Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)/Archives/2009/November

Polish city districts/neighbourhoods

We were discussing how to name articles on parts of cities in Poland. "We" (2 people) arrived at a comma convention for cases where disambiguation is necessary - so the article now at Poznań-Wilda (and redirected to from Wilda (Poznań)) would be moved to Wilda, Poznań. Any opinions? Discussion at WT:WPPL#Another naming question.--Kotniski (talk) 11:02, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Specific U.S. neighborhood proposal

The continuing absence of a guideline for how to name U.S. neighborhoods is a problem. Not only are there inconsistent and undesirable names (e.g., Hollywood, Los Angeles, California), move requests are being closed for the lack of such a guideline [1].

It is clear from numerous failed attempts in the past that we cannot establish consensus for the very contrived neighborhood, city, state convention. Among the other two choices when disambiguation is not required, neighborhood has more usage than neighborhood, city or neighborhood (city). It also appears from previous discussions that, at least when disambiguation is required, there is more preference for neighborhood, city than for neighborhood (city) (the latter is my personal preference, FWIW).

So, I hereby propose this very simple compromise addition to the United States section:

Locate articles about neighborhoods with names that are primary or don't conflict with other uses at the name (e.g., Haight-Ashbury).

When there is a conflict with at least one other use of a neighborhood name, disambiguate with a comma and the city name (e.g., Chinatown, San Francisco).

When two synonymous neighborhoods exist in synonymous cities, disambiguate each further with the name of the state in parenthesis (e.g., Downtown, Portland (Oregon) and Downtown, Portland (Maine)).

If a neighborhood article cannot be at its name due to a primary use or dab page conflict, represent it there with either a hatnote link or dab page reference link as appropriate.

Please seriously consider supporting this proposal even if in your opinion it's not the ideal solution, but is better than what we have now. Thank you. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:58, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Survey

Please respond with either "* Support comment" or "* Oppose comment"

• Support. Consistent with all widely followed naming guidelines including common name, easy-to-find (all neighborhood names are either at their name, or their name links to them) and only as precise as necessary to be unique. Answers all questions and creates no new problems. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:58, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. Likely to create many conflicts and confusions. Neighborhood names should always reference the city in which they are a neighborhood IMO. --MelanieN (talk) 15:26, 3 October 2009 (UTC)MelanieN

• Support in general; I see very little advantage to identifying Haight-Ashbury as a neighborhood of San Francisco in the article title; our article titles are not intended to convey information (except perhaps the information that this phrase means the subject) - they are intended to identify articles (unambiguously). Those who are pussled by the name (and they will be rare) should look at the article - that's what it's for; they may also want the link to the article on San Francisco, since they may never have heard of it.
  • As a tweak, I would use Downtown, Portland, Oregon as more idiomatic; but this case, in which the neighborhood and city are not enough, will be rare enough that I don't really care. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Also, this should not affect the vast numbers of rural and suburban neighborhoods which are CDPs and dabbed by state: Lincroft, New Jersey is more idiomatic and more recognizable than Lincroft, Middletown Township. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:26, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. Two points:

1) Inconsistent with WP:PLACE#United States guideline on cities: "The canonical form for cities in the United States is [[City, State]] (the 'comma convention')." Also: "Cities listed in the AP Stylebook as not requiring the state modifier may have their articles named [[City]] provided they are the primary topic for that name.... No other American city may have its article named [[City]]." I was just reminded of this here for disambiguation of a U.S. city which is the natural primary topic for its name. Haight-Asbury is highly unusual among neighborhood names for it being both unique (probably) and for it being widely known as primary topic importance for the term. The consistent treatment for Haight-Asbury is to give it article name "Haight-Asbury, San Francisco, California" but with "Haight-Asbury" redirecting to it, as the primary usage for the name. If there are now other uses for the Haight-Asbury term, then the neighborhood article gets hatnote "Haight-Asbury" redirects here. For other uses, see "Haight-Asbury (disambiguation)". A bit cumbersome but rarely needs to be applied.

2) The proposal is oddly suggesting that we use a comma between Neighborhood and City but a parenthesis between City and State while real world practice is to use comma between City and State. And I think that should be extended to use comma between both, hence "Neighborhood, City, State". Note also that using only comma-separators for geo-names works compatibly for use of exactly those same geo-names as parenthetical expressions in other names, such as "First Presbyterian Church (Neighborhood, City, State)". doncram (talk) 22:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree. Current style is not defined by wikipedia and is not consistent. Neighborhoods in California tend to be listed with commas, e.g. "Point Loma, San Diego, California." Neighborhoods back east tend to use parentheses, e.g. "Oakland (Pittsburgh)". I strongly believe that the city in which a neighborhood is located should be part of the article title, just as the state is part of the city title per the policy you cited. There are really very few neighborhood names so unique as to occur only one place in the country! I tend to prefer the parentheses format but could accept the comma format. Note that this discussion is only about neighborhoods which are clearly part of a larger city - not getting into the township/village issue at all. --MelanieN (talk) 00:35, 12 October 2009 (UTC)MelanieN

Doncram, the very point of this proposal is to move away from the triplet form precisely because there is consensus that supports it. We need to find some other way to deal with neighborhood names. What I'm proposing might not be it, but let's not go backwards to what we know is failing.

