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Archive 1

Surnames and disambiguation pages

To elaborate on a few comments I've seen on the project page, it's standard practice to disambiguate between placenames and people who have the same surname at the main title (eg - Thorold), of course with the exception that one of those people or places is substantially better known (eg - London vs Jack London). In the case of given names, these are almost always secondary in nature for that title/meaning, so they should be of no consideration when determining how a disambiguation page should be titled.

To use the example of Thorold, Anthony Wilson Thorold, Thorold's deer and Thorold, Ontario should be used to determine whether:

  • Thorold is the place, and Thorold (disambiguation) is the dab
  • Thorold redirects to Anthony Wilson Thorold, and Thorold (disambiguation) is the dab
  • Thorold redirects to Thorold's deer and Thorold (disambiguation) is the dab
  • Thorold is the dab, and Thorold, Ontario is the place

Generally, we don't redirect a main article as per the second and third entries above, except for rare cases. (I can't think of an example right now. Note that we would never move Thorold's deer to Thorold, which is why I listed it as a redirect.) Also, Thorold Gosset, Thorold Merrett, Thorold Coade would only appear on the dab page, wherever it may be.

This only leaves the issue of determining what the vague phrase "substantially better known" really means. Mindmatrix 14:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

BTW: in this example, I would choose the first entry in my list. So, rewrite Thorold as a dab, move it to Thorold (disambiguation), then move Thorold, Ontario overtop Thorold. Mindmatrix 15:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Ontario cities

I've done a search for articles in Wikipedia with similar names to all Ontario cities listed in the project page. It appears that all these articles should be moved to their undisambiguated titles. In most cases, a dab page at Title (disambiguation) will be necessary (for example, Quinte West and Northumberland—Quinte West would appear on Quinte West (disambiguation)). Mindmatrix 15:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Note that we should be careful about Chatham-Kent, since we also need to deal with Chatham, Kent. Mindmatrix 15:23, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, that one gives me the willies. I'm uncomfortable with the notion that a hyphen vs. a comma is enough of a distinction to make a move viable. Bearcat 20:14, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Manitoba, Territories

I would re-create Miramichi as a disambiguation page since there are many subjects with that name (Miramichi, New Brunswick, Miramichi River, Miramichi Valley, Miramichi Bay, HMCS Miramichi and more).

I would move Edmundston to the undisambiguated title. Corner Brook too, though we have to handle HMCS Corner Brook (SSK 878) properly. Mount Pearl should be at the undisambiguated title, and we need to create Mount Pearl (disambiguation) to handle electoral districts with this name. Same deal with Portage la Prairie.

I think Yellowknife should contain the article about the city (move it overtop the redirect). Mindmatrix 15:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Note: I decided to create the Miramichi dab page. It can always be moved, if need be. Mindmatrix 16:17, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Alberta and Saskatchewan

All articles about these cities should be moved to their undisambiguated name, except the following should be inspected closely (an extensive internet search, for example):

  • Grande Prairie - some references to US locations, libraries etc
  • Spruce Grove - some unrelated references - I haven't checked them yet
There's a Spruce Grove township in Minnesota, although it's hardly equivalent in size or significance. Bearcat 19:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Swift Current - move this, but need a dab page (eventually) since there are a number of things with this name
  • Yorkton - I get some odd hits through internet searches, but the city seems to have the overwhelming number of hits overall

On to the others... Mindmatrix 16:17, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm also somewhat reticent about Estevan, since that's really just "Stephen" in Spanish. Bearcat 19:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I had thought about that, but since that's just a given name I'm not as concerned (as I would be for a surname). It may be an issue if there are Spanish-named places with that name that aren't on WP yet, or if this is also used as a surname. (Or if there are people known by a single name, a la Ronaldo or Maradona.) We can cross that bridge when we come to it, as the adage says. Mindmatrix 21:06, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Quebec

In the Quebec list, I'm leery about Sherbrooke, Valcourt, Nicolet and any saint name that doesn't have a preattached geographic disambiguator (e.g. -de-Montarville, -du-Ha!-Ha!, etc.); these all strike me as especially unlikely to be unique. And I suspect that plain saint names should really be redirected to the English spellings of the saints themselves, instead of the cities.

On the other hand, Rouyn-Noranda, Val-d'Or, Montreal West and Sorel-Tracy immediately jump out at me as fairly safe and obvious moves; these are all pretty clearly unique names. Bearcat 20:14, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Guidelines

In some of the discussions that have been initiated so far, there's been some confusion about what the convention actually is, so I thought I'd add a note here to clarify what the general consensus points have been in successful move discussions.

