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			;<big>Please post discussions about Railway station names at ].</big>

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			== Need for clarity on linking major American cities ==
	== RfC: US city names ==
	{{Archive top
	\| result = After sifting through the comments and doing some work with pencil and paper, I can only conclude that this discussion be ended as '''maintain status quo (option B)'''. --] (]) 05:36, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
	}}
	Which U.S. cities require disambiguation by state? Example: ] or ]? ] (]) 16:33, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

	Reliable sources tend to list better-known cities at their concise names, without a state name attached. The capital of Tennessee is given as "Nashville" by '''', '''', and ''''. But on Misplaced Pages it is titled as ] because it is not one of the 30 U.S. cities that the ] gives in datelines without a "comma-state" tag; only the 30 cities listed by the AP get concise titles on Wiki, according to ].

	*<big>'''The AP list'''</big>
	The cities that "stand alone" in AP datelines are: <small>], ], ], ], ], ],], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and ]. (30 cities) Source: '''', p. 66.</small>

	*<big>'''The ''New York Times'' list'''</big>
	The cities that stand alone in ''New York Times'' datelines are: <small>], ], ], ], ],], ], ], ], ],], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ],], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ],], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and ]. (59 cities, not counting New York City) Source: '''', p. 99.</small>

	*<big>'''Other encyclopedias'''</big>
	''Columbia'' has an entry for , Texas, ], but not for , Florida, ranked 270. ''Britannica'' has entries for and , but not for , Colorado, ranked 271. Consulting other encyclopedias is the first recommendation of ], and this is also recommended in ].

	*<big>'''General disambiguation guidelines'''</big>
	"If the article is about the primary topic to which the ambiguous name refers, then that name can be its title without modification, provided it follows all other applicable policies," per ]. There are numerous cases where a concise U.S. city name is a redirect. That is to say, the city has been designated primary topic, but its article title remains in name-comma-state format.


	'''Indicate order of preference among the following options:'''
	*'''A'''. Put all articles on U.S. cities, aside from New York City, at <nowiki>]</nowiki>.

	*'''B'''. For cities on the AP dateline list, use <nowiki>]</nowiki>, where <nowiki>]</nowiki> is already the title or currently directs to <nowiki>]</nowiki>. Otherwise use <nowiki>]</nowiki>. (Note: this is the current convention.)

	*'''C'''. Extend the current convention's list of cities that can omit state to include cities on the ''New York Times'' list, in addition to those on the AP list.

	*'''D'''. Extend the current convention's list of cities that can omit state to include any city given in both ''Britannica'' and ''Columbia''.

	*'''E'''. Do not require state unless needed to avoid article title conflict, for all U.S. cities.
	] (]) 16:33, 4 November 2012 (UTC) <small>As modified by ] (]) 20:19, 4 November 2012 (UTC)</small> <small>Wording tweaks/clarifications. --] (]) 17:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC)</small>
	::<s>NOTE: The wording of these choices is under dispute as possibly non-neutral; see discussion below. Furthermore, they were changed by the proposer to a far less neutral and more slanted format after discussion had already started. --] (]) 17:12, 5 November 2012 (UTC)</s>
	:::And I have returned it to what I hope is a more neutral and less controversial wording. If anyone objects, please just restore the original wording that the !votes refer to. ] (]) 18:33, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::I withdraw my objections; the wording supplied by Dicklyon is clear, neutral, and uncontroversial. --] (]) 18:37, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