Having said that, how is this proposal inconsistent with the U.S. guideline on cities? That guideline does not address how neighborhoods are to be named; it is currently silent about neighborhoods, so how any proposal be inconsistent with, well, nothing?

While there is plenty of precedent for identifying cities in the city, state form, there is no such precedent for the hood, city, state form. Besides, most notable hoods are in large cities large enough to have named neighborhoods, and most of those city articles are named by name only (no state).

As far as suggesting comma between hood and city and parenthesis for state, I just thought that was most likely to get support. Personally, I would favor hoodname (cityname) when disambiguation is required.

If Haight-Ashbury can redirect to the article, why not put the article at Haight-Ashbury? Why disambiguate it to Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California? It's totally unnecessary. The one thing we have to reject is the totally unnecessary precision of hood, city, name. I mean, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California just looks ridiculous and is an embarrassment to Wikipedia. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose as logically inconsistent with the guideline for naming U.S. cities. If the guideline for naming cities says that all but a few of the largest U.S. cities must be named in the form "City, State", it makes no sense to name for a tiny hypothetical U.S. neighborhood called "Piggly Wiggly Gardens" within "City, State" to be the subject of a stand-alone article that does not indicate its location. (I agree that there's little value added in appending the city and state to the name of Haight-Ashbury, but that's an unusual case because it is a very well-known neighborhood. Unusual cases like that should not be the basis for a general rule.) Furthermore, as Doncram has pointed out, the standard method of identifying city and state is "City, State", so "City (State)" should be avoided as nonstandard.
  I support a different three-level guideline:
  (1) For neighborhoods in those major cities that are listed in the AP Stylebook as not needing to include the state in the article name, use Neighborhood, City (as in "Russian Hill, San Francisco").
  (2) For communities (including neighborhoods within incorporated cities, rural villages within New England towns, and unincorporated communities in places like Tennessee where government isn't real popular) that have some sort of a current or historical existence/identity as separate named communities (for example, postal cities, former postal cities, former municipalities, and CDPs) and have names that are believed to be unique within the state, use the form "Community, State" (as in "Poquetanuck, Connecticut").
  (3) For neighborhoods within cities, where there is no reason to think that the neighborhood has ever had an existence or identity as a separate named community, use the long but oh-so-accurate form "Neighborhood, City, State" (as in "Piggly Wiggly Gardens, Springfield, Illinois"). When in doubt, this third format is always correct. --Orlady (talk) 21:20, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree that there's little value added in appending the city and state to the name of Haight-Ashbury, but that's an unusual case because it is a very well-known neighborhood This is part of the question; do we really need articles on less well-known neighborhoods than Haight-Ashbury, Brentwood, or Bedford-Stuyvesant, as opposed to writing sections in the article on their parent cities? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:56, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

• A topic need not be universally recognized to be notable. --Orlady (talk) 21:23, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Comments

Looking back on dpmuk’s survey, three people responded.

When to disambiguate:

• Disambuguate all the time: MelanieN, doncram
• Disambiguate only when necessary: born2cycle

Commas or parentheses?

• Parentheses: MelanieN, born2cycle (slight preference)
• Commas: doncram

How to disambiguate?

• Add either the city, or the city and state, as per the lead article for the city (i.e., "city, state" except for 20 or so named exceptions defined by the AP stylebook): MelanieN, doncram
• Born2cycle said “just the city except also include state”; I'm not sure what that comment means. Now born2cycle is introducing a whole new format, namely “city (state)”, which does not appear anywhere else in wikipedia as far as I know.

Bottom line, there does not appear to be any "consensus" for born2cycle's opinion at this point.

Born2cycle describes his new proposal as a "compromise". It's hard to see any compromise there; it appears to be a restatement of born2cycle's often-repeated opinion that neighborhood names should stand alone.

--MelanieN (talk) 15:33, 3 October 2009 (UTC)MelanieN

It's a compromise for me because if it were up to me the ones that needed disambiguation would be with (city). Anyway, as far as my estimate of consensus and lack thereof, I'm going back much further than the most recent survey. There has never been consensus for putting everything at neighborhood, city either. At least city, state is commonly used outside of WP; neighborhood, city is not. --Born2cycle (talk) 21:18, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Even in the latest survey you can add Bkonrad who said "disambiguate only when necessary" which makes it 50/50 on that point. In previous surveys with many more responding "disambiguate only when necessary" got the majority but not enough to constitute "consensus", if memory serves me correctly.

At any rate, the dire predictions for conflict and confusion are baseless. Using the basic undisambiguated name for something by default is WP 101. Yes, there are some categories of names that mandate predisambiguation, but this is usually in categories for which a single basic name for each topic is not obvious (names of royalty, ships, etc.) Many used to predict all kinds of dire consequences for putting some U.S. cities at just their name (rather than city, state), but none of that has proven to be the case.

Bottom line: There is no problem that would be solved by moving Haight-Ashbury to Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, and no problem would be created by moving Russian Hill, San Francisco to Russian Hill. But at least the latter is consistent with general WP naming conventions, and gets a guideline for neighborhoods, finally. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:12, 5 October 2009 (UTC)