  1. Cities can be moved if they (a) have a unique name, (b) are the most important use of their name. A city's international fame, or lack thereof, has a direct bearing on criterion b, but it is irrelevant if the city qualifies under criterion a.
  2. Towns, villages, neighbourhoods and other smaller settlements must have unique names. At this smaller level, importance is too subjective to be a viable criterion.
  3. A population comparison between cities of the same name may be helpful in determining primary usage, but is not conclusive in isolation. For example, Hamilton and Windsor are larger than their namesakes in other countries, but for historical or cultural reasons they are both less internationally significant than at least one of their smaller namesakes, and thus do not qualify as primary usages.
  4. Cities may also lose out as primary usage to non-city topics — for example, Regina and Prince Albert are both the largest cities of those names, but cannot be considered primary topics as both are overridden by their names' royal connotations.
  5. Institutions, electoral district or geographical features in a city which include the city's name in their own names (e.g. University of Toronto, Winnipeg Transit, Ottawa River, Vancouver Canucks, etc.) are secondary, not primary, usages, and thus are not valid reasons to put a disambiguation page at "City" rather than "City (disambiguation)". A comprehensive article about the city would include links to these topics anyway.
  6. A discussion must take place before a move can be implemented, if only so that we have documented proof that people have put adequate research into the uniqueness or importance of the topic.

Are there any other rules that people have tended to apply in these discussions which I've missed? Bearcat 06:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the third point, we should note that although they may not qualify as primary usages, the main title should be used as a disambiguation page in most cases (eg - Windsor), since there's no clearly prevalent or dominating use of the term (compare to London). The list seems comprehensive to me. Mindmatrix 13:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not clear on point two. Is it saying the the hamlet formerly called "Holman" in the Northwest Territories should be at Ulukhaktok or Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 16:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Neither. It states that should you wish to move Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories to Ulukhaktok, then the term Ulukhaktok should be unique to that entity. It does not require the article to be at either title, though. (Technically, but with a few exceptions, all Canadian place articles should currently be at Location, Province/Territory unless move requests are made, in which case the criteria to move are defined above by Bearcat.) A quick internet search suggests that moving this article is viable, but I haven't done a thorough search to verify this. Mindmatrix 17:20, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I wan't really intending to move it, just curious as to the exact meaning of the section. I may consider proposing moving some of the NWT/Nunavut ones but I really don't think it's the best use of my time. In fact I had to create the redirect Ulukhaktok just to ask the question, so there's little problem with it being at the NWT extension. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 21:08, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I propose that names where a common word is used as a suffix or prefix should not be considered for an un-disambiguated title. For example places that use fort, port, river, creek, and similar word in their name. --Qyd (talk) 16:54, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi, Qyd. This is a relatively stale discussion. Subsequent to this, Bearcat got feedback on the clarified convention over on the main notice board, and the results are now at Wikipedia:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board/Style guide. You might want to raise your point on the talk page over there. Skeezix1000 (talk) 20:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, will do. --Qyd (talk) 20:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Two page move questions

  1. Bamfield, British Columbia was moved (without discussion) to Bamfield by User:Thedemonhog. Is this a unique enough name that it can have the undisambiguated title?
  2. Page moves have occasionally happened without discussion, but which aren't worth moving back because they're pretty clear and unambiguous cases. Should we consider removing the requirement for discussion first in obvious cases, or is that opening too much of a POV can of worms? Bearcat (talk) 18:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  1. I am slightly leaning to supporting the move. It does appear to be a unique place name but it is also a surname.
  2. I think that discussion should be suggested for all cases. It is a good thing to get a wider perspective on all moves like these which can, and have been, debated. Although bold page moves can be undone, it is certainly easier to just get consensus for it in the first place. DoubleBlue (Talk) 21:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Future directions

As you've no doubt noticed, I'm investigating each of the towns and cities on the list to determine if its article should be moved to the undisambiguated title. Each one is being nominated for a page move individually, which is slow and repetitive work. However, I intend on doing this for each of these communities.

Once this list is completed, I'd like to move on to communities that have unique names, or qualify for a page move under any of the criteria we've listed. I don't think such nominations should be done individually, though. I'd like to propose that we group a set of articles (say 20-25) into one discussion, preferably those having similar qualifications. Under such circumstances, editors are typically inclined to !vote the same way for each article anyway. Further, if someone finds reasons to exclude one entry from the list, those issues can be presented, and that article can be removed from the list if need be, while discussion about the others continues.

