Talk:Greg Lens

State of birth in infoboxes

Cbl62, per Greg Lens, the prevailing standard is to include the state in places of birth/death in the infobox, even in cases where the article for that city does not include the state in its title. See countless examples including Ty Cobb, Mike Krzyzewski, Steve Grogan, Ron LeFlore, and Steve Young. I'm quite sure this has been explicitly discussed somewhere in the talk archives of the various sports projects. You may also want to weigh on this disussion regarding an editor who wanted to add "US" to places of birth in death in various sports infoboxes, contravening prevailing standards and consensus. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:24, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

@Jweiss11: Responding here as that's where the discussion relates. I disagree. Since Wikipedia adopted city name only format for the major US and world cities, the correct approach is to list city only. The city name only format is due to the fact that some cities need no disambiguation. And if there is a valid reason to add the state in a particular circumstance, it should be listed separately, e.g., San Antonio, Texas, or San Antonio, Texas, but not San Antonio, Texas. Cbl62 (talk) 06:10, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Cbl, "San Antonio, Texas" is clearly wrong as that's an obvious case of WP:OVERLINK. Furthermore, if lesser-known smaller cities like Seguin, Texas don't need a separate link to Texas, then bigger, better-known cities like San Antonio certainly don't. This is actually is not the best place to discuss this, because this issue is in no way specific to Greg Lens. That's why I took it to your talk page. It should be taken to WT:NFL, where consensus around this issue has been established in the past, or someplace even more general than that. Jweiss11 (talk) 08:16, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't advocate San Antonio, Texas. My view is that San Antonio is best and supported by MOS:GEO ("Places should generally be referred to consistently by the same name as in the title of their article"). San Antonio, Texas, is second best if the state name must be included. Third best would be San Antonio, Texas. And San Antonio, Texas is the worst of all possibilities. And this is not a football or NFL issue. Any opinions offered there would be a mere local consensus. If you would like to get meaningful input, the proper place to do so is Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. See prior discussions (in particular Tony's comments) at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking/Archive 18#What sort of linking here. Cbl62 (talk) 09:17, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I see that I participated in that 2016 discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. My opinion remains the same at the one I expressed then. Not including the state at all, as you've done here, goes strongly against prevailing usage in practice, even for bio articles outside of the realm of sports, e.g. Jon Polito, Bradley Cooper, Dom Irrera, Seth Green, Richard Gere (scanning Category:Male actors from Philadelphia for well-known examples). Jweiss11 (talk) 13:50, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I am aware that you participated, and held a minority view, in the earlier discussion. That is why I referenced it. If you want to have your view adopted, the appropriate course of action is to return to that forum, rather than forum shopping. Cbl62 (talk) 19:45, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

@Jweiss11: I went ahead and restarted the discussion at: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking#Need for clarity on linking major American cities. Cbl62 (talk) 00:01, 24 November 2020 (UTC)