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Early History

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City naming conventions were originally part of the regular naming conventions (now WP:Article titles), added for the first time in the following edit by User:Mav in the revision as of 13:08, July 2, 2002: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Article_titles&action=historysubmit&diff=108920&oldid=108918

This is what it said right before the city convention was moved to its own page:

City names

(new convention worked out on the wikipedia mailing list and elsewhere)

Convention: In general, cities that exist in modern times should be named in this format: [[City, Nation]] . However, due to internal naming conflicts, cities within the United States should be named in this format: [[City, State]] .

Rationale: City names throughout the world are used and reused by different nations and mean different things in various contexts. To resolve this in a consistant way, a general convention of naming articles about cities in the format of [[City, Nation]] will lead to consistency and resolve many naming conflicts and ambiguities (naming cities in the format of [[City, Province]] or [[City, Province, Nation]] would be adding unnecessarily complex information that is not needed to differentiate city names in most cases). <p> However, the reuse of city names in the USA presents a very important internal ambiguity issue and therefore city names in the US should be treated differently than city names for other nations. For US cities, the minimum amount of information needed to differentiate the name of an American city from other American cities and from other cities outside the United States should be used. This format is: [[City, State]] (the addition of "United States of America" being superfluous to resolving internal and external naming conflicts).

Tentative policy below (disputed sentence is in red)

Notable and very famous cites such as, for example, Paris, France are unambiguously known simply as "Paris" internationally. However, for naming convention consistency, the article on Paris should be at Paris, France but since this is the most famous Paris in the world and the most linked Paris in Wikipedia, the page named Paris should be a redirect to Paris, France. Thus, the most famous "Paris" in the world, Paris, France, would have redirect priority over the use of the Wikipedia page named Paris (at least until every current link to the most famous Paris is fixed to point to Paris, France -- then Paris can become a disambiguation page).

This final section is not policy yet and is still up for review

Since Paris redirects to Paris, France, at the top of the article on the French city should be links to minor uses of the word "Paris" with a statement such as " "This article is about Paris, France. There are also Wikipedia articles about Paris, Texas, and Paris (legendary figure)". This is called disambiguation-block format and is designed to quickly redirect visitors clicking on Paris who intended to go to one of its less famous meanings.

Please see wikipedia:disambiguation for specifics on the disambiguation block format.

The Default City Name

To decide upon a naming convention for city names, you can now express your support for the one other proposal. The problem of disambiguation is especially tricky with city names, as there are more duplicate city names than for other subjects, especially with respect to cities in the USA. Two main solutions to deal with this problem have been proposed:

  1. Pre-emptive disambiguation - Because the number of duplicate city names is so large, disambiguate pre-emptively. This is done by naming the city articles as [City, Country] or [City, State] in the case disambiguation is necessary within a country (such as the USA or Canada).
  2. Normal disambiguation - Follow the disambiguation rules as currently described at wikipedia:disambiguation. That is a disambiguation page if a naming conflict occurs. The duplicate articles should then be given names using a natural disambiguator if possible, or else include the difference between two instances in parentheses.

Examples for both proposals:

  1. The city of Paramaribo would be placed at Paramaribo, Suriname. Since there are no other Paramaribos, the article Paramaribo can be a redirect to Paramaribo, Suriname. The city of Sydney in Australia would be placed at Sydney, Australia. Sydney would be a disambiguation page, with links to Sydney, Australia and to other Sydneys.
  2. The city of Paramaribo would be placed at Paramaribo. The city of Sydney in Australia would be placed at Sydney (Australia) (or using a natural disambiguator) while Sydney would be a disambiguation page with links to Sydney (Australia) and other Sydneys.

Which proposal has your preference:

  1. Pre-emptive disambiguation (7 votes): Rmhermen; mav; Eclecticology; KJ; Jan Hidders; Guy; Danny
  2. Normal disambiguation (13 votes): Jeronimo; branko; Montréalais; Tarquin; LDC; Enchanter; Kpjas; Ed Poor; Valhalla; Brion; Andre Engels; Mintguy; Toby
  • mav's note: why add additional steps?
  • Guy's note: same reason as mentioned before
  • Danny's note: agree with mav's reasoning, see below though
  • Tarquin's note: the same reason we don't write "pants (clothing)", mav
  • Karen's note: agrees with Mav - if you don't do it now it'll just have to be done later, and how do people tell which to link to without wasting time searching?
  • Jan's note: exactly, deciding this per case is going to make linking more difficult
  • Brion's note: when one city is overwhelmingly the largest or most well known, it should have the direct name -- eg Paris is in France, Sydney is in Australia. Cf many other such diambiguations: California, Mexico, etc.
  • Danny's further note: We should take care to double redirect, so that if the "city, state" naming convention is used, the state is also linked: San Francisco, California.
  • Only six people voted about the U.S. specifically, and, despite the above result, 4 voted in favor of always disambiguate:

Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(settlements)/Archive_3#United_States

City, Nation format

Subject to the above determination, cities are to be disambiguated as [City, Nation] unless there is there is a more specific rule such as [City, State] applicable to its country.