Does anyone have issues with such a proposal? Mindmatrix 01:30, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I would support this idea. We just have to make sure it's listed on the front page again too, just for transparency reasons. -Royalguard11(T) 17:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
Oh, certainly. I wasn't going to eliminate that criterion. Mindmatrix 19:06, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
It would make this a lot easier and quicker, yeah. Bearcat (talk) 17:47, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:46, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Fine with me. --Kmsiever (talk) 21:44, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like a good idea to me, however the communities with the most unique names will likely be those whose name is derived from an aboriginal language. At this point, I would suggest that there is a user that would oppose each of those moves. - DigitalC (talk) 23:43, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. I did invite the editor to contribute to this discussion last week, but he hasn't done so yet. Mindmatrix 13:16, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
Given his past comments, I think his issue has more to do with B.C., although aboriginal names is one of the many reasons he gives. In light of his recent tantrum (apologies if I am being too blunt, but I do not believe I am offside WP:CIVIL or WP:AGF by simply calling it what it was), it might be diplomatic not to start with B.C. settlements. Skeezix1000 (talk) 13:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
I gather you're talking about me, and I don't recall the invite....and if some lengthy thing was taken as a "tantrum" just because it was long and detailed and (as usual) very pointed, then loosen up your knickers. There are good reasons why especially native names - Comox, for example - have multiple meanings in BC, multiple primary meanings that is; in most cases teh people-name is actually different from the placename; but not always. My main issue is that there are so many thousands of community articles potential in BC; one thing that's made it possible to find strays created by novices or from other WP areas is that the format comma-British Columbia has typically been placed on those articles; they're often not catted even, I just stumble across them; BC's a pretty unique place, with lots of uniquenesses in it, and marketing agencies which use "unique" too much in their bumpf. As for the discussion before about distancing ourselves from the "odd man out" US guidelines, that's POV in nature as inherently anti-American/Canadian nationalist and quite beside the point that the majority of Wikipedia's English readership is in the US and that we do, um, have a shared culture and shared geography, whether "maple-sucking beaver and moose fanatics" (as one anti-nationalist I know styles the "anything but American" aspect of Canadianism....). If we applied England's guidelines and formats, isn't that just a return to older colonialism? If we apply China's or anyone else's, isn't that just another kind of colonialism? Fact is we live right next to the US and I see no reason to have different geographic/community guidelines from them just to make a point about being Canadian. So bore-ing. Add that on top of the volume of small-community articles that would have to be switched, and I'll repeat my comment that it's a bloody waste of time. If you think colourful language is a tantrum, or that lengthy explanations are threatening, I'm wondering if maybe there's a WP:Take a pill.Skookum1 (talk) 03:49, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Just to add that a much more relevant disposition of nationalist energies would be to work assiduously on cross-border geography and history articles where US bias or US content is overwhelming. Re-arranging thte deck chairs on the civic-article map seems a waste of the considerable talents of all the contributors taking part in this discussion; Content over style apparently isn't in fashion anymore. And finding ways to make us different than the US while the busy-beaver US editors write articles concerning us without any of you noticing or caring.....well, it's one reason I might treat an invite to a discussion as a blip (but again I don't recall the invitation, so maybe it wasn't me you mean) and continue work/research towards improving articles and the many real name-change issues that remain out there, unexamined by committee....Skookum1 (talk) 03:55, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
I invited you to the conversation at the end of this posting. I don't know if you read my comments, since you stopped posting to that discussion.
Regarding your points:
  • about distancing ourselves from the "odd man out" US guidelines, that's POV in nature as inherently anti-American/Canadian nationalist and If we applied England's guidelines and formats, isn't that just a return to older colonialism? and If we apply China's or anyone else's, isn't that just another kind of colonialism? Why are you twisting the argument? The point is, we've adopted a standard used for a majority of nation's place-related articles. We are not adopting the UK/British style. We are not adopting conventions used for Chinese articles. We have adopted our own set of standards - they are defined at WP:CANSTYLE.
  • Re-arranging thte deck chairs on the civic-article map seems a waste of the considerable talents of all the contributors taking part in this discussion. Contributors are welcome to spend their time on Wikipedia as they wish. Don't dictate to others how to spend their time.
  • Content over style apparently isn't in fashion anymore. Wrong. Both are valuable. Many of the editors pursuing this renaming have contributed vastly to Wikipedia. It's not an "either-or" proposition - both factors are being addressed.
  • BC's a pretty unique place, with lots of uniquenesses in it, and marketing agencies which use "unique" too much in their bumpf - yeah, and so is every other place in the world.
  • Comox, for example - have multiple meanings in BC, multiple primary meanings that is. We've already accounted for instances in which a word like Comox may have multiple meanings. Place-related articles will only be moved if they are the primary use of the term, as is done for all other Wikipedia disambiguations. This is a non-issue - the conventions already address it.
