Marinduque Island
province Masbate (disambiguation) Masbate Masbate Island Masbate City,Masbate Airport
province Palawan (disambiguation) Palawan Palawan (island)
province Pampanga (disambiguation) Pampanga Pampanga River
province Pangasinan (disambiguation) Pangasinan Pangasinan Island Pangasinan people, Pangasinan language
province Quezon (disambiguation) Quezon several municipalities, president
province Quirino (disambiguation) Quirino several places, president
province Rizal (disambiguation) Rizal
province Romblon (disambiguation) Romblon Romblon Island Romblon, Romblon
island Samar (disambiguation) Samar (province) Samar
province Sarangani (disambiguation) Sarangani Sarangani Island (2x) Sarangani Bay, Sarangani, Davao Occidental, Sarangani language
province Siquijor (disambiguation) Siquijor no island article Siquijor, Siquijor
province Sorsogon (disambiguation) Sorsogon Sorsogon City, Sorsogon Bay, Sorsogon, Cebu
province Sultan Kudarat (disambiguation) Sultan Kudarat municipality, person
province Sulu (disambiguation) Sulu no island article Sulu Archipelago,Sultanate of Sulu
province Tarlac (disambiguation) Tarlac Tarlac City,Tarlac River
province Tawi-Tawi no island article
province Zambales (disambiguation) Zambales Zambales Mountains

Androoox (talk) 23:34, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Error - result of mixing different things and having no clear naming strategy

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Luzon&oldid=590818283#Administrative_divisions

MIMAROPA is not on Luzon Island. I have seen the recent moves of province and island articles. I would say it all stems from not having a clear naming strategy for articles related to geography of the Philippines. Provinces are named XYZ, or XYZ (province). Islands are named XYZ, XYZ (island), XYZ Island. Island groups are named XYZ, XYZ Islands. On articles that are named XYZ one never knows what to get, the topic can be a province, an island, or an island group. Sometimes mixed, as for Luzon and Mindanao, with all the consequences that lead to errors.

That's also why I opposed the Visayan category renaming. Androoox (talk) 21:06, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Seriously, whatever it is you're doing, drop it. I don't know why you opposed a simple C2C grammatical error speedy and, why did Leyte end up becoming one of Cat:Islands of Leyte (province)? When you get the time, please read the geography sections of those articles you are editing first. But, anyways, we'll fix that. RioHondo (talk) 03:51, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
If "Visayan Islands" contains a grammatical error, go and remove it from the first line of the article Visayas. Regarding Category:Leyte, it says "Leyte is an island in the Visayas group of the Philippines.". Would you say the island of Leyte is not in the province of Leyte? Androoox (talk) 19:53, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
Since when do we form categories from any line in the main article but the title? The main article is titled Visayas and that's why you have Category:Visayas. Now, do we have an actual article titled Visayan Islands for the category to stay at Category:Visayan Islands? None, so you follow its parent article Visayas, and the convention on Category:Islands of the Philippines. Capisce? As for Leyte, research on the island Zealand and its two regions Region Zealand and Capital Region of Denmark. It's just like that. Or you can do your own reading, or you can focus on topics you actually know.--RioHondo (talk) 09:26, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

This has been addressed in 2010 at Talk:Luzon#Regions by User:Wtmitchell, still it is a mess. Why are the Philippine geography articles such a mess? Androoox (talk) 19:59, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

These are are different entities:

  • Human geography entities
    • established by declaration
      • Province
      • Region
      • Municipality
    • other
      • Populated place/ Settlement
  • Physical geography (established by definition, created mostly by non-human processes)
    • Island
    • Island group

But the articles and categories confuse it almost everywhere, e.g.