	===Survey===
	*'''DE''', as nom. Unnecessary disambiguation in large type across the top of an article looks ugly and unprofessional. In a dateline, such disambiguation is merely patronizing. So our list of U.S. cities that can be put at their concise names should include all those that are given this way in newspaper datelines. ''Britannica'' and ''Columbia'' have entries for these cities, as well as for various others. They include a few cities that I'd rather see in name-comma-state format. But following the style of other encyclopedias is certainly an encyclopedic solution. ] (]) 16:33, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''ABCDE'''. The argument that we should follow the titling style of other encyclopedias is inapposite (I may change this word later, as I go through my thesaurus), as ''they'' can have more than one article with the same title. ] suggests that all except about 5 cities be predisambiguated — and we'd disagree on which 5. — ] ] 18:54, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
	**So you acknowledge that the basis of the current convention is a technical glitch, i.e. the fact that MediaWiki does not support multiple instances of a title? If so, it follows that every city should be its common name, with disambiguation only as required to avoid title clashes. As far as what the common name for any particular city is, that is something that can be tested with ngram and similar tools. ] (]) 02:54, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	***(Belated comment). Actually, no. That's only one of the reasons why '''D''' is inappropriate. If it weren't for the "techical glitch", as you call it, D would be an option. ] and the fact that, even for cities with unique names, "city, state" really is how we Americans refer to them. I'd consider moving '''C''' further down, as the NY Times list is NYC-centric. I would only consider C(B) as the option below B in my ranking; C for cities moer than 100 miles from NYC, B for cities within 100 miles of NYC. — ] ] 13:35, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
	*<s>'''CBA'''</s> (changing to '''BCA''' per Dicklyon's reasoning below and per WP:TITLE: "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.") per ] and ]. I have not seen the list of cities that fall under "D" and I am not sure that such a list is readily available, or even exists. NYT (option C) and AP (option B) seem like the most readily accessible and easy-to-understand Reliable Sources for this purpose. --] (]) 20:49, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
	* <s>'''BCA'''</s> '''BAC''' (demoted C based on discussion; seriously, ]?) – I favor B mainly because it is the current guideline, which was worked out as a compromise. Adding a few more, or a few less, to the list of exceptions might be OK, but I see no good reason to do it. I agree with Arthur Rubin on the inappositeness of following other encyclopedias on this; there is really no good reason to be removing the state from a few hundred selected city article titles; it would be that harder to track and implement. I see no evidence of any "consternation and confusion by dozens if not hundreds of people about using the comma convention" as Born2cycle claims; just a few cases that are easily cleared up by pointing out the guideline, and a few fanned into big messes by Born2cycle himself. ] (]) 21:29, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''B''': '''Oppose change from existing US Names standard''' This has been repeatedly addressed and a new RFC serves no good. No good to nonstop argument; a settled standard exists. No gain to[REDACTED] article creation is possible from this debate. STOP THIS and go back to working on articles. OPPOSE the RFC. OPPOSE any change. OPPOSE any further discussion for 5 years. --]]] 22:13, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
	* '''EDCB''' - Unnecessary disambiguation - it would be best to make US naming guidelines consistent with international naming standards. We do not follow newspaper stylebook standards for other countries - the AP stylebook also lists only a few worldwide cities that can be listed without qualifiers, but there will certainly be no debate as to whether ] should be moved to ] to follow WP:RS. I also don't believe that cityname, statename is the ] for almost all American cities as stated by many users in the above discussion. States are added to city names only when additional clarification is needed - just as "the singer" would be added to ] if a person is unfamiliar with the subject matter at hand. Cheers, ]•] 22:19, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
	* '''B''' On the grounds that ''if it ain't broke don't fix it''. I can live with idea that a ] should take the place of a ] '''A''' is just plain silly, and '''C''' has become arbitary. --] (]) 22:23, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
	* '''Edcba'''. I submit that almost 10 years of consternation and confusion by dozens if not hundreds of people about using the comma convention even where the city is the primary topic for ] and ] redirects to ], is far more than sufficient evidence that this guideline is broken. Since the other choices are just slight variations on this, for the better or worse, I find them all almost equally unacceptable for the same reasons. It should be obvious to anyone that has paid any attention to all the USPLACE-related unilateral moves, RM proposal discussions usually ending in "no consensus", and no consensus discussions on this talk page over the years, that the current guideline ''is'' broken and that this issue will not be resolved until we stop treating US city article titles differently from other WP article titles, including most other city article titles. Only ''E'' resolves this issue, so far as I can tell. --] (]) 01:28, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	* '''B''' On the grounds that ''if it ain't broke don't fix it'' per ClemRutter, Dicklyon, MelanieN, Doncram. '''C''' as second choice if it can expanded to replace one stable list with a longer NY Times one including ] and ]. '''Very strongly oppose E''' for exactly the reason that Born2cycle supports it, that it will open the door to endless unstable lengthy RMs. A complete waste of time. Complaints that Australia, Canada or UK don't have a similar stable fix aren't any logical reason for removing the stable fix from the biggest pool of Anglo-Saxon geo names. If it is removed the knock-on effect will destabilize other Anglo-Saxon geoname countries' articles as well. ] (]) 03:32, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	**Please see: ] --] (]) 19:58, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''E''' American cities should be treated the same way every other countries' cities are treated. People who say "American cities are referred to by city, state" are wrong. Pure and simple. We say ], ], ], and plenty of others without needing to disambiguate by adding the state name. And people who say that allowing more exceptions will create more work are just being lazy. Using either the NY Times list or the encyclopedia ones would be acceptable, as they at least eliminate some obvious ones that don't need disambiguation such as ] and ].'''] ]''' 04:59, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''BCEDA'''. '''B''' has served us well for several years. There's been scattered disagreement on one side from those who want most pages at <nowiki>]</nowiki>, and on the other side from those who seriously argue for titles like "New York City, New York". However, consensus does not require ''every single user'' to agree. B is probably our best solution in the interest of reducing both conflict and unnecessary disambiguation. '''C''' contains some examples that make sense to me as <nowiki>]</nowiki> titles, such as Miami Beach. But IMO the main caveat to the ''New York Times Manual of Style'' list is that it's designed specifically for audiences in the New York metropolitan area, explaining the presence of ambiguous titles like Albany and Rochester (] and ] are just as "primary" as their New York State doppelgangers IMO). I would support '''E''' in an ideal world, but it'll create disruption due to a massive forest fire of move requests, so it wouldn't work on Misplaced Pages. '''D''' is a no-go because Misplaced Pages doesn't and shouldn't "do what other encyclopedias do", and it's inherently based on ] and ]. '''A''' is exactly where we were before the AP solution came into effect. It didn't work then, and it won't work now. <font color="green">]</font> (<font color="green">]</font>) 05:38, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	**Just to clarify on the point about Rochester and Albany, the idea would be to restrict the list to only those cities if other conditions (a current redirect or clear primary topic) were met. So if C or D were the 'winner' here, prime topic would need to be determined for those cities. '''] ]''' 05:43, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	***Understood. In fact, what you describe is basically what we do now, except that we use the AP list. I still stand by my point that the NYT list is geographically biased toward New York City and environs. <font color="green">]</font> (<font color="green">]</font>) 05:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	****Agreed. It probably under-represents other areas (the South for one). '''] ]''' 06:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	*****Because of the "where ] is already a redirect to ]" qualifier in the RfC, ] and ] are not relevant to this RfC as both are dab pages, not redirects to any articles about cities with titles in the ] form. IOW, the WP community has already decided that there is no primary topic for these two names. ] and ] would remain dab pages under all options being considered here, even '''E''', just as ] remains a dab page under the current guideline, despite being on the AP list. And titles of articles about all cities with either name would remain disambiguated with their state name under all options here. To illustrate one's opposition with examples, choosing a relevant one would be more, well, illustrative. Thanks! --] (]) 06:10, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	****'''Can we please keep all discussion in the "discussion" section below,''' to keep this "survey" as clean and readable as possible? If someone has a qualification or point about one of the options, they can include it in their comments, but ideally all responses would go in the "discussion" section instead of here. Would you folks be willing to move your comments there? --] (]) 17:44, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	*****Agree, this is a voting section, so all rebutals need to be removed! • ] • ] • 23:26, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	* '''BC''', '''Oppose E''': Status quo is good here. E gives license to any random editor claiming their pet city is the Primary Topic which will lead to endless, unproductive and possibly contentious RM discussions with no net benefit to the encyclopedia. If not one of the ~19,300 US Place names ever changed again, WP would not be harmed in anyway and all the volunteer energy saved could be used to improve content. --] (]) 12:48, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	**I have refuted this claim every time you've made it, and you've never addressed it. Once again, ... <small>Bulk of this moved to ] --] (]) 19:50, 5 November 2012 (UTC)</small> --] (]) 18:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''E'''. Strongly oppose A, oppose BC, neutral on D, and disagree with Mike above that E would open doors to numerous contentious RMs. When a primary topic concern exists for any given US city, it should be considered and resolved on its own merits. Within the framework of primary topic discussion, it makes absolutely no difference what naming convention is otherwise used because a true primary topic case should override any of them regardless. Interestingly enough, it is actually the A/B variants which stand in a way of a considering primary topic concerns properly by introducing artificial constraints in the form of the "State" disambiguator, as the Nashville case so amply demonstrated. Also, why would there be "endless contentious" debates in cases where XXX is currently (and has been for ages) nothing but a redirect to "XXX, State"?—] • (]); November 5, 2012; 14:25 (UTC)
	* '''Oppose any change''' - If it ain't broke, don't fix it. ] (]) 15:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	* '''AB, strongly oppose E''' Though A is the simplest, the status quo (B) works. It can be stated and defined very easily without the need for any judgment calls. Option E would lead to many needless debates, as each individual city has to be treated individually. It would not result in some sort of "final resolution", regardless of the claims that it would. Option E complicates, whereas the status quo is simple and straightforward. In any case, WP:TITLE allows for the use of other naming criteria. We have a functioning standard that has been in place for years; let's leave it alone. ] (]) 15:37, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	**Please see: ] --] (]) 19:58, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	* '''EDC''' The original <city, state> format was the result of a bot creating the place articles en masse. Other place articles that evolved more naturally do not have this artificial constraint. Allowing place articles to be titled under the more general Misplaced Pages-wide article titling criteria will result in sufficiently precise names. I am also okay with titling using the same convention as other encyclopedias (as Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia) as a second option. Barring that, I can live with an expansion of the current AP exception list using certain criteria of significance. I do not necessarily care for the NYT list as it is regionally biased but I am using that choice as a proxy for some kind of expansion of the current AP list. --] \| ] 17:47, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''Maintain the status quo''' under the guise that the titles are stable, and the system isn't broke. In my experience, Americans use "City, State" as the place names on first mention in regular conversation unless the context makes it clear which state is involved. <span style="background:#006B54; padding:2px;">'''] ]'''</span> 18:13, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''BDEAC'''. The AP treatment is fine, and is far better than ''The New York Times''. The audience for the encyclopedia is global, but the NYT is decidedly a U.S. (and New York) publication, whereas the AP is much more global in scope, and thus probably reflects a global perspective more accurately. It works, and I haven't seen strong arguments for why it needs to be changed. I don't feel particularly strongly about the other options, but it would certainly make sense to leave open the possibility of consensus leading to divergence from the AP in specific cases, because that's how we operate here. In sum, there's no need for hard and fast rules, but the AP is a good starting place. --] (]) 18:35, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''DCB'''. The list certainly needs expanding and while E sounds like the most open and reasonable I agree with other posters that it could likely begin an endless stream of rm's. If we have authority figures like encyclopedias and newspapers we should take advantage and use then to help us out here since too often our rm's boil down to something out of a Republican/Democrat style clash, where no consensus is reached and we've wasted our time. ] (]) 18:57, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	**Please see: ] --] (]) 19:50, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''E'''. Unfortunately, the option of always having City, State was not given. ] (]) 22:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	**Then why not '''A''' which is what you apparently want with NYC being the only exception? ] (]) 23:09, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''ABCDE'''. Places in the USA are typically referred to as City, State overall. There's something called "consistency" that is valuable for an encyclopedia: people should be able to assume that all articles about a certain class of topics will be titled in the same way. If we decide on E, people like Born2cycle, who have already been responsible for a long stream of RMs, will begin an endless stream of fights to get one city or another declared the primary topic. By saying that all places get the state name, we avoid the need for RMs entirely, except for disruptive RMs that effectively seek to ], and those can be quashed by any admin. ] (]) 00:06, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	**Re: ''"an endless stream of fights to get one city or another declared the primary topic."''. Please see: ] --] (]) 00:10, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	**It is not just city v city but city v county, city v metro area and who knows what else? ] (]) 01:07, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	* '''EDCBA''' I see no reason why US cities should have unnecessary disambiguation. Let's go with COMMONNAME and use the simplest standard. ]] <sup>]</sup> 01:01, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	* '''BCADE'''. In common speech across the U.S., "City, State" is quite a standard way to discuss a place; certainly contextually just "City" is used a lot as well, but one hears "Boston, Massachusetts" or "Kansas City, Missouri" as often as just "Boston" or "Kansas City". The existing convention works fine, defaulting to "City, State" for nearly all cities, excepting a limited number which are completely unique or dominant, the AP style guide OR NYT standards are reasonably short lists. --]''''']''''' 06:01, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	* '''AB'''. • ] • ] • 12:05, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''BCA''' D is distant fourth option. E is unacceptable. ] ≠ ] 12:37, 6 November 2012 (UTC) -- PS BCA are each about equally acceptable to me. There is preference for B as the status quo. C is an acceptable expansion of the same rationale for B. I put A in third position for pragmatic reasons in that I didn't think there was really much of a chance it would gain consensus. But in many ways, A is the best choice in that it avoids the complexities of "if X, then Y, unless Z" type of qualifications needed with the partial lists. ] ≠ ] 15:14, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''ABCDE''', for many of the reasons already well stated above. As a convention, A is entirely consistent, extremely simple, easily understood by even new or casual readers/editors, and reflects common usage. The others (particularly E) are in my opinion none of those things. (That said, I would consider B an acceptable path, since the exceptions its introduces are tightly constrained and explicitly defined, and as the current convention it's served us well for many years). ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 13:47, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''Strong E''', then '''A''', weak '''DCB''' - '''E''' is best per ], which as far as I can tell is the standard for the cities of most other countries on WP. "City, State" is unnecessary diambiguation in cases where "City" redirects to "City, State". - ] (]) 14:19, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''Strong support A, support B'''- This is an English encyclopedia, not American. ''']''' (] • ]) 17:32, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	::In that case, you may want to advocate against guidelines such as ] as this is an English encyclopedia, not Canadian. Or ], as this is an English encyclopedia, not Filipino. --] (]) 00:12, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	::What an inane argument -- this isn't an American site, so let's continue to follow one rule for America and another for every other country? '''] ]''' 07:25, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''BCAD, strong oppose on E'''. E is far too broad considering how many settlements there are in America, and as someone who edits a lot of the smaller places I think it would be an absolute nightmare to implement. For instance, would we need to disambiguate by state if two places share the same name but one is much larger than the other? How about if there are two common names for a place? How about if a place doesn't have an article yet? How about if a place is just a neighborhood and may never have its own article? Granted, these occur to some extent within states, but there are generally fewer places within a state that share a name for various reasons. Also, common usage in the US is City, State for all but the larger places, thanks to the postal service, newspapers and the like, which E doesn't reflect. ] <sup>]•]</sup> 23:59, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	::Strawman, strawman, strawman. This move only affects prime topics. '''] ]''' 07:25, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	**Your concerns/questions are commonly held, but easily addressed. Please see ]. --] (]) 00:29, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''ECD''' Trashing ] is the best way to go. This glaring exception to ] and ] is a frequent source of confusion and contentious RMs. Otherwise, expanding the list of exceptions is a step in the right direction. It should go without saying that if we extend USPLACE as in options C or D, PRIMARYTOPIC will still apply. --] (]) 00:01, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''E''', as per ] and ] above. In practice, of course, US place names tend to be quite repetitious, so that probably 80-90% of articles in that domain still will be named ] (or even ]). -- ] (]) 02:20, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''A'''<small> — ] • ]</small> 05:44, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	::]. '''] ]''' 07:25, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''B<s>C</s>DEA'''. Status quo still seems best to me, though expanding the list of non-disambiguated cities seems OK to me. E honestly doesn't seem all that much different, anyway, given that a large cumber of cities will require disambiguation. Still as opposed to A as always. I think it's absurd that cities like Los Angeles and Chicago would need a disambiguator and even a bit patronizing. And for those talking about consistency: it's hardly consistent to say that globally recognized cities need a disambiguator only if they are in the United States. ] ] 14:33, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	**Memo to me: Read more carefully. Not keen on the NYT list; it's pretty biased toward the northeast, which is not really surprising for a New York publication. '''Oppose C'''. ] ] 15:36, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''AB''' Running through the AP and NYT lists shows that nearly every entry requires place disambiguation (Cleveland and Honolulu were the only ones I came upon that did not before I gave up). At least half I checked require disambiguation by ''country''. In the interests of neutrality and simplicity I think it would be best to use "state, city" for the main articles. We would still have to determine whether ] goes to the disambiguation page or to the city in Massachusetts; personally I think the Irish would prefer the former. ] (]) 17:16, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	**Or we can pick the Boston readers are most likely to be seeking as ]? See , , and . ] (]) 13:26, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''DCBEA'''' seems the best compromise order. <small><span class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 18:21, 7 November 2012 (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned -->
	*'''ABC'''. The comma conventions serves a purpose beyond simple disambiguation; to frame the argument as solely about "unnecessary disambiguation" is to erect a straw man. ] <sup><small><small>]</small></small></sup> 18:29, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''C'''. The current list is good, but a bit too restrictive, IMO. The NYT list is more reasonable and common-sense-compatible. ] (]) 19:46, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''E'''. The evidence supporting the proposition that the United States, uniquely, requires mandatory disambiguation is thin and unconvincing to say the least. I can see no reason why the standard article naming conventions (i.e. COMMONNAME, PRIMARYTPOIC etc.) that apply across the encyclopedia should not apply in this case as well. -- ] (]) 21:37, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''Support B; second choice A; strongly oppose E'''. This primary-topic nonsense has degraded navigation for our readers. ] ] 06:13, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''ABCDE'''. The City, State convention is quite common even when it is superfluous, as in New York, New York. The AP list is reasonable. The NYT list clearly has a regional audience in mind. The disadvantage of E and D is is the large number of potentially contentious RM's for fairly little benefit. The disambigated forms are (sometimes) unneccessary and some readers find them annoying or patronizing as this discussion has made clear (though others like myself do not find them so), but they are neither misleading or inaccurate. ] (]) 09:02, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''EDCBA'''. Let's avoid unnecessary disambiguation, please. There really is absolutely no need to refer to 'Chicago, Illinois', 'New Orleans, Louisiana' or 'Seattle, Washington' (rather than just ''Chicago'', ''New Orleans'', ''Seattle'') and I'm baffled that some people genuinely think Misplaced Pages is improved by such superfluous verbiage. ] (]) 13:12, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	::The current scheme (B) already avoids the state on ], ], and ]. Did you not do your homework? Few editors have suggested moving in that direction (A), but most are also not approving of going hard over the opposite way, to E. ] (]) 02:16, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''C oppose E''' - I have tremendous respect for the New York Times and their list seems reasonable. Although I have at numerous times defended the AP list guideline at WP:Requested moves, I have always secretly thought it unreasonable. Oppose E because it helps to know what state ] is located in. ] (]) 19:40, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
	::Yes! And, it also helps to convey that Funkley is a city or town, rather than something completely different. It would be even worse when applied as a shorter form of disambiguation. E.g., like for a nearby city, ], there is a NRHP place requiring disambiguation: ]. I would hate to see editors moving articles to names like ] or ]. (What's a Bemidji? Is a Funkley some kind of adjective describing the house, like a color or method of construction?...) --]]] 21:05, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::Doncram, I entirely agree. In response to B2C on his con #9 -- the application of the "comma convention" has always been, in this discussion, in terms of its application to US cities, not to every article in Misplaced Pages. It is positive in this context; that's what's being stated. This seems again like the slippery slope fallacy, in which it is said, "If we do this here, we must do it everywhere." That's not the case, and that's not even being suggested. ] (]) 21:17, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''ABCDE'''. It doesn't seem to me that this naming convention is as unusual on Misplaced Pages as everyone makes it out to be. Take a look at the form of titles of the towns listed in ] or ]. If this is indeed the predominate naming convention for articles about towns in federal countries, then given how long and how widely it seems to have persisted without any sort of massive outcry, I can't say that I see the need for any change at all.
	:Even assuming that those two lists (the first I came up with; not the product of an extensive search) are out of the ordinary, I think there is a reason that the US would have an atypical geographic naming system: the US has a strong federal system. Comparing the "City, State" convention to a "City, Country" convention in a less decentralized country is akin to comparing apples and oranges. I don't have a strong preference between A and B, although I greatly prefer those two to the NYT with its inclusion of Yonkers. I feel like NYC is pretty obviously in New York state so it really doesn't need the NYC, NY format, but the cities in the AP list are pretty well-known also. ] ] 10:30, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''EDCBA''' It's clear from the endless RMs, debates and arguments that the current arrangment is broke so does need fixing. We shouldn't pre-emptively disambiguate where these are not the standard names for referring to the city. Using the simple and common name forms would also make for a more level playing field with the ticky subject of disambiguation - having an article at ] implies that the place is commonly called "Townville, Statename" and not "Townville". ] (]) 00:58, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''B or C'''. All of these have pros and cons, but B and C seem equally acceptable. A is plain silly. D is attractive in principle, but not practical to implement because it requires access to two encyclopedias and because contention is likely to arise when Wikipedians discover that (for example) my city of less than 30,000 people has undisambiguated entries in both encyclopedias.. E is unacceptable because it would mean endless "primary topic" debates that boil down to the questions like whether Editor A's state is more important than Editor B's state. --] (]) 04:25, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
	**Re: '''E'''... please see ]. Thanks! --] (])
	*'''B''' or failing that '''A''' or '''D'''. C is regionally biased, E would be highly counterproductive. --] (]) 07:18, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''ADB''', avoid C for regional reasons, avoid E because of the possibility of lots of unneeded busywork. I really think A is the best way to go here, though, because everyone in the US is familiar with the City, State convention.--] 14:41, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
	**I just can't see how there's any good in names like ], ] or ]. The "no duh" factor is just staggering when I see things like that. Not to mention the exemption for New York City is just plain arbitrary. ] ] 14:02, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''B''' Aside from the quixotic search for perfection that consistency implies, I don't find the current system at all problematic. I agree that E would be counterproductive. --] (]) 18:59, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''A''' and only A. It is the only form that will permanently end all disputes about which list to use, or what is the primary topic. The proposal E is a sure way to continue hundreds or thousands of discussions indefinitely. Anything else is relying on lists that are intended for a national audience,and the enWP is international. We're concerned with what the readers would call it, and there is only one form we can be certain will be understood immediately by all possible readers now or in the future. ''']''' (]) 21:00, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''B or A''' Let's stick with what has worked, still works, and results in the lowest amount of argument and/or research to get the job done. Life is not complicated by the addition of the state to all the cities. The other choices do complicate things. As stated above, let's focus on more important things in the encyclopedia. ] (]) 21:07, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
	*Option '''A''' is the simplest and still is the rule for the vast majority of U.S. cities. '''B''' is a compromise. I would strongly oppose moving any further down from '''A'''. ] (]) 00:56, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''EDCB''' - disambiguation is unnecessary if there is only one city with a name. <font color="#339989">–]<sup>(])</sup></font> 22:53, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''EEEEE'''. There's no reason to have a special rule for US cities. We have articles on little Welsh villages with just the name as the title and it works just fine. ] (]) 20:47, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::These three comments are essentially the same. As I noted in my comment, it doesn't seem like these US pages are actually special. The first two lists of Australian and Canadian towns I found were formatted exactly the same way: city, province. And there ''is'' a reason why state or province names would be emphasized in those countries -- they have federalist systems.] ] 07:17, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::It is simply not true that places in Australia or Canada are treated the same way as the United States. Neither Australian or Canadian places are required to be disambiguated if they are unique or clearly the primary topic. From ] "Cities1 which either have unique names or are unquestionably the most significant place sharing their name can have undisambiguated titles" From the Australian guideline on this page: "... but the undisambiguated ] is also acceptable if the article has a unique name or is the primary topic for that name". Both Australian and Canadian places were originally treated in the same way as US places. Both have moved away from that model. Why can't the US? In the case of Australia, while the guideline has changed, there has not been a mass renaming process. Instead, there has been a gradual migration to remove unnecessary disambigation. -- ] (]) 07:29, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''E''' - There is no substantive reason to treat the naming of articles on US place names any differently to the way we name all other articles. We have millions of articles that somehow manage to get by without special treatment, what is it about unique and primary topic placenames in the US that requires different treatment? Nothing. - ] ] 00:04, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''E''' - Should be straightforward, and consistent use throughout all of the Misplaced Pages, there is no reason why US City articles should be any different, there is no reason to dictate using City, State. <small><span class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 00:55, November 20, 2012‎ (UTC)</span></small><!-- Template:Unsigned -->
	*'''EAD''', on two conditions: 1) that '''E''' be implemented by a bot to eliminate the concern about hundreds of RMs, and 2) "City, State" be required 100% of the time as a redirect to eliminate editor doubt. I've been on the fence on this, well, since I first came across the debate. I can really see strong arguments for both '''A''' and '''E'''. On the one hand, "City, State" is almost obligatory in many contexts in normal American usage. On the other hand, "City" is also common usage in many contexts. Plus, "City, State" is not the actual name of any city, and so that automatic usage goes against basic WP titling policy. Back on the first hand, "City, State" will be used by about 80% of U.S. articles anyhow, so '''A''' means consistency within similar articles. But '''E''' means consistency with WP articles in general. So I'd be okay with either '''A''' or '''E'''. The problem I see with all the "compromise" choices - '''B''', '''C''', and '''D''' - is that they're all ultimately arbitrary, which is what leads to the perennial debates. The idea behind the status quo is that some U.S. cities are well enough known not to require the state in the title. But once you allow a few, drawing the line is subjective - even when you use a source such as the AP. In reality, there is not much difference between, say, ] and ], except one happens to be on the AP list. Cities on the margin - ], ], etc., will always be contentious, because logically, they're no different than the "chosen few" on the AP list. It's the categorical rejection of those otherwise similarly situated cities that brings on the angst. If "'''B''' with wiggle room" were an option, that would relieve some of the tension. Which is why, practically speaking, I added '''D''' to my list. Any city that already has an encyclopedia article elsewhere would be the most likely target of an RM here, in my opinion. So moving those articles would vastly reduce the number of RMs. ] (]) 19:00, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''AE'''. I'd either have a bright-line rule that we always include the state (this avoids fights over primary topics, is more consistent with the most common US usage, and also addresses the fact that a large proportion of US city namesare non-unique (even ]); or adopt the general naming standards applicable to other countries. The intermediate proposals are well-intentioned but ultimately generate more work and uncertainty.--] (]) 07:33, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
	*'''BE''' --] (]) 15:55, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
	*:Interesting !vote - care to elaborate? ] (]) 17:16, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
	*::My criteria is: use the state when it's necessary, and don't use the state when it's not necessary. Option A puts the state in many articles where it's not necessary (Los Angeles, Houston, Detroit, Atlanta). Options C and D don't put the state when it's necessary (Newark, Trenton, Syracuse, even less known places). The current criteria is the best, option E isn't too bad. Have fun! --] (]) 20:34, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
	*:::E is essentially ''"use the state only when it's necessary (to disambiguate from other uses on WP)"''. --] (]) 00:01, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