  • Fact is we live right next to the US Yes, but we're not writing for a US audience, we're writing for a global audience. Further, the readership didn't select the naming standards for US placenames, the US editors did. And there are many US editors who disagreed with it.
  • If you think colourful language is a tantrum, or that lengthy explanations are threatening, I'm wondering if maybe there's a WP:Take a pill. Quit the histrionics. Nobody has objected to your "colourful language" - we objected to your habit of transforming a discussion from a debate about issues to a personal editorial about editors. Lengthy explanations are fine, but they'd be easier to read without your editorialisation. Please stick to addressing the points.
  • the busy-beaver US editors write articles concerning us without any of you noticing or caring. Again, you call into question the habits of other editors. Please provide a list of these articles. Also, prove that we don't care; the fact that we don't notice the articles is tangential to the discussion. You stated that you sometimes find articles that are uncategorised etc. - so, up to the moment that you discovered them, did you not care that they existed?
I wouldn't have found them if they didnt' have comma-British Columbia on them (being in other cat hierarchies I happened to look at, or by similar finding-means)......as for cross-border articles I started a list but haven't had time to annotate it yet, and I haven't put much on east of the Rockies; I also made a suggestion recently on some page of this WikiProject for a cross-border working group or a Pacific Northwest taskforce but got no response or comment.....Skookum1 (talk) 17:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
  • a much more relevant disposition of nationalist energies would be to work assiduously on... There's nothing "nationalist" about this. (Also, see my comment about editorialisation above, and again, editors can choose for themselves how they spend their time here.)
Reading over this list I've written, it appears I'm answering a set of points, most of which have absolutely nothing to do with the proposal about renaming articles. I'd rather debate the issues directly related to this proposal. Mindmatrix 15:22, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like a train wreck. I wholeheartedly oppose this. Making un-necessary moves wholesale looks like a very bad idea to me. --Qyd (talk) 13:56, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
What about this proposal is a train wreck? This naming convention/system is used throughout Wikipedia, except for Canada- and US-related places, or those actually requiring disambiguation from equivalently-named places in other parts of the world. It works just fine, or do you consider the rest of Wikipedia (or, at least articles related to places) to be a train wreck as it currently exists? Please explain why you think this is a bad idea.Mindmatrix 14:19, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
USA and Canada had good coverage on wikipedia from the beginning, and still have more detailed coverage to this day. That's why naming conventions were present here from the start, unlike other places. As wikipedia grows, increasingly more terms need disambiguation. Having a system in place that prevents future page moves is beneficial because editors know where an article is, and direct links to dab pages or wrong articles are prevented (which is what happens if you wholsale move articles, then is further messed up as some articles get moved back to disambiguated titles). Furthermore, I ignore titles like Tuktoyaktuk on my watchlist, wheres I would pay attention to Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories. On another note, having double standards (some communities with, some without provincial dab) makes it increasingly difficult to automatically process pages/links (such as generating content from databases, as is the case with census data). --Qyd (talk) 14:26, 26 July 2008 (UTC) PS: I still haven't heard a practical reason for this page moves. --Qyd (talk) 14:43, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand why you have titles on your watchlist if you just ignore them. I dislike having disambiguators when it is unnecessary and I think Wikipedia has grown enough that we can more confidently use undisambiguated titles for articles and not fear having to re-move it. Why can we not refer to Tuktoyaktuk without adding in which territory it is? It generally makes for a great deal of piped links in articles to avoid showing dabs where the dab is unneeded anyway. DoubleBlue (Talk) 16:42, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
It was on my watchlist before the page move. You do have a valid point about the piped links. However, as many places absolutely need a dab-ed title, piped links are unavoidable anyway (for the majority of non-indigenous names, chances are extremely high to have a community in UK or Australia sharing the name). How do you know when to use the provincial dab and where not without doing some checking? It's simple if we stick to the convention, just always use the province/territory dab. Or else we're either wasting time or making mistakes. --Qyd (talk) 15:19, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
It's not a double standard, it's a single one: always place articles at the simplest possible title that isn't in conflict with other articles at their simplest possible titles. Tuktoyaktuk, for example, is a simpler title than Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, especially for people who've heard of Tuktoyaktuk but have no idea where it is (I can quite easily imagine that somebody out there in the world thinks it's in Nunavut!) — and it isn't in conflict with any other article for that title, so the simplest available title for that article is just Tuktoyaktuk. Victoria, British Columbia, on the other hand, is the simplest title available for that city's article, as there are too many more common uses of the title Victoria.
It's also completely consistent with the naming convention in place for the entire rest of the world, so I simply don't see why we should be obligated to align our convention with the odd-man-out US convention instead of the international norm.