You are correct that an island and a province are conceptually different. However, you have not made a convincing argument that an island and a province that is more or less coterminous should have different articles. Please look at the following Featured Articles about islands:
In all the cases above, the featured articles not only talk about the island topic as a physical geographical object but also as a place that has seen human use. Isle of Portland even talks about the island as if it was a region or municipality too with its sections on culture, education, and demography. Thus, if we were to strive to have an island article about Marinduque reach featured article status, it will have to cover essentially the same stuff as an article about the province of Marinduque. There is no need to have separate articles.
Furthermore, the practice in Wikipedia supports my position. The following is a list of articles about islands that are also about the coterminous administrative division:
Therefore, I will revert any edits you make that try to split articles on island provinces. —seav (talk) 16:17, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

It will all crash if you want to work with https://www.wikidata.org. And bad practice elsewhere doesn't remove the errors in Philippine articles. There are also examples where topics are separated:

Androoox (talk) 05:33, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

It makes no sense to have one article about the Kingdom of Great Britain and Great Britain because the kingdom no longer exists, while the island is still existing. As for Taiwan and Greenland, it is standard practice that every country and independent territory has a "Geography of XXX" article just like Geography of the Philippines. But for sub-national entities, having separate articles is not the norm. You said this is bad practice elsewhere but that is just your opinion and you have not provided any proof that this is a "bad practice". I've provided numerous examples of articles and even Featured articles to support my position so that means your opinion is in the minority.
Here are some more islands that are also administrative units and having no separate articles.
So it is customary in Wikipedia that articles about islands and their coterminous admin unit are treated as just 1 article. —seav (talk) 14:23, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Island municipalities

Hey seav, you did a good job kicking Itbayat Island back to Itbayat, Batanes. I have been meaning to do the same to all the island municipalities, i just didn't know how or where to start. Cos you know what, i think as long as the island municipalities are in the "Municipalityname, Provincename" format, people are still going to create separate island articles for them as "Itbayat, Batanes" just can never look, sound or appear in any way as an article about an island. Its an invitation for contentforking this convention is, and i hope our other senior editors realize this. Move the island municipality to Itbayat and there is no more creating separate articles for the island and municipality as we would just be switching between "the municipality of Itbayat", "the island of Itbayat" or "the island municipality of Itbayat" when linking them in other articles. The island description goes to the geography section (the size, other smaller islands nearby) and we'd have enriched the article more. This is how you organize and make Philippine place names consistent for the readers. So thank you for your wonderful lecture up there. :) --RioHondo (talk) 18:16, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Merge and move
The following coterminous island municipalities are up for merging/move to their plain article titles to cover both island and LGU:
Note: Once we have merged the island and municipality, we shall not be tolerating redirects in Category:Islands of Foo anymore, as the articles would be categorized directly under both Municipalities of Foo and Islands of Foo.
Exceptions: (non-coterminous island municipalities or islands that are split into a namesake municipality plus another municipality/ies which IMO should be kept separate)
As for coterminous island municipalities that have different names for their islands, any suggestions? Do we keep them separate? merged under the municipality name? Merged under island name? --RioHondo (talk) 05:05, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
Examples:
--RioHondo (talk) 05:05, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
First, thanks to RioHondo for making a comprehensive list! But I do not support moving the island municipalities to plain names (related the earlier discussion about naming above, which BTW did not result in a consensus to rename), and especially to names like <Foo (island)>. It is already the practice to have the municipality as primary article (just like the province is primary over the namesake island). As for coterminous island municipalities that have different names for their islands, again the municipality should be primary, like Dalupiri Island redirects to San Antonio, Northern Samar, with a clear statement in the intro that the municipality's "territory is contiguous with Dalupiri Island". Besides, almost all the places above already have a redirect in the form of <Foo Island> pointing to the municipality. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 14:34, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
Yup, the difference between island municipalities and island provinces is that island province names are written by themselves (<placename>) like Cebu / Guimaras / Basilan and without "Province" as dab so you can merge the island and LGU easily, whereas island municipalities are disambiguated (comma provincename) so contentforking or creating separate island articles would be hard to prevent. For one, Romblon, Romblon would find it difficult to land in Category:Islands of Romblon and people are still going to create a full article or a redirect at least for Romblon Island to satisfy the island category. This is like having the provinces at X Province like Cebu Province / Guimaras Province / Basilan Province and expecting the articles to talk about both the LGUs and islands with which they are coterminous. :)--RioHondo (talk) 15:38, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
I see no problem with that. It is not unacceptable to have Romblon Island as a redirect inside Category:Islands of Romblon, while Romblon, Romblon would be the main article and placed in Category:Municipalities of Romblon. Having an article discuss both the political and geographic features happens all the time, irrespective of its article name. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 17:18, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
What did i say about conflicting names for the same place? This is precisely why there needs to be a naming strategy to prevent the Visayas and Visayan Islands confusion from ever happening again. :) We need names that are consistent, cos you start with a redirect, and then someone expands it to a stub article. Thats CFORK all over again. The featured articles on island-admin units that Seav posted above use <placename> for a reason, a logical reason. :)--RioHondo (talk) 17:33, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
I guess that's the difference between you and me: I still don't see the problem. After all, even with an unambiguated article title, you still can't prevent someone from creating fork-stubs. BTW that's why we also have WP:Merge processes. As a wiki and continuous work in progress, WP will forever need monitoring. So, there is no need to take such a hard stand IMO. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 20:05, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
You see what you're doing, you're like suggesting we keep Philippines under Category:Countries in Asia and all other country categories while leaving its redirect Philippine Islands under Category:Archipelagoes of the Pacific Ocean and all other island categories. So where's the logic in that? :)--RioHondo (talk) 01:24, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Island Provinces