	===Discussion===
	(Meta) discussion: B2C does have a point as to whether the question of which options a person would consider unacceptable (aka harmful to Misplaced Pages) should be in the list. My position is something like ABCXDE, while B2C's is probably EXDCBA. (He's said he wouldn't accept consensus on anything other than E. — ] ] 19:19, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

	It needs to be noted that options B, C, and D are subject to E; Lists B and C only need to be primary in the sence of being places, and possibly even US places (list D doesn't necessarily even meet that), while our guidelines require that the unadorned name has to be primary among ''all'' uses to avoid disambiguation. — ] ] 19:23, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

	:Arthur, I said, and repeat: I will accept consensus on any of the options. But I'm talking about ] consensus, not a slim majority. If my favorite achieves most support but by only a slim majority, I wouldn't expect others to necessarily accept that the issue was resolved. --] (]) 01:17, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

	'''Prejudicial question''' – Kauffler's question "Which U.S. cities require disambiguation by state?" is inherently prejudicial in framing ] in terms of "disambiguation" and "require". It would be better to think in term of what should our naming guideline be; e.g. which U.S. city article titles should be of the form "City, State", and which should be simply "City"? ] (]) 21:23, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

	'''Prejudicial question''' – can someone edit it to make it less slanted please? ] (]) 03:39, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	*Yeah, like you care about U.S. placenames. You follow me everywhere and encourage editors to vandalize my posts. What a sweetheart. ] (]) 13:45, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::Kauffner, I was going to respond to this on your Talk Page but see Born2cycle has already said what needs saying. And for the record, I already made comment on US placenames on Born2cycle's ] RM. Thank you. ] (]) 02:19, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::So you are not apologizing or denying or anything like that, just using this opportunity to blame me some more. If you don't see a problem here, neither do I. I can encourage people to vandalize your posts and see how you like it. ] (]) 09:28, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::For the record, I would make that comment of '''anyone''' who set up an RfC with a loaded question. As far as any other edits related to USPLACE I would also counsel '''anyone''' against . But in neither case did I edit your RfC lede, nor did I return the Talk:Carmel-by-the-Sea archive settings back to normal, that was other editors. ] (]) 01:43, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
	* I believe the wording of the options as currently presented is prejudicial. I propose the following alternate wording:
	**'''A'''. Put all articles on US cities, aside from New York City, at <nowiki>]</nowiki>.
	**'''B'''. Follow general article naming conventions at ] only for cities on the AP dateline list, using <nowiki>]</nowiki>, where <nowiki>]</nowiki> is already a redirect to <nowiki>]</nowiki>; otherwise use <nowiki>]</nowiki>. (Note: this is the current convention.)
	**'''C'''. As for B but include cities on the ''New York Times'' list.
	**'''D'''. As for C but also include cities listed as "City" in both ''Britannica'' and ''Columbia''.
	**'''E'''. Follow general article naming conventions at ] for all cities that are uniquely titled or are already the ] for that title: use <nowiki>]</nowiki>, where <nowiki>]</nowiki> is already a redirect to <nowiki>]</nowiki>; if pre-disambiguation is required use <nowiki>]</nowiki>.
	:] ] 04:03, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	::On the last one, not "pre-disambiguation"; just "disambiguation" (pre-disambiguation is never required!) <p>Also, we should clarify that for '''B''' (and thus implying for the variations C and D) that even for those on the respective list, we use ] only if the city's name is unique or is the primary topic (e.g., ] is on the AP list but never-the-less is not about the city). --] (]) 04:06, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::Nice try, Nick, but that's no improvement. "Follow general article naming conventions at ]" is slanted and a value judgment. Some of us are aware that the general article naming conventions include Common Name and Reliable Source - that they aren't just about disambiguation as others seem to think. I say leave out that phrase and simply show what the format would be. --] (]) 04:08, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::Not just slanted and value judgement, but intentionally so and pointy. I believe ] is completely within the spirit of ], if you don't discount the weights on the recognizability and precision provisions to be near zero compared to the conciseness provision, which is what Born2cycle has been trying to get us to do for the last five years. He has to resort to calling the state "unnecessary disambiguation" to have any case at all. But that's not how I think of the state, so there's really no exception to ] needed; just a fair interpretation. ] (]) 05:02, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::It's not just me, Dicklyon, who is arguing "unnecessary disambiguation". Countless people were saying that about this guideline before I arrived, and still are.<p>The recognizability provision at ] is quite clear about the goal being to make sure the title is recognizable ''to those who are familiar with the topic''. Your effort to remove that wording was not only rejected by consensus, it was ''unanimously'' rejected, and yet here you are trying to use an interpretation as if it's not there. Anyone familiar with the city of Chula Vista can recognize what an article with title ] is about; that's all that is required to meet ''recognizability'', and you know it.<p>There is also no precision issue that is relevant to WP:TITLE considerations when the use of the name in question is unique, or if the topic is the primary use of that name. There is exactly one topic on WP to which ] refers; you can't get more precise than that. But you know that too.<p>Therefore, for a city which is the primary use of ], ] has no advantages over ] in terms of what ''recognizability'' and ''precision'' mean in deciding WP titles, but ''concision'' clearly favors the more ''concise'' choice, ]. It is that simple. <p>This is especially clarified if you consider what happens if an article like ] is moved to ]. The argument that it should be moved back to ], if based on recognizability and/or precision, much less the claim that those considerations in this case outweigh ''concision'', would utterly fail. That's why such a move, and all those just like it, would result in a finally resolved title. --] (]) 06:29, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	* It's a ridiculous notion to think that consensus can be cobbled together by a massive cacophony of people attempting to string together ranked orders of preference of 5 options. We have a current guideline; if there proposal to change it, it should be made concretely and a yes/no consensus obtained on the change. ] (]) 15:12, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

	*For the purposes of discussion let me see if I can come up with a more neutral formulation than either of the current proposals:
	**'''A'''. Put all articles on US cities, aside from New York City, at <nowiki>]</nowiki>.
	**'''B'''. For US cities on the AP dateline list, use <nowiki>]</nowiki>, provided that <nowiki>]</nowiki> is already a redirect to <nowiki>]</nowiki>; otherwise use <nowiki>]</nowiki>. (Note: this is the current convention.)
	**'''C'''. As for B, but include cities on the ''New York Times'' list.
	**'''D'''. As for C, but also include cities listed as "City" in both ''Britannica'' and ''Columbia''.
	**'''E'''. For all US cities, use <nowiki>]</nowiki>, provided that <nowiki>]</nowiki> is already a redirect to <nowiki>]</nowiki>; if disambiguation is required use <nowiki>]</nowiki>.
	**Maybe it should be stated explicitly somewhere that being a redirect is an indication that the name is unique and is the primary use of that title; otherwise it can be kind of unclear why that matters. --] (]) 15:43, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

	'''About related use of "(City, State)" disambiguation convention in article names of buildings, neighborhoods, etc.''' The survey and most discussion so far ignores larger number of article titles given stability by the US NAMES convention (many more than number of city and town articles alone), by the related ''de facto'' standard for use of "(City, State)" convention in disambiguating, in article names. See ] for a couple hundred examples. There are approximatetly 3,421 disambiguation pages including NRHP-listed places (itemized in ]), with many thousands of "(City, State)" style entries that should not each become a new battleground, too. I don't welcome change from solid City, State convention that will likely have big unintended consequences of extending contention among editors and confusion for readers. --]]] 16:04, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::(edit conflict) Doncram, would you also like to express a preference above in the "survey" section? Comments here are welcome, but they may not be "counted" for RfC purposes. --] (]) 17:10, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	: They are not related. ] can remain ] even if ] is moved to ]. Likewise, If ] is unambiguous, then that's fine even if ] redirects to ]. That's why the survey and discussion about titles of US City articles ignores this issue.<p>There is no basis in convention, much less policy or guidelines, for the notion that the title of an article about something in a city that requires disambiguation needs to use the exact title of that city's article for its parenthetic disambiguation. --] (]) 17:08, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