And finally, even with disambiguated titles people still frequently link to the wrong topic. Even for US cities, the invariable "City, State" standard still doesn't even come close to preventing people from linking to a dab page or an incorrect topic instead of the US city's article. If anything, they actually have a bigger problem with that than we do. An invariable convention doesn't solve the problem the way you seem to think it does — it just changes which group of articles need to be regularly monitored for incorrect inbound links. Bearcat (talk) 18:23, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Re: "I simply don't see why we should be obligated to align our convention with the odd-man-out US convention instead of the international norm." Because we already have. Changing everything over is a waste of effort and, as proven in the past, not only wastes the time of editors moving the articles, but also of those that sweep the screw-ups afterwards. By double standard I mean having tho types of titles, I really think you do understand that. --Qyd (talk) 15:19, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Canadian geographical articles have never had any naming convention but the one that's being applied now. There was previously an assumption in some quarters that our naming convention was the same as that of the United States — but that never held up to actual scrutiny, considering that we were moving the largest cities to undisambiguated titles as early as 2004. On the first and only attempt that's ever been made to codify what the Canadian convention actually was, "undisambiguated whenever possible" was the consensus decision — the only thing that ever bogged it down was disagreement about whether we should apply a population cutoff or not (and that was ultimately rejected.) It may seem like this is a new convention to some people, since it's only now that editors are actually undertaking a systematic effort to apply it right across the board, but please be clear on this: at no time in Wikipedia's entire history has there ever been a Canadian naming convention that required the province or territory name to be present in a city article's title — some of the finer points may have evolved and changed over time, but the core of the convention, as it stands right now, is the only formalized policy we've ever had regarding Canadian geographic names. Bearcat (talk) 23:51, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
I believe we are the only country that takes a "wait and see" approach. We didn't attempt to codify every single possible possibility, instead deciding to be fluid with our decisions. I remember an attempt a couple years ago to make a convention that included population requirements among other things, and it didn't pass. We passed over the ridicules requirements others have put up, the tests, whatever and put in a simple common sense policy. Does it already redirect to the city? Then why not just move the city there? Common sense, not a bunch bureaucratic rules. -Royalguard11(T) 03:29, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
No, I'm not talking about bureaucratic rules and guidelines (I believe Bearcat drafted the present convention). I'm talking about the fact that articles about Canadian communities are already at the Place, Province title. Moving them is an un-necessary waste of time, as is the entire movement to establish a new status quo. --Qyd (talk) 14:06, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
I wrote up a summary of what the established consensus for Canadian geographic names already was. I did not invent a new convention out of whole cloth, which is what you appear to think. As for the "fact" that articles about Canadian communities are already at the Place, Province title, the fact is that some are and some aren't. And that's always been the fact. Bearcat (talk) 16:04, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
What is and what isn't a waste of time is just a point of view. If I want to spend time moving pages, I will. Heck, I can do nothing if I want. There's no timeclock here, no quotas to meet, and no bosses breathing down our throats. Editors of Wikipedia have no official obligation to do anything at all. -Royalguard11(T) 02:27, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Qyd, at a certain point you will need to entertain the fact that what you feel is an unnecessary waste of time is believed by others to be a worthwhile endeavour. No one is asking you to shoulder any of the work. Obviously you are entitled to disagree with the premise of WP:CANSTYLE, WP:DAB and WP:PRIMARYUSAGE and to suggest that disambiguation should be used more widely and maintained where it exists, but it isn't really up to you to determine how the efforts of other editors should be deployed. Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:26, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Correct you are, and that's what I did by not commenting on most of the recent move discussions. It does however waste some of my time (mentioned before, automatic wikicode generation becomes cumbersome, some page moves have unforeseen effects that are not fixed by the people moving the page, especially when done wholesale). --Qyd (talk) 14:06, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, what exactly do you mean by "automatic wikicode generation becomes cumbersome". This isn't the first time you've made such a statement, so I'd like clarification. I really don't see what the issue is, though, since you can auto-generate code using conditionals that are intelligent enough to follow redirects (which would be created by page moves). You can also use the API to simplify the process (see, for example, the Modules section for action=query redirects resolution). Mindmatrix 14:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
For example, taking List of municipalities in British Columbia#List of municipalities, cross-referencing it with an updated census database, then putting it back together as a wikitable. A lot of effort goes into handling the exceptions when one dismantles the wikisyntax. Regarding redirects, yes they're useful for code generation, not for analyzes. But you go down this path and soon someone comes along and has them deleted for the same reasons you invoke for page moves. --Qyd (talk) 03:12, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I am in favour of the moves and listing them by groups with identical qualifications seems a good idea. DoubleBlue (Talk) 16:42, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