  1. Yes (6 votes): mav; Eclecticology; KJ; Andre Engels; Jan Hidders; Guy
  2. No (2 votes): Toby; Enchanter
  • Toby's note: "Subject to the above determination"? How does this vote differ from the first one?

United States

All cities in the United States are to be designated in the [City, State] format.

  1. Yes (4 votes): mav; Eclecticology; Toby; Guy
  2. No (2 votes): Andre Engels; Enchanter
  • mav's note: there are only a few truely unique city names in the US
  • Andre Engels' note: I'm in favor of the format, but only when some kind of further identification is needed for disambiguation. The page title New York, New York is to my eyes both ugly and illogical.

Note that the vote on the United States is under the larger heading of City, Nation format, which is qualified to apply "Subject to the above determination". Well, the "above determination" was that "Normal disambiguation" beat "Pre-emptive disambiguation" 13 to 7, and that was in a section that referred to the U.S. and so clearly applied to the U.S.

Afterwards there is some confusion as to what was decided on with respect to whether U.S. cities will all be at [City, State].

I'm starting to get confused again. I thought we had decided that all U.S. cities would be in the [City, State] format; now it seems that this only happens when disambiguation is necessary. Being in favor of the second, I would not mind, but it does means I have misunderstood the question when answering it; maybe others have as well.

I personally am in favor of 'necessary level', but if the other is chosen, then please take a better way of stating it than 'natural disambiguator for each country' - because to me that sounds like we should use some disambiguator within each country, rather than having the country itself being a possible disambiguator. Only when the example was given, did I understand what was meant. Furthermore, I would favor having the possibility of using different levels of ambiguation within one country where appropriate - using a courser disambiguation when possible, a finer one when necessary.Andre Engels

I think soom people don't have a clear idea about what a "natural" disambiguator is. For me a natural disambiguator is one that is a part of the name itself. Thus "City" in New York City or Oklahoma City or Mexico City would be a natural disambiguator, but it doesn't work with Kansas City. Eclecticology

but Ram-man seems to make a unilateral decision:

FWIW, a discussion on the topic of city disambiguation has occured at WikiProject Cities. There are a *lot* of cities. It was easiest to make every city into the format "City, State" for U.S. cities. This makes for standard naming for all cities (in the U.S.). There was the additional problem of more than one "City, State" name. These are disambiguated by "City, County, State", e.g. Salisbury Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. -- Ram-Man

  • [3] (can't get a diff for this - search for it)

First Challenge

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As near as I can tell, once the Ram-bot created the articles at [city, state] for all U.S. cities in 2002, the guideline for U.S naming remained stable through 2004. However, it's difficult to ascertain the stability of U.S. city articles during that time. Perhaps the first challenge to the guideline (after the original non-approval) came in May of 2004:

A Protest

Based on the discussions at Talk:New York, New York, I shall protest the entire system whereby American (and Canadian) cities have to have articles at City, State/Province. I don't see any reason why this should be the case for cities where there is only one famous city of that name. Why do we need the article to be at Chicago, Illinois when there's only one important city named Chicago and Chicago redirects to the article on the Illinois city? There is only one Toronto of any note, but the article is at Toronto, Ontario. Why do we need to do this? Why are we fetishizing consistency at the expense of using the shortest name possible? What on earth is the advantage behind having the article at Chicago, Illinois or Los Angeles, California as opposed to simply Chicago and Los Angeles? john 07:11, 2 May 2004 (UT

Hi, thanks for the explanation about the ram-bot. At any rate, the argument that "introducing bias" is leading to disputes now is a straw man. The dispute now is about whether or not the general rule makes sense. If the general rule were not to use city, state, I see no reason to expect that there will be any more problems than there are now. I can't believe that anybody would advocate having the article on New York City at New York, New York if that were not a general policy to be used without exceptions. Similarly, do you really think there would be any articles about what Los Angeles the article Los Angeles should refer to? As I've repeatedly said, it's often not that difficult to determine what the most famous city of a particular name is, and when it is difficult, we should maintain the current system. But why should we have unnecessary disambiguation in article titles? As to the aesthetic value of disambiguation notices, I suppose that's a personal matter - I find it aesthetically unpleasant that the article on New York City is at New York, New York and that Chicago is at Chicago, Illinois. So I suppose it's a matter of personal taste. You can find my fuller thoughts on this stuff at Talk:New York, New York and Mav's talk page. john 18:14, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, I don't care if we make an exception here and there, but as I can tell there is no compelling reason for NYC to be at either location other than the arbitrary standard. A redirect is cheap and we have them all over the place. No matter what is chosen, a redirect will fix it. This is a Wiki, nothing is final anyway. If someone creates a new article, like Chicago, and then redirects Chicago, Illinois to it, I wouldn't care that much because in reality I can't think of any reason other than personal preference that puts one over the other. Except, that is, that if we always do it the same way it is consistent. Many times people have asked me to change ways that I do things that I thought was good and I changed it anyway. This is just one of those things that we should just stop worrying about it and get back to work. Is is that bad to just do whatever the standard says when we already have redirects? Put aside personal preference. --Ram-Man 12:06, May 5, 2004 (UTC)
Here's my problem - I think the specific standard conflicts with general wikipedia standards that we should use the most commonly used name. And I see no compelling reason to do this. Australia is able to get by with only using the state name when necessary, without getting into many problems. I don't think any German cities use this form of disambiguation. English cities only use it when appropriate. So why is it necessary to have a uniform standard for U.S. city names that results in hideous article titles like New York, New York? If I could see a compelling case for why this uniform standard is necessary, I would agree with you, but I am still unclear as to what that compelling case is. That is to say - I don't like the fact that European cities are located at nice, clear places like Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, and so forth, the big Australian cities are just at Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra, and so on and so on; while major American cities have to be at annoying looking locations like New York, New York, Los Angeles, California, Chicago, Illinois, and completely unambiguous Japanese cities are at places like Kyoto, Kyoto, Osaka, Osaka, Hiroshima, Hiroshima, and so on and so forth. This is just ugly and unnecessary. john 18:50, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I don't see why we can't have cities anywhere named under the city, assuming that there can be a consensus that it is famous enough to do so. john 19:39, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