See Talk:Cebu/Archives/2014/February#naming. How many more island provinces and island regions do we have that violate WP:REDUNDANTFORK, in addition to the island municipalities I have explained above? Can we all agree that islands and their coterminous LGU be treated as one article as they should be? We really need to get the mosphil reforms going. --RioHondo (talk) 03:18, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Coterminous island provinces (should only have 1 article):

I'm not yet sure:

  • Masbate - Ticao and Burias are quite big compared to Masbate island
  • Romblon - Romblon Island is the smallest of the 3 main islands. And I don't think there is such a thing as "Romblon Islands"—it's just called Romblon, I think
  • Sulu - the main island is called Jolo Island

What do you guys think? —seav (talk) 01:12, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any issue with the three HUC's in Cebu. They are in fact described as being geographically located in the province despite their independent status. Once the island and province have been merged, we can merely rephrase their intro line to "a city on Cebu island" while all the other Cebu cities and municipalities would be described as belonging to Cebu province. And we would have linked all of them to the common article on the island province. So anyway, can we incorporate this "single article for all coterminous LGUs" to our MOSPHIL so that we can start merging these articles?
Basilan Island —> Basilan
Bohol Island —> Bohol
Catanduanes (island) —> Catanduanes
Masbate Island —> Masbate
Palawan (island) —> Palawan
P.S. Masbate and Masbate Island are still more or less coterminous as all but 6 municipalities are located on the island, the biggest of the three.
As for Romblon, the article should definitely talk about just the province and the islands belonging to that province. Romblon (island), on the other hand, is also your municipality of Romblon, Romblon and it would be wise to have the island municipality in the Romblon (island) title following the convention on merged island-municipalities (and the Hawaii (island) and county example).
Sulu is just a province in the Sulu Archipelago. We keep them separate as they are far from being coterminous (like the Leyte and Leyte (province), Samar and Samar (province) examples.)
And finally for Dinagat Islands, i think it would be better to have separate articles on Dinagat (island) and Dinagat (municipality) as the name of the province is so specific, it would be impossible to merge the island and province without causing confusion. IMO, it's the descriptive "Islands" in the title, unique among all island provinces, that requires it to have a separate island article, unlike Cebu, Marinduque, Masbate, etc which use plain names.--RioHondo (talk) 03:14, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
Agree with RioHondo with the following exceptions: Masbate Island and Palawan Island should remain because the other islands in these provinces are significant enough (in particular, nearly half of Palawan's municipalities are not on the namesake island); and Romblon (island) should be merged with Romblon, Romblon because it is (nearly) coterminous. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 14:03, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
Okay, i guess we can make those exceptions. But again, at the end of the day, how do you merge Cebu Province and Cebu Island? And Sabtang, Batanes and Sabtang Island? :)--RioHondo (talk) 16:43, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
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