This seems like and excellent idea. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 19:20, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion for consistency

I have noticed there is becoming a lot of inconsistency for places being name (city) and others at (city, province) right down to small towns. I think a consistent format is necessary, irrespective of other places of that name. Here is my opinion:

  • Straight to the main article, with (city (disambiguation)) for everything else - those should be reserved for the largest cities in Canada that are well known not just inside, but outside Canada. IMO, they are Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Quebec City and Ottawa.
  • Other provincial capitals, as well as other central cities (not suburbs) that anchor Census Metropolitan Areas, should be given secondary status. They should not override disambiguation pages (if there is something unrelated to that city), but can take main articles if they are the only thing with that name (except for articles spawned from that name, i.e. electoral districts). Cities that cross provincial boundaries should also fall in that group to minimize the potential for combined names.
  • Smaller and less notable cities/communities, plus all counties and county-equivalents should use the (city/county, province) format IMO to maintain consistency, with redirects if there is no dab page needed.
  • The Halifax RM and Greater Sudbury exceptions should be retained, although the (city, province) in those cases should point to the former city community article IMO as that is often what they are seen as.

That is just my opinion. CrazyC83 (talk) 03:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

WP:CANSTYLE lists the rules we have come up with to establish some consistency. In general, it states that cities with unique or PRIMARYUSAGE of the name need not have the , province disambiguation. DoubleBlue (Talk) 04:03, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
That is the problem IMO, it makes it so that some fairly obscure cities have only the "city" while others (by necessary) have "city, province". It creates a hodgepodge of article names. CrazyC83 (talk) 14:41, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
The point of an article title isn't to give additional background information on the topic. The presence of the province's name in the title is only a disambiguator to distinguish topics that would otherwise have the same name. It would violate both WP:NPOV and Wikipedia's strong aversion to arbitrary cutoffs to decide that some topics are "too obscure" to be moved to city even if they meet the main criterion of having unique names. Bearcat (talk) 15:12, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, there is no article on the former city of Sudbury separate from the one on Greater Sudbury. There isn't any remotely viable way to separate the two topics that doesn't result in Greater Sudbury's article becoming an unexpandable permastub in the process, and people would far too frequently link to the wrong article entirely (i.e. to just "Sudbury, Ontario" even where "Greater Sudbury" was the correct topic.) And, as DoubleBlue pointed out, we already have a pretty consistent set of rules in place — and past consensus has already decided that we don't apply an arbitrary population cutoff. Bearcat (talk) 04:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

One by one, some ideas

I created a list of what I think would be OK to move if undisambiguated titles are desired, and some cases where it should remain as is, undone disambiguation pages, new disambiguation pages, etc. While the majority seem like they are unique enough to stand out, others (especially with names ending or beginning in Lake, Inlet, Fort, Beach, etc. or have geographical potential reference) need significant review, others (such as Ingersoll and Mont-Tremblant) should be moved onto dab pages that already exist, others (such as Innisfil and Nicolet) should be moved onto similar dab pages and in a few cases (such as Grande Prairie and Saint-Hyacinthe) new dab pages should be created. CrazyC83 (talk) 02:13, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your judgement on Ingersoll and Innisfil; they both appear to have been arbitrary redirects dating from 2004, long before we had actually formulated a real policy regarding article naming...and before we had enough articles on Wikipedia to get a straightforward sense of whether a geographic name was really unique or not.
Regarding Mont-Tremblant, however, I think you might be misinterpreting or ignoring a part of our naming convention: apart from the town, every single item on that dab page is a secondary usage pertaining to something in the town, not a single one of which could legitimately be moved to the plain title "Mont-Tremblant". A dab page is meant as a placeholder to redirect people among articles that could potentially be in conflict for the same title, not as a search index for all titles which happen to have a given word or phrase in their titles. Similarly, Grande Prairie isn't in actual conflict for the plain title with any other article; all that's needed in that particular case is for Grande and Grand to hatnote each other as they already do.
Regarding Saint-Hyacinthe, while I'm not prepared to impose this arbitrarily I strongly suspect that it should actually be a redirect to the historical person of Saint Hyacinth, with a dab page located at another title. Regarding Nicolet, I'm a bit unclear: while I don't see other current articles that could have any claim to the plain title, at least one of the Wisconsin topics with the word Nicolet in its name is titled such that we might need to investigate whether there's a Nicolet region in that state at all. So research may be needed, but it's not yet an immediate move.
I'll review your list further and comment where appropriate. Bearcat (talk) 03:29, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Survey

I'm conducting a new survey since the last was done 3 years ago (an editors lifetime on Wikipedia) at 2009 Vancouver Vs. Vancouver, Washington Survey. Your input would be most appreciated. Mkdwtalk 21:33, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Any idea which archive of that page it's on? Because it's not on the current one. And just to note, last week the New York Times carried an article (or maybe it was teh Huffington Post?) about Vancouver, Washington's reconsideration of its name, and possibly a change to Fort Vancouver, its original name; this was put up to plebiscite many years ago but failed; now it seems it might pass, so the Vancouver BC v. Vancouver WA argument might ultimately be a moot point.Skookum1 (talk) 17:28, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
It's here.--kelapstick (talk) 17:32, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Unique placenames for lesser places

I've come along ways from my original opposition to dropping comma-province for unique names; there are varous unique names, some even English in composition, that have occurred to me as not needing the comma-province dab, though I'm still uncertain about it as having it in the title helps "locate" the article; some include the following, which may or may not exist already as redirects:

What is plain title?

