Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)/Archives/2012/October


Yet another USPLACE discussion

Once again at Talk:Beverly Hills, California. That discussion was closed on August 20 as Not Moved, but the same move was re-requested on September 23. --MelanieN (talk) 04:07, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Blindly following a guideline is not the solution to our problems. The guideline is outdated, goes against the spirit of naming conventions, and needs to be changed. --Education does not equal common sense. 我不在乎 04:10, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
The discussion is there, but I'll just reply that the USPLACE guideline totally follows Wikipedia naming conventions, by being based on what the subject is called in Reliable Sources. WP:TITLE also admonishes us that "If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed" and "Debating controversial titles is often unproductive, and there are many other ways to help improve Wikipedia." Unfortunately some users who dislike USPLACE keep trying to get individual exceptions into Wikipedia, so that they can then point to the exceptions as an argument against USPLACE. --MelanieN (talk) 04:28, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Melanie, the problem with the previous close is explained at Talk:Beverly Hills, California/Archives/2012#Premature close, where the justification for a new proposal/discussion is also presented. If you disagree with that reasoning, I suggest you register it there.

No one is disputing that reliable sources use "Beverly Hills, California"; it's just that "Beverly Hills" is more commonly used, and is more concise and natural.

USPLACE has never had consensus support. It has never had a consensus of opposition either, but often in "no consensus" cases consensus is finally achieved by deciding in favoring of the side opposing the status quo.

For example, while Yogurt was at Yoghurt for years proposals to move it back to Yogurt were made almost every year, but always failed due to lack of consensus support favoring the move (there was never a clear consensus opposing the move either). During that time the issues was raised over and over (see Talk:Yogurt/yogurtspellinghistory for a summary of all that turmoil). Finally, about a year ago, enough were convinced for something of a consensus support in favor of the move to develop, and the article was moved. Since then, there have been no issues.

A more apt example, perhaps, has to do with US city articles that are on the AP list. People opposed moving those articles to their more concise names for years before finally enough agreed to it in 2008. Since those moves to the more concise names there too there have been no issues. I don't see why the same would not happen with the remaining US cities that are the primary topic for their concise names (definitively identifiable... when the concise name redirects to the article), like Beverly Hills. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:54, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

  • The top recommendation in WP:PLACE says that if a place is listed a certain way in Britanica, Columbia, and Encarta, that's the name. Each of these sources lists a lot more than the 30 U.S. cities on the AP list. The AP provides "comma-state" as an explanatory gloss inside the text of news articles. There is no reason to connect this style to titles or to disambiguation. Kauffner (talk) 01:39, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Right venue?

Where is right venue/board to discuss specific cases of WP:PLACE or to invite interested users to discuss this case? Thanks in advance. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 20:02, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Normally the discussion takes place on the article talk page. If there is a group of articles, then sometimes there is discussion at the project level. There are multiple methods of inviting others to discuss the case, the most common of which are WP:RM, WP:RFC, and as was already done, posting to WP:VPM. Normally including a link to the article involved helps, though. Each talk page, this one included, is basically for discussing changes to the associated article page. So, for example, if the guideline is either unclear or misleading, it can be improved by discussion here. Trying to decide specific articles, though needs to be on that article talk page. Apteva (talk) 21:26, 25 October 2012 (UTC)