	'''one way that endless discussions will ensue, is about disambiguation where "(city, state)" is settled now''' I do not believe Born2cycle's suggestion that everyone would keep to (city, state) in disambiguation. Either I suspect B2C would be among the first to start moving settled articles, or that B2C knows full well that others would be attracted to making such moves, which would cause confusion. To B2C: Like if you had your way about "Nashville, Tennessee" moving to "Nashville", and a bunch of obscure places like "Lonoke, Arkansas" moving to "Lonoke", then there would be you or others moving "First Presbyterian Church (Nashville, Tennessee)" to "First Presbyterian Church (Nashville)", and moving "First Presbyterian Church (Lonoke, Arkansas)" to just use Lonoke. And maybe not you, but me and many other editors, would be faced with disorder and all sorts of arguments about in-between places. What if all of the First Presbyterian Churches in Nashville are deemed not currently notable, or if its article is moved to ] or "Old First Presbyterian Church". Then people will be attracted to thinking ] (currently a redlink, but a valid article topic) should get the honor of the shorter name, "First Presbyterian Church (Nashville)" Wouldn't you say yourself that keeping "Arkansas" would be "unnecessary disambiguation"? And on and on. If not led by you then certainly led by many confused others. And there would be a hodge-podge of changing names that currently seem orderly within ]. And more RMs constantly as articles are started and/or as individual churches come into and out of notability in faraway, unrelated places. --]]] 00:15, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	* The argument that ", Arkansas" in ] is unnecessary disambiguation is just as valid under any of the options. Switching from one to the other does not affect the strength of this argument. But this is another example of the slippery slope created by the comma convention, encouraging another class of articles to use titles that are inconsistent with those indicated by normal conventions. Thanks for bringing this problem to our attention. I guess in that sense it is related. --] (]) 01:17, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	I have finally realised what I particularly dislike about the current option list and the nature of the subtle bias it imposes on the debate. Option '''A''' is not the position that the proponents of the current system are arguing for, it has been included IMO to make the current option appear to be in the middle of the range of options, or at least not at one extreme. If '''A''' is to be included in this way, then we should have an option '''F''' as follows, for balance:
	:'''F''' Follow standard Misplaced Pages naming, using standard Misplaced Pages disambiguation - <nowiki>]</nowiki> - when required.
	This reflects the true position where neither of the two main positions being argued for can be portrayed as the extreme opposite of the other view, which neither one is. - ] ] 11:18, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

	====Limiting comments in Survey section====
	{{hat\|Discussion about limiting comments in Survey section that was moved from the Survey section. --] (]) 01:17, 6 November 2012 (UTC)}}
	**'''Can we please keep all discussion in this "discussion" section,''' rather than as responses and comments directly under people's choices, to keep the "survey" as clean and readable as possible? If someone has a qualification or point they wish to make as part of their !vote, they can include it in their comments, but ideally all responses from others would go here in the "discussion" section, rather than the "survey" section. If any of you have started or participated in threaded discussions within the survey, would you be willing to move your comments here? --] (]) 17:48, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	***Disagree. General discussion about the RfC should be here. Discussion about a specific comment should be just below the comment being addressed. That's SOP on WP. Don't see why we should be any different here. --] (]) 18:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::B2C, If you plan to follow your usual habit of arguing at length with everyone you disagree with, anywhere and everywhere, you will make this RfC completely unreadable IMO. But let's see what others have to say. --] (]) 18:14, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::Thinking further about this: I think an RfC is different from a discussion. A discussion is just that; people can participate if they want; you can try to overwhelm them with words and dominate the discussion if you want. But an RfC is saying to the community, "We want your opinion, we invite your opinion" - with the clear understanding that their opinion will be respected and given due weight, rather than swamped under a ton of counterargument. Please reconsider on this point. --] (]) 18:32, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::Okay, if more than one person makes a statement I'd like to address, I'll start a sub-section about that, and link to it from their comment in the survey. I've already done this with the "endless stream" comments. Better? --] (]) 19:56, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::::Better, thanks. If you just CAN'T resist arguing every point with everybody, that at least gets it mostly out of the way, and combines the repetitive points in one place. --] (]) 20:11, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

	{{hab}}

	====Please explain: How will "E" lead to an endless stream of RMs?====
	Several have indicated that the reason they object to '''E''' is because they believe it will lead to "endless, unproductive and possibly contentious RM discussions".

	I find this reason to oppose '''E''' to be ironic because it's the current USPLACE Guideline that provides grist for "endless, unproductive and possibly contentious RM discussions". That grist is the indisputable fact that the title USPLACE currently indicates for the article of any city which has been determined to be the primary topic for its concise name contradicts the title indicated by the general conventions we use for titling most articles. In general, with few exceptions, a move of an article at ] or ] to ], when ] is a long established redirect to the article, is non-controversial. It is controversial with US Places because of the current wording of the USPLACE guideline.

	For every single US city, without a single exception, the issue of whether that city is the primary topic for its concise name is '''resolved'''. That is, ] either redirects to the article about the US city, or it doesn't. The practical effect of '''E''' would be to move articles from ] to ] only in those cases where ] currently redirects to ].

	Let's take ], as an example. ], currently, is not a redirect to the Mass. city, so it would be unaffected by adopting '''E'''. But nothing under the current convention prevents a random editor from claiming that city is the Primary Topic for "Cambridge", and so ] should redirect to that article. Changing the guideline to '''E''' would only mean that if his argument achieved consensus support, ] would be the title of, rather than a redirect to, the article.

	How adoption of '''E''' would create a basis for even one RM, much less an endless stream of RMs, is beyond me. I mean, if there is an argument to be made that the city is the primary topic, then that argument can be made just as easily under the current guideline as it would be under '''E'''. Can someone please explain? Ideally with an example of a city that you believe is more likely to be subject to dispute if '''E''' is adopted than it is now. --] (]) 19:44, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	::Comment: those "endless" discussions, that you are so concerned about, actually come up maybe two or three times a year. And they wouldn't be "endless, unproductive and possibly contentious" if you would simply allow them to be decided per USPLACE. --] (]) 20:23, 5 November 2012 (UTC) {{Small\|Moved from being inserted after Paragraph 2 above. --] (]) 20:33, 5 November 2012 (UTC)}}
	:::We can discuss the significance of the debates that are brought about by the current guideline, but there can be no debate that the current guideline creates an inherent conflict, and thus ''grist for debate'', between what it indicates and what would be indicated without it in every case where the city is the primary topic for its concise name. But the question here is how adopting '''E''' would ''ever'' lead to ''any'' debates. --] (]) 20:33, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::Having A, B, or C being a '''formal''' guideline (which, at least, B2C doesn't accept it to be) would reduce B2C's (and his previous editor name, and one editor before he joined WP) insessint edit warring about US place names. If it were in effect, whenever someone proposes removing the state identifier (using the term "disambiguator" or "pre-disambiguator" begs the question, even though I admit to using the term in the past), there would be a series of !votes saying "follow the guideline", leading to a likely "snow close". Having "E" as a formal guideline would lead to edit-warring over primary names, requiring readjustment of a large number of Misplaced Pages links whenever the change is made. There are a fair number of "primary topic" <s>battles</s> ''<s>arguments</s>'' ''discussions'' throughout Misplaced Pages, and eliminating them by having a guideline (such as "A" or "B"), or potentially even "D", in place, would reduce those. We could still have the "primary topic" argumenst, but it wouldn't lead to RMs. — ] ] 20:52, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::Isn't '''B''' a variant of what ''has'' been the formal guideline for almost 10 years now? Yet we're not seeing 90, 80 or rarely even 70% support consistent with the guideline, often less, in numerous RMs per year. That's because the title it indicates in all these cases contradicts the name indicated by the ''formal'' '''policy''' we follow for articles that are not treated as special cases.<p>Maybe I'm just being dense, but I just don't see how '''E''' would lead to edit-warring over primary names. Can you come up with ''any'' examples to support this concern? I mean, certainly cities with unique names, like ], ], etc., etc. are not going to create such problems - there would be no grounds for anyone to argue that they are not the primary topic. Then there are cities with clearly ambiguous names, like ], ], etc., etc. Those too couldn't create problems, because they are clearly not primary, and nobody could even argue that they are. So what's left? We've experimented with cities on the AP list for several years now. Not everyone supported that. Similar concerns were expressed about them, but that did not pan out. Well, sure we've had discussions about ] and ], but we've also had discussions about ] and ]. Those discussions about primary topic occur independent of which convention applies by default.<p>And if there are a few changes in titles once in a while, so what? We deal with that all the time.<p>And how about this. What if the guideline said that if there is a dab page for a US city name, then the title of the article about that city must have the state in its title, unless that city is on the AP list. Would that alleviate your concerns? --] (]) 21:31, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::I can certainly picture someone (one of those grass-roots folks that you are so fond of) requesting a change of ] to ] simply to make it clear that it is a town - or asking for ] to be changed to ] to make it clearer that it is not in Hawaii. Your reply to such requesters would be "nope, sorry, this is just the way we do it" - and that reply can be given just as well for somebody requesting an exemption from USPLACE. --] (]) 21:57, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::Perhaps a few RMs (like Sleepy Eye or Hawaiian Gardens) would occur with choice E, but it is also true that RMs will probably continue to occur if we stick with choice B (as evidenced by the recent move requests for Beverly Hills and Nashville). In other words, I don't really see how "an endless stream of move requests" would be a problem specific to option E but not B when we have already dealt with two major move requests over the past 3 months. Cheers, ]•] 22:09, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

	The experience from Australia when moving away from mandatory disambiguation was that there were less RMs after the change rather than more. In fact, all the claims made above about the supposed negative consequences of moving away from mandatory disambiguation (i.e. "E") in the US were all made when the same change was proposed for Australia. All those claims were shown to be baseless. I am confident the same will apply in the US. -- ] (]) 22:28, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

	:::::::{{ec}}The crucial difference, Melanie, is that if '''E''' was adopted and affected articles retitled accordingly, subsequent proposals like moving ] back to ] and ] back to ] would be rejected for the reason "that's not how we do it", but that reason would be based on policy (], ]) as well as ] and the ] guideline, and there would be no sound policy or guideline based argument to be made supporting such a move. I mean, RM arguments of the form "it's more descriptive" or "more helpful" have been so thoroughly trounced that people rarely try them any more (e.g., see ]). <p>I really think such proposals would be very rare, and would be easily and quickly shutdown. <p>Contrast that to the current situation where strong policy and/or guideline-based arguments can be made in both directions - that's the source of all the debate and consternation (e.g., see ]).<p>That's why I keep saying '''E''' is the only option that even addresses this; plus it resolves it. That's why I find it so ironic that people are rejecting '''E''' on the grounds that it will create ''more'' debates. I just don't get it. <p>P.S. I see just above that we have empirical evidence supporting what I'm saying from the Australia experience. Thanks Matt! --] (]) 22:42, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