The page, Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/List of settlements at plain title, was presumingly created for the purpose of listing municipality articles that exist at a "plain title". But what is a plain title? I thought that this meant without any disambiguation. The way we normally disambiguate between places, is to list where it is after a comma. For example, Regina, Saskatchewan, is the city, Regina, Minneapolis, is the neighborhood, and Regina (name), is the given name. Both a comma and parenthesis, are a form of disambiguation, I don't see a difference between Cold Lake, Alberta, and North Vancouver (city). If there is, we would have London (Ontario), and a discussion on how to change naming conventions across the English Wikipedia. 117Avenue (talk) 03:39, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

There is no difference between the two in my opinion. I don't consider North Vancouver (city) to be plain title. Hwy43 (talk) 04:35, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
It was created as an internal working list to distinguish between those municipalities that are disambiguated by province and those that are not. It was not created to demonstrate some pure distinction between plain titles and disambiguated titles. If anyone is hung up on the wording of the title, we can discuss moving it. But fussing over the purity of plain titles is, in my opinion, beside the point and contrary to the exercise.--Skeezix1000 (talk) 12:49, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
From WP:CANSTYLE#Places, settlements "which either have unique names or are unquestionably the most significant place sharing their name can have undisambiguated titles. Canadian settlements currently located at the plain title are listed here." North Vancouver (city) has neither a unique name, or is the most significant place sharing that name, thus it does not have an undisambiguated title, and it shall not be in the list of articles that have followed this rule. 117Avenue (talk) 03:57, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
It's not a plain title, I get it. But you are just ignoring the issue I have now made twice. You are entitled to disagree with me, of course, but in this case you appear to be missing the point I made completely. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 13:09, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Rightly or wrongly, I feel like I am talking to a wall. So I just moved the working list to a different title and updated the incoming links. It wasn't a particularly necessary move, given the intent and usage of the list, but hopefully this solves the alleged problem. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 13:19, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Jeez, I just reread the comments above that I posted here this morning, and even though I toned them down at the time, I still sound like a real douchebag. Frustration at not having my comments addressed/possibly not explaining myself particularlty well was translated into frustration with the other editor, which wasn't intended. Sorry. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 20:45, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
I agree that the move was unnecessary, as you suggested, and feel it was premature. The discussion is hardly off the ground to allow for exploration of a resolution without an unnecessary move. Lets hold off on any further hasty moves until the issue(s), albeit optically a tad mundane, is(are) worked out and then decide to either move it back, keep it where it is, or move to the most appropriate resting place.

Admittedly, I've been too busy with overtime to express my concerns, suggestions or observations, etc. as of yet, and won't be able to until later tonight at the earlier, possibly even tomorrow evening. Until then, Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 02:07, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I meant unnecessary solely in the sense that it more energy is being expended on this "issue" than is actually being spent on the project. But if we are going to risk more people deleting entries off the list, then it's better to just rename the thing and be done with it. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 04:01, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
Are there any other entries besides North Vancouver and its two related dabs? If no, I'm not sure why the fear of a deluge of deletions. I'm not seeing any other entries at first glance, especially none using the [[municipality (status)]] format.

A problem with the move is that its current title now alienates (inadvertently) the three territories, of which each are represented in the list. I suggest resolving the initial discussion point before revisiting the title of the list so that it can be corrected in one move. Hwy43 (talk) 05:25, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Let me go a different direction with this. Cold Lake, Alberta, is the only city that uses the name Cold Lake, do the supporters of MOS:CA believe that the comma Alberta should be dropped, and the article be moved to Cold Lake (city), or, since there are other places that use this name, it shall remain to use the traditional form of disambiguation? 117Avenue (talk) 02:39, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
Okay, that's a different issue. Generally no, I suspect. If the other use of the name were another form of municipality, then probably (depending on the circumstances). But where the other use is a geographical feature, which is more often the case, I believe the practice is to either disambiguate the municipality in the regular manner (by province) where the geographic feature is the primary use, disambiguate the geographical feature where the municipality is the primary use, or save the plain title for a DAB page where there is no clear primary use. I could be wrong, but I am not sure there is an appetite for widespread adoption of a new form of bracket disambiguation for settlements. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 04:01, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Here is what bothers me. North Vancouver is an article covering two communities (instead of one), rather than a dab page to the two neighbouring communities of the same common name (this is for a different discussion), or one getting the plain title and the other getting the disambiguated title. So combined articles about two settlements are eligible for this list? Are there others like this within this list? Was it the intention of Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/List of settlements at plain title to include articles at plain title representing two or more settlements?

Without knowing how widespread this is (I'm sure Skeezix can advise though), I'm not proposing deletion of the three entries (yet), or how to adapt the list to be inclusive of combined articles (yet), but the expressed concern is valid (and it appears this has since been realized). In the meantime, is this satisfactory for now? How about for the long-term?