In my opinion, the current standard for US city naming is a good thing. It simplifies. It frees us from constant move and edit wars about where things should be. It means that when I'm writing an article and want to link to a US city, I know exactly what I should link to without having to check.
It also removes the nasty pro-US bias that would inevitably occur, because so many American cities are named after places in Europe.
I think this proposal is highly damaging, and is attempting to disturb and displace a useful and peaceful consensus just to satisfy the aesthetic tastes of a few users. I urge my fellow Wikipedians to leave the stable status quo well alone. —Morven 00:36, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
What evidence is there that there would be constant move and edit wars? I'm suggesting that we use disambiguation only when necessary. I don't see why this is so hard to figure out - we do that with every other article in the wikipedia, without constant move and edit wars. john 00:47, 6 May 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(settlements)/Archive_6

  • more explicit evidence when this statement was added: "This policy was enacted by the Ram-bot for technical reason, but the policy for keeping articles at these titles is not currently accepted by consensus." on 16:38, May 9, 2004 by User:Nohat
  • Later (Revision as of 01:20, June 18, 2004 User:Bluelion) changed to: "There is some dispute as to the general applicability of this convention and no real consensus to support it. See the Talk page." [4]. This dispute language remains through Jun 24, 2005[5] (a year later) and beyond, through Nov 9, 2005 when it is removed by User:Coolcaesar [6] for the first time. But less than a month later User:Answar changes it to: "There is some dispute as to illogical nature of this convention. See the Talk page." [7]. There is changing around, but the fact of a dispute remains through February 5, 2006 [8].
  • "Canonical form" language added. [9].
  • Reflect that Chicago, Illinois]] moved to Chicago. [10]. Revision as of 15:02, August 20, 2006

Individual Cities

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Chicago

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NOTE: Something that becomes quite apparent when you look at history like this is that whatever controversy there may be about a U.S. city article title (like in Chicago above), it quickly dissipates and ends once it is moved to its concise undisambiguated name.

Now, some might say that that is because those in favor of pre-emptive disambiguation are not as combative as those in favor of use the concise names whenever possible, but I think it really stems from the fact that the only reason for pre-emptive disambiguation is the convention itself, and once it is moved to the more concise name, especially after a little time, the pointlessness becomes obvious, even to those in favor of it.

That is, once an article is at its concise unambiguous name, the only argument to move it to the overprecise name is for the sake of following convention. However, as long as it is at the overprecise name, the argument that the current name is overprecise and the proposed concise name is more concise always apply, and conciseness and over-precision are relevant considerations to naming any article in Wikipedia. This is what makes any article at its overprecise title inherently unstable, as is demonstrated by this history of the Chicago article while it was at the overprecise Chicago, Illinois title.

First Proposal to dab only when necessary

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New proposal on U.S. cities

How's this for a proposal on the U.S. cities: Articles on cities in the United States that are regional centers go under [[City name]] when possible: Chicago, Illinois, New York City, New York, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If disambiguation is needed, [[ City name, State]], is used (the "comma convention", as in Phoenix, Arizona, Washington, D.C., or Portland, Oregon). Neighborhoods, community areas, etc. will be at [[Neighborhood, City name]] or [[Neighborhood, City name, State]] as appropriate, as in Near North Side, Chicago, or Lower East Side, Manhattan. Suburbs and smaller towns will be under [[ City name, State]], such as West Allis, Wisconsin, Savannah, Georgia, and Fremont, California.

Reasoning

I submitted this rule to make U.S. cities consistent with nearly every other country. (See my list of cities that can be just [[City name]] articles at User:Dralwik/Cities to suggest changes in what cities are important enough for inclusion.) This proposal will be changed often. The suburb rule is due to their relative obscurity outside of their respective metro areas. Dralwik 1 July 2005 21:05 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(settlements)/Archive_8#New_proposal_on_U.S._cities

Later

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  • The AP edit. Revision as of 21:26, August 16, 2007
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