	The present debate comes out of questioning an existing guideline that's been in place and functioning for some time. Follow the current guideline, and there is no problem. Yes, debates spring up, even with policies and guidelines that might seem unassailable; this is Misplaced Pages, and it's like no other "place" I know. Having read the claims and arguments to the contrary, I still maintain that adopting option E would indeed generate controversy and difficulty, and would also add unnecessary complexity (which is a separate objection). In the case of US place articles, simple and straightforward is best, and what we currently have is simple and straightforward. Option E is neither. It is problematic, and I do not and will not support it. ] (]) 04:02, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:I agree: what we currently have is simple and straightforward; and it works. The only reason there'd be less problem with contentious moves if B2C got his way in throwing it out would be because he'd stop stirring up messes. His ] and ] examples are purely hypothetical, as those pages have never been moved. The ] article was moved once, in August, losing the state, and I fixed it in October. That would have been the end of it if B2C hadn't jumped in to fan the flames of argument, provoke a contentious losing RM, etc. The present guideline at USPLACE is not the problem; the vast majority of city articles have never been moved or had their titles disputed; and moves and title questions usually settle quickly with reference to the guideline (the exceptions being largely those where B2C shows up). The problem is that B2C fights the guideline constantly, dominating the discussion every chance he gets, as he is doing here. ] (]) 05:29, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:: (in reply to B2C's comment about '''B''' being the guideline for 10 years). Actually, it was '''A'''. B2C fought for a few specific changes (Chicago, Philadelphia), as well as '''E''', for a number of years, now. '''B''' was considered a compromise position, which B2C is no longer willing to accept. Because of that, I lean toward '''A''' to counterbalence !votes which I consider harmbul if implemented. '''B''' is acceptable, but I consider '''A''' an improvement. — ] ] 05:43, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	:::This type of misreading/misrepresentation is at the heart of most of my disagreements with you, Arthur. I wrote: ''"Isn't B {{highlight\|a variant of}} what has been the formal guideline for almost 10 years now"''. I was referring to '''A''' and all the other incremental changes we had before settling on '''B''' by saying that '''B''' is "a variant of what has been ...". And '''A''' has a proven record of being unstable and the source for contention (and you can't seriously put all or even much of that on me, because it was all occurring before I showed up on WP).<p>I'm still waiting for a single example of what kind of disputes there would or even could be, if '''E''' is adopted. Melanie suggested Sleepy Eye and Hawaiian Gardens, not me. Chula Vista just happens to be a city I know Melanie knows with a unique name; that's why I used it. I just pointed out why they wouldn't be problematic. I'm glad to see Dicklyon agrees. But that still leaves the main question of this section unanswered: what city articles ''would'' be opened to more dispute than they are under now with the adoption of '''E'''? I mean just saying you "know" it will happen doesn't cut it. Especially considering the evidence from Australia is to the contrary. <p>I repeat my main point. '''The situation will be stable if and only if '''E''' is adopted because once '''E''' is adopted there will be no strong policy/guideline based argument to change any US city article title, unless there really is a good reason (like a new topic in WP using the same name). ''' Refute that, someone. Anyone? --] (]) 16:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::If E is adopted, there will still be the same strong policy based guidelines against it and in favor of B or C that there are now, namely, ] and ]. Your insistence that "conciseness" is the only policy guideline that matters in choosing titles is getting very, very old. The only reason things might be more stable if "E" is chosen is because YOU are the main arguer and disrupter with regard to US city names. "Choose E because it's the only way to shut B2C up" is not a policy based guideline. --] (]) 17:18, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::(edit conflict) LOL, I just noticed this: B2C says ''I'm still waiting for a single example of what kind of disputes there would or even could be, if E is adopted'' and then in the very next sentence he mentions the two examples I gave! The fact that he dismissed them (to his own satisfaction if no one else's) doesn't mean they weren't offered. --] (]) 17:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::The situation would/will be stable if editors would/will simply abide by the existing guideline which works perfectly well and which is quite straightforward. And I agree with MelanieN that there is more than just one policy which applies here; in any case, WP:TITLE explicitly allows for variations. Thus, if E is adopted, it will generate conflict. ] (]) 17:23, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	:::::For any given US city, one can find numerous sources referring to it either as "City" or as "City, State", with the split often revolving around 50/50, so the "reliable sources"/"common name" statement is really a non-argument. And when several variants of a possible "common name" are identified, our guidelines normally side with a more concise title, as they should. Also of note, the same reliable sources tend to append the name of the country to names of places outside the US—it doesn't mean we should be doing the same.—] • (]); November 6, 2012; 17:48 (UTC)
	::::::''For any given US city, one can find numerous sources referring to it either as "City" or as "City, State", with the split often revolving around 50/50.'' I'd like to see some evidence of that; sounds like Original Research to me. On the other hand, options B and C are firmly and provably based in the way Reliable Sources style the names of US cities. That is a "non-argument"? Only to those whose minds are immovably made up for option E. --] (]) 17:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::This was addressed at ], CON #6 under Position #1. --] (]) 18:47, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::My 50/50 estimate is based on empirical evidence, although, of course, it is by no means scientific. However, the burden of evidence is actually on you, Melanie, since it is you who first posited that the "City, State" variant is so common as to veritably and overwhelmingly drown any other variants, including just "City". Until you provide some evidence to support that view, your assertion is no less "original research" than mine. If it turns out that yours is only empirical evidence as well, then it's yet another reason to rely on the general guidelines, which favor more concise titles.—] • (]); November 6, 2012; 21:33 (UTC)
	::::::{{ec}}Omnedon, almost 10 years of experience with US city titles, and several years with Australian and Canadian titles, shows us that your assumption doesn't pan out in reality. When a guideline indicates titles that differ from titles indicated by conventions regularly used to determine titles for most other articles, the situation is anything but stable. Maybe this is non-intuitive, but that's what the evidence tells us. <p>Melanie, I didn't merely "dismiss" your two examples. I explained why they would not be problematic under '''E'''. <p>Now, let's assume '''E''' is adopted, and, so, all articles about cities at ] with redirects from ], like ], are moved to ]. You claim that at least some people are likely to propose moving such articles back to ] based on ] and ], and that such arguments would be strong. They would not be strong, because the arguments to keep such articles at ] would also be based on ] and ], but other policies and guidelines too.<p>We agree that under '''E''', the policy/guideline/convention support for the argument to move ] → ] for any city which is the primary topic for ] would be:
	:::::::*]/] (] is commonly used in RS)

	::::::But the support to keep such articles at ] would be:
	:::::::*]/] (] is also commonly used in RS)
	:::::::*]/] (] is more ''concise'', ] is ''recognizable to those familiar with the topic'')
	:::::::*] (This city is the primary topic for ])
	:::::::*] (''disambiguate only when necessary'')
	:::::::*] (it says to use ] when the city is the primary topic)

	::::::It would be '''no contest''', every time, and, so, much more stable than the current situation.<p>Without USPLACE, the argument to use ] over ] when the city is the primary topic for ] is ''nil''. That's why '''B''' is so weak, and why it has never achieved broad community consensus support (the same reasoning applies to why adopting '''A''', '''C''' and '''D''' would also retain the contentious environment). <p>I again mention the late great yogurt debate where ''for years'' people argued the solution was to simply accept the status quo and stop arguing. The problem was that there were good strong arguments to change the status quo. Now that the title is changed to yogurt, there are no strong arguments to change it back, and this was known before, just as it is known here: there are strong arguments to change the status quo to '''E'''; once '''E''' is adopted, there will be no strong arguments to change again. It is that simple. --] (]) 18:41, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	:::::::I see no actual evidence that option E would lead to stability here. The current situation ''in re'' the guideline is stable -- except for certain editors who are determined not to accept it. You are clambering for change of an existing guideline in the face of massive resistance. That's not a formula for stability. What we have works fine. ] (]) 19:00, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	::::::::For the record, you have not addressed a single point I made in explaining why '''E''' would be stable. You're simply dismissing my argument, without basis, and not engaging in the kind of productive discourse that is likely to lead to consensus. You're certainly not providing examples of US city article titles that you believe would be challenged with strong arguments under '''E'''. Do you even have an argument? I reject your baseless claim that the current situation is stable. The archives of this talk page, not to mention the talk pages of many, many US city talk pages (including if you dismiss all of my commentary, which is a lot of it), strongly indicates that the situation is not stable. --] (]) 19:09, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	:::::::::For the record, I have repeatedly addressed your points, as have others. You simply choose to ignore this. I'm not going to repeat myself, except to say that I will not support option E. ] (]) 19:13, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	::::::::::I just reviewed all your comments on this page. I had read them all before, and they are all mostly expressions of ], like this: ''"Having read the claims and arguments to the contrary, I still maintain that adopting option E would indeed generate controversy and difficulty, and would also add unnecessary complexity (which is a separate objection)."''. Nothing of the form, ''"Adopting option E would indeed generate controversy and difficulty, because ______"''. The closest you've come to anything substantive supporting your claim that E will not lead to stability is this statement made a few comments back, ''"WP:TITLE explicitly allows for variations. Thus, if E is adopted, it will generate conflict. "''. But even this is a logical fallacy, ]. WP:TITLE allows for variations, for ''good reasons''. The question here, put in your terms, is asking what the specific ''good reasons'' would be for specific examples supporting variations on WP:TITLE if '''E''' is adopted, that would override the list of 5 bulleted items I listed above in the 18:41, 6 November reply to you and Melanie, including with USPLACE clearly indicating use of ] as title where the US city is the primary topic. --] (]) 19:42, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::::::::''with USPLACE clearly indicating use of ] as title where the US city is the primary topic.'' That is the second time you have said that and it is PLAINLY FALSE. You even linked to the text of USPLACE, which clearly says "Articles on settlements in the United States are typically titled <nowiki>]</nowiki> (the "comma convention"). " The only mention of "primary topic" is about the 30 cities on the AP list. B2C, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts. --] (]) 22:48, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::::::::If you're trying to drive me insane, it might be working. Context, Melanie, context! In this case the context should have been clear... ''if '''E''' is adopted...''.
	:::::::::::::*If '''E''' is adopted, then the wording of USPLACE will change accordingly.
	:::::::::::::*If '''E''' is adopted, USPLACE will clearly indicate use of ] as title where the US <s>city</s> settlement is the primary topic.
	:::::::::::::*If '''E''' is adopted, US settlement articles at ] that are the primary topic for ] will be moved to ]. For example, ] will be moved to ].
	:::::::::::::*If '''E''' is adopted, any proposal (subsequent to the above changes) to move ] back to ] will be opposed by an argument that is partially based on ''USPLACE clearly indicating use of ] as title where the US settlement is the primary topic.''
	:::::::::::::Get it? Does anyone have a real objection to '''E''' that is not simply JDLI or based on a misunderstanding? Anything? --] (]) 23:03, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	{{outdent}}Citing USPLACE as if it was supporting your side - when you actually mean USPLACE after you have rewritten it to your satisfaction - is hardly honest arguing. (It's also amusing that you would cite the revised USPLACE as an unanswerable rebuttal to someone who wants ] - since you refuse to accept appeals to USPLACE in current move disputes.) In any case, you (and to a lesser extent Ezhiki) routinely dismiss all contrary policy based arguments as if they didn't exist ( "just don't like it," "la-la-la-la don't hear you"), and then you claim that there weren't any policy based arguments. Your firm belief that nobody but you has a policy-based argument comes across as "my interpretation of the guidelines is right because it is right, and the rest of you are just illogical or misunderstanding." That's partly why these arguments are so endless and circular - your refusal to ever concede that the other side might have a point. --] (]) 23:22, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	:When points are actually made, I acknowledge them. You, frankly, are way off in the tules on this one. I honestly don't know how I could have been clearer. Every sentence referencing USPLACE in that way also was clear about context (if '''E''' is adopted...).<p>Adopting any of the options other than '''B''' isn't only about changing USPLACE titles; it's also about changing USPLACE wording. Any honest assessment of how stable the environment will be after adopting a new option (which is what we're talking about in this section) needs to take into account the wording USPLACE will have then, not what it has under '''B'''. No?<p>I continue to believe only '''E''' will lead to a stable USPLACE environment because nobody has come up with even one example of a city whose title will be more questionable under '''E''' than '''B''', and which holds up to scrutiny. I don't merely say what my opinion is, I back it up with the reasons I hold that opinion. If those reasons are shown to be wrong, I'll change my opinion. So, show me. <p>Oh, as to the use of USPLACE under '''E''' to oppose certain move proposals, but IARing USPLACE under '''B''', it's because titled indicated by USPLACE under '''E''' would be consistent with that list of policies/guidelines I bulletted above, while USPLACE under '''B''' indicates titles contrary to them. --] (]) 23:41, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	====Response to TheCatalyst31====
	Objections to '''E''' keep rolling in. Consider this from TheCatalyst31:
	: ''E is far too broad considering how many settlements there are in America, and as someone who edits a lot of the smaller places I think it would be an absolute nightmare to implement. For instance, ...''