As the city and district articles truly aren't at plain title, I've been toying with the following two options as well, both of which may be better than the current option.

The former is more discreet, while the latter is more transparent and explanatory (which should be satisfactory given the list "was created as an internal working list"). Both options embed the two disambiguated articles within the one undisambiguated entry, rather than having them as separate and technically ineligible entries under the rule referred to above. Hwy43 (talk) 05:25, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

To extent that your concern touches upon how the North Vancouver articles (for lack of a better term) are organized or named, I don't really have an opinion on that (other than to say that the article titles need not be disambiguated with the name of the province, which I don't think anyone is suggesting).

As for this list, I think it's important to remember the context in which it was created (a lot of which you may remember). The notion that articles about Canadian settlements didn't need to be automatically disambiguated by province name was still somewhat controversial, and the more flexible WP:CANSTYLE had only recently been broken off from the more doctrinaire WP:USPLACE. Most Canadian settlement articles had been created at [[City, Province]], and by this point only the articles on the largest Canadian cities had been moved to [[City]] (people were still saying stuff like "Guelph is too small a city to be at Guelph"). The fights over disambiguation of U.S. cities were fierce and endless, and a number of American editors took umbrage at the what they saw as an unwelcome precedent being created with Canadian city articles. This list was created to keep track of those settlement articles that were no longer disambiguated by province, and to also have a list of examples to refer to when refuting the common "but [[City, State/Province]] is the North American naming convention" comment.

That's a long way of saying that the purpose of this list is to keep track of articles whose titles are no longer disambiguated by province. Any references to "plain title" were simply meant in the context of whether or not it was followed by the name of the province or territory. I do not think it relevant that North Vancouver is an article covering two communities; what's relevant is that it is not at North Vancouver, British Columbia, and as such it should be included. This is a working list, not an encyclopedia article. I kind of think the debate over whether something like North Vancouver (city) belongs on this list is a tempest in a teapot, and focuses incorrectly on the literal meaning of plain title, while ignoring the purpose and intent of the list. Nonetheless, I made the clarifications to the title and lead, and changed the reference over at WP:CANSTYLE, and would have thought that would put the issue to bed.--Skeezix1000 (talk) 20:31, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

It's a working list, and can change focus to ones that have dropped the province or territory, I'm fine with that. But I still believe North Vancouver shouldn't be included, it is not about a settlement/municipality/city. 117Avenue (talk) 03:01, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
How is North Vancouver not a settlement/municipality/city? In fact, it's two of them. There is nothing about this list that would suggest an article that covers two municipal entities is excluded. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:15, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Having said that, I would have no objection to putting it in brackets or somehow otherwise distinguishing it, if that would help address your concern. As long as we track it, I don't have a strong opinion on how we format it. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:32, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
It's a glorified disambiguation page, not an article on a city, which is what the list is for. 117Avenue (talk) 02:47, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Sigh. It's an article about two settlements. That's clear on its face. It was moved from [[City, Province]] to [[City]], so it was added here. I still remain puzzled why you think this is an issue, why you seem to think it isn't an article about settlements or why you think this exercise would be improved by making it more difficult to keep track of what has been moved. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 13:05, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

FYI. There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Mount Royal, Quebec, proposed move to Town of Mount Royal, Quebec – Wbm1058 (talk) 20:21, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Just moved subpage

I just moved Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/List of settlements not disambiguated with name of province to Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/List of undisambiguated communities but accidentally hit enter before entering the reason. The previous title was unnecessarily lengthy and was not inclusive of the territories, whereas the new title is concise. I'm in the midst of avoiding the redirects. Hwy43 (talk) 05:46, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

North Vancouver

FYI, I have just converted the above to a dab rather than its previous OR article version of two separate but adjacent and similarly named municipalities. Hwy43 (talk) 22:09, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

bot-adding {{Canadian English}} to talkpages

the onslaught of negative and rather hostile comments to ENGVAR and CANSTYLE - dismissive comments or re-fieldings of old complaints/issue long since resolved within WPCANADA - leads me to think/suggest that the CE template should go on all important talkpages; maybe this could be done by bot? Selection would go "if has WPCANADA template, and no other from WPUS or WPUK etc, add it". This couldn't be a blanket "botting"....but a targeted selective one somehow. I've been adding some by hand where RMs are going on where these issues have raised, but there's too many for one person to do...or even for twenty of us to do.Skookum1 (talk) 17:01, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Ack meant to put that on the main talkpage, didn't realize I was on Cities; might as well have it here too, as city/town-name articles are where a lot of this gone down (including attempted debunkings of CANENGL/CSG/ENGVAR n the course of challening unique town names as PRIMARYTOPICs).Skookum1 (talk) 17:03, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
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