	Why an absolute nightmare to implement? The decision about which articles to move could be made objectively with this very simple algorithm.
	:<tt>FOR all cases of articles with titles '''Name, State'''
	::IF '''Name''' is a redirect to '''Name, State''' THEN
	:::MOVE '''Name, State''' → '''Name'''</tt>


	:* ''would we need to disambiguate by state if two places share the same name but one is much larger than the other?''

	Generally, '''yes''', unless one of them is the primary topic (objectively determined by whether ] redirects to it currently), in which case it would be moved to ].

	:*''How about if there are two common names for a place? ''

	A settlement with two names? Well, I don't think any such places exists, most such cases in history were probably resolved by post office designations if nothing else, but that would be just as big a problem under '''B''' as under '''E'''. I mean, if the two names are A and B, under '''B''' we still have to decide whether to use ] or ]. If we use ], and it is the primary use of "A" (] currently redirects to ]), then under '''E''' we would move the article to ].

	:*''How about if a place doesn't have an article yet?''

	I'm pretty sure that problem was fully resolved years ago. But even if one or two have been missed somehow, that's not a big problem to resolve. Every time a new book, film or TV episode is created, its name might conflict with another use on WP. We have to deal with that, including if and when that new topic becomes the primary use for its name. We could deal with a new city name or two every decade, I'm sure. That's nothing.

	:* ''How about if a place is just a neighborhood and may never have its own article?''

	Nothing changes for such a place going from '''B'' to '''E'''.

	It's doubtful such a topic would be a primary use unless it was a unique use, in which case under all options ] would redirect to the article about the city that contained that neighborhood. If it's not unique, then normal disambiguation rules would apply to the redirect(s), which would also be no different under '''E''' than the other options, so I won't go into those details.

	:''Granted, these occur to some extent within states, but there are generally fewer places within a state that share a name for various reasons. ''

	Again, in most such cases none of the uses would be primary and their titles would be unaffected. The only places that would get a title ] under '''E''' are those for which ] is a redirect to that place at ] under the current USPLACE wording, '''B'''.

	: ''Also, common usage in the US is City, State for all but the larger places, thanks to the postal service, newspapers and the like, which E doesn't reflect. ''

	There are plenty of counter-examples to that claim. ] is not a larger place, but there are plenty of RS references to it without ", California". ", California" is just a convenient and standard way to specify what state it's in, ''when that's necessary''. When it's not necessary, it's normally not included , nor should it be in a WP title.

	Also, those references, when they do specify , State, are just as likely to be ", CA", or ", Calif.". There is nothing especially common about ", California" in RS usage.

	Does that address your concerns about '''E'''? --] (]) 00:28, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	:All your sources for Chula Vista are within California, and most are local news sources from San Diego. All of the coverage is going to be from California anyway, so there's no need to specify the state. Coverage with a national or worldwide scope will at least mention California in the byline, if not the article itself, and WP should not be covering topics from a local perspective. Besides, Chula Vista is a pretty large city by US standards; the ones I'm more concerned with are the ones that have less than 10,000 people or aren't even incorporated to begin with, where nobody more than a few counties away would have any idea what state it's in. As for your last point, according to ] abbreviations are to be avoided in article titles, and CA and Calif. are abbreviations for California, so ", California" would be the common usage in all three cases.

	:Also, there are a lot more places than you think which don't have articles yet; I create a handful a day, and there are other editors that are doing the same. There are still many missing articles on census-designated places and communities with post offices. Alternate names are more of an issue than you think, too: there are communities like ] with two census-recognized names, or others with different census-recognized and post office names, or others which have a different primary name in the ] than on their post office, or others with a different primary name in the GNIS than on state highway maps, etc. It's not just a matter of in which cases "Title" redirects to "Title, State", either, because in many cases Title doesn't exist yet.

	:The other reason this would be a headache is that there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of settlements in the US, and if we change the naming convention for all of them, either we'll end up with a lot of inconsistently named articles or someone has to go through and decide individually which ones need to be moved. "Someone" is probably going to be the editors like me who actually work on the articles on smaller settlements, which means we would have to spend a lot of time moving articles for little to no benefit (and in my opinion, a detriment). This is probably doable for cities with over 100K people or that are included in other encyclopedias, but not for every settlement in America. ] <sup>]•]</sup> 01:58, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	::''All of the coverage is going to be from California anyway, so there's no need to specify the state.'' Yes, that's my point. When there is no need to specify ", State" in reliable sources, it isn't. We should follow their lead on WP, and only specify ", State" when there is a need for it: to disambiguate from other uses on WP. Providing any kind of context, like location information, is not something we generally do in our titles, ''unless it is needed'' for disambiguation. We don't supply the profession of a person in the title, unless their name is ambiguous. We don't specify the year of a film in the article title, unless there is another use of that name. We don't specify the name of a series to which a TV episode belongs in the title of an article about a TV episode, unless the name of that episode conflicts with other uses on WP. We don't specify the larger geographical area in which a place is located, unless disambiguation is needed. <p>Where, for example, is ]? I bet you don't know. I bet most people don't even know it's a place (rather than, say, a cabbage dish), much less that it's a tiny village in the Arsky District of the Republic of Tatarstan, in Russia. Yes, sure, almost nobody knows where most unincorporated US towns are. So what? Why does low notability for US places justify the use of specifying the larger geographic region in the title of the article, but it doesn't justify similar title treatment of countless other low-notability topics in WP, including myriads of similar settlements outside of the US? Why the inconsistency in title treatment? (and if the answer to this is MelanieN's argument about "city, state" being the de facto "name" of such places in the US - then say that - instead of justifying it based solely on low notability). <p>I see by your contributions you do create a lot of new articles about places. I can see why you like the convention. For example, you recently created ]. Very good. Much appreciated. But here's the thing. You screwed up, and your error was ''enabled'' by the current convention indicating you use ] without regard to other possible uses of "Annapolis Neck". As a matter of fact, in this case, there are no other uses. But under '''E''', which would require you to use "Annapolis Neck" if possible, you would have seen that, and created your article at ].<p>Do you see there error now? Yep, it's a redlink... suggesting we have no articles on WP about topics with using the name "Annapolis Neck". That's wrong, of course. Now if there happened to be another Annapolis Neck somewhere else, say in Missouri, then we'd likely end up with two articles about places named "Annapolis Neck", but still nothing at ], which clearly should be a redirect or article at this point. There are countless errors like this caused by this convention. I found this one on my first perusal of your history at random - it was the first one I checked for this problem. Sure, now that I've alerted you, you can go through your history and create all the missing redirects (or dab page entries or hatnote links), but that would be missing the point. I've written more about this in the section below as part of my latest reply to Huwmanbeing and refer you to that instead of repeating myself further.<p>''if we change the naming convention for all of them, either we'll end up with a lot of inconsistently named articles or someone has to go through and decide individually which ones need to be moved. ''. Not at all. The decision about which to move is so consistent that it follows the simple deterministic algorithm I provided above. By the way, the missing/redlink ] problem could be addressed by first looking (with a bot) for every occurrence of ] for which there is no corresponding ]. For every such redlink ] for which only a single ] exists, a redirect could be created automatically (or the article could just be moved right then). Those cases with multiple uses of ] would be flagged for manual intervention (is one a primary topic? should it be a dab page?). Finding and fixing all these problems in our namespace would be another benefit of moving to '''E'''. <p>In short, the only manual work, besides writing some bot code, involved in moving to '''E''' will be for work that should be done regardless. The rest is so deterministic it could be done automatically by bot. --] (]) 23:36, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::Annapolis Neck is now a redirect, as it probably should be, but you're oversimplifying the general case. Even if we find someone to write a bot (and good luck getting a bot approved for what is at best a controversial proposal), there are going to be exceptions, and there are going to be a lot of cases where a page is moved to a title it shouldn't be at. For instance, consider the town of ]. ] is a redirect to the town but is also the name of a fairly large lake within the town. There isn't an article about the lake, but there could be, and if there is ] should probably be a disambiguation page. Since lakes don't use the comma convention, it's fairly obvious right now which one the article's about, but if the article gets moved to ] it's less clear that people shouldn't be writing about the lake in that article. And that's not even considering the possibility of a lake called Plum Lake in another state, or something with that name that isn't a geographic feature. That and the manual intervention will take forever and, knowing how things go around here, probably result in a lot of fighting over what's a "primary topic" and what isn't.
	:::Besides, the comma convention isn't just used for disambiguation; there's something to be said for having a consistent format for article titles if the alternative means half of them will have to be disambiguated anyway (and yes, I do agree with MelanieN's reasoning behind doing this in the first place). US places are hardly the only area where this is done; take a look at mass transit station articles, which have the same problem of most of the titles overlapping with street, city or neighborhood names. (For things like TV episodes and names, disambiguation isn't needed most of the time, so this isn't necessary.) You can't claim something will be more consistent when it will result in two widely-used title formats within a region instead of one. ] <sup>]•]</sup> 01:40, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::For almost every other region in the world - not to mention almost every other article type - we use two formats: one when disambiguation is required (usually the comma convention for place articles) and just the concise common name of the topic when it isn't. If we adopt '''E''' it will be more consistent with that. That's an indisputable fact.<p>The ] problem is solved in other regions. For example, ] ("see" means "sea" or "lake") is a lake in Germany with a town on its shore of the same name. The town is disambiguated, ], while many of the other 804 cities and towns in Baden-Württemberg are not. See ]. It's not a problem for Germanplaces (among many, many other countries); why do you imagine it would be a problem for US places? --] (]) 01:58, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::Aside from Place, State being the common name in America, America is going to have a lot more places with shared names than Germany has, thanks to common surnames and places named for English words. For instance, in the Baden-Wurttemberg category you linked, it looks like only a handful of places need disambiguation, probably about the same proportion of American places that need disambiguation by county within a state. Now consider an American category, ]. I see Alderson, Alta, Anthony, Asbury, Auto, Bingham, Bowes, Brantville, Burdette, Caldwell, Clintonville, Cobb, Cordova, Cornstalk, Crag, Crichton, Dawson, Dennis, Dickson, Droop Mountain, Duo, Farmdale, Frankford, Frazier, Gardner, Golden, Half Way, Henning, Hickory Grove, Hines, Hopper, Julia, Keister, Kessler, Kieffer, Lawn, Leonard, Leslie, Lewisburg, Lile, Loveridge, Maxwelton, Modoc, Morlunda, Neola, North Bend, North Caldwell, Nutterville, Organ Cave, Oscar, Palestine, Patton, Richlands, Rorer, Rupert, Sam Black Church, Sims, Smoot, Snowflake, Spring Creek, Sue, Sunlight, Teaberry, Trainer, Trout, Tuckahoe, Unus, Vago, Vale, White Sulphur Springs, Williamsburg, and Woodman; all of these would need state disambiguation, and they make up over 60% of settlements in the county. If the majority of places are going to still need the state name anyway, it makes more sense to be consistent and leave the state in all of them. As an aside, while checking all of those places I found a few where Place didn't exist but needed to be a disambiguation page, which is the sort of thing a bot wouldn't handle well at all. ] <sup>]•]</sup> 05:46, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::''" If the majority of places are going to still need the state name anyway, it makes more sense to be consistent and leave the state in all of them"''. That's an opinion. I disagree. My opinion is that it makes better sense, for a variety of reasons previously explained, including to avoid the '''B''' problem of not paying attention to what happens to ], to ''disambiguate only when necessary'', even if only a minority remain undisambiguated.<p> As to the case where Place didn't exist (not surprised - this is a predictable artifact of '''B''', as I explained above), I already explained how the bot would handle this. When there is more than one article named "Place, ''State''", and no article named "Place", "Place" would be ''flagged'' as needing manual attention. Alternatively, any missing "Place" could be so flagged. Either way, it would help us fix all those problems. --] (]) 16:50, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::::<small>From the gallery: Since contributions were mentioned by both editors it seems worth adding that TheCatalyst31 has 66.58% of edits in article space, I take my cap off. As regards ], I struggle to see any reason why an User worldwide would not find "Maryland" in the title helpful - in addition to it following US style rather than Russian style. ] (]) 01:23, 9 November 2012 (UTC)</small>

	====Scope/definition concerns====
	I see that the ] naming convention applies broadly to all "settlements in the United States", with particular cities being exempted only in terms of the ] list. However, the options presented above in this RfC explicitly refer to "all U.S. cities".

	That raises an important question: '''what qualifies as a city?''' It's not clear-cut, as the ] notes:

	<blockquote>In the United States of America, the classification of population centers is a matter of state law; consequently, the definition of a city varies widely from state to state. In some states, a city may be run by an elected mayor and city council, while a town is governed by the people, a select board (or board of trustees), or open town meeting. There are some very large municipalities that are labeled as towns (such as Hempstead, New York, with a population of 755,785 in 2004 or Cary, North Carolina with a population of 112,414 in 2006) and some very small cities (such as Woodland Mills, Tennessee, with a population of 296 in 2000), and the line between town and city, if it exists at all, varies from state to state.</blockquote>

	This means that applying an option like E (which specifically addresses "all U.S. cities") would be extremely problematic and likely fraught with confusion and disputes about what particular subjects the convention does or does not apply to.

	Alternatively, if the scope of the RfC is such as to overturn the current USPLACE convention in its entirety (for ''all'' settlements and not just cities), then that needs to be made clear. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 18:20, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:There is no intent to change scope. Whatever article falls under USPLACE today using '''B''' (all articles about US settlements) would also fall under '''E''', if '''E''' were adopted. For example, ] is not a city, but an unincorporated settlement in San Diego County, and is the primary topic for ]. Under '''E''', this article would be moved to ]. Why this would be "extremely problematic and likely fraught with confusion and disputes" is beyond me. The algorithm is trivial:
	::FOR all cases of articles with titles ]
	:::IF ] is a redirect to ] THEN
	:::: MOVE ] → ].
	: It's really not a big deal. --] (]) 19:00, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	::You can't see that this is in fact a formula for dispute? Really? Having read everything that has been said against it thus far? It is a big deal. Leave the guideline as it is; it works fine. ] (]) 19:02, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::I have read all of it, very carefully. Have you? I have asked repeatedly for examples of cities that would be disputed if '''E''' was adopted. The only ones provide are two by Melanie, and I've explained why they wouldn't be under dispute, twice. No one has pointed out anything wrong with my explanation. If there is anything wrong with it, I would like to know what it is. If there isn't, I still want to know why people are so sure there would be disputes if they can't even provide a single example that holds up to a little scrutiny. --] (]) 19:16, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	::Born2cycle: Your example doesn't make sense. Option E (as stated in this RfC) applies to "U.S. cities". Fallbrook is (as you say) not a city, and so therefor would not be subject to E as it's currently stated.
	::Your explanation is also rather confusing I'm afraid. The only articles that currently "fall under USPLACE today using B" (B being the option to exempt only those cities on the AP list) are those 30 cities on the AP list. That being the case, applying the E convention to them doesn't yield any change, since those cities are already exempted from the ''City, State'' requirement by dint of USPLACE.
	::The current convention's extremely easy; this new proposal seems about as confusing as one can imagine... ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 19:29, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::You're not understanding. First, I just boldly added the following clarifying note to the top of the RFC:
	::::NOTE: Use of the term "city" in this RfC is synonymous with "settlement" as used in the current USPLACE wording. That is, "city" refers to any US settlement that has an article in WP with either title or redirect of the form ].
	:::If that is not the proposer's intent, he can remove it. But, again, I'm sure it is. <p>Second, it is not true that "The only articles that currently 'fall under USPLACE today using B' ... are those 30 cities on the AP list". As B itself states, "this is the current convention". The current convention is what USPLACE states today, and what USPLACE states today is that it applies to all settlements in the US. Also, the first sentence in B refers to cities on the AP list. The second sentence applies to all others, "Otherwise use ]. ". <p>I have added a parenthetic clarification to my explanation above.<p>What is being proposed for '''E''' is to title US <s>city</s> settlement articles like any other article on WP:
	::::If the US settlement is the primary topic for its name, use ], otherwise use ].
	:::What is confusing about that? Can you identify even a single article whose title might be in question under this rule? --] (]) 20:04, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	::::Yes, I see and have reverted that change. Please note that it's highly inappropriate to go back and deliberately alter the central subject of an RfC (particularly someone else's) after it's been opened and received significant comment. The explicit subject of this RfC is naming convention for '''cities'''; it cannot now be retroactively changed to '''all settlements'''. You are, however, free to open a new RfC of your own on that subject. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 20:13, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::Much of the wording in the RfC, including clarifying that '''B''' is the current convention, suggests your interpretation, insisting on the formal/official definition of "city", makes no sense. How can '''B''' be the current convention if it applies only to cities, or only to cities on the AP list as you said above, since the current convention applies to all US settlements? <p> All references to "city" in the RfC are obviously informal, and clearly apply to unincorporated settlements as well as to officially incorporated municipalities. --] (]) 20:20, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	:::::Your ignoring my question above, asking if you can identify even a single article whose title might be in question under "If the US settlement is the primary topic for its name, use ], otherwise use ]", challenges my ability to continue assuming good faith here. I mean, if you still really believe '''E''' to be confusing and likely to lead to disagreements, then show us some examples. If you don't, then please agree to stop making spurious claims about '''E''' being confusing or leading to disagreements. If you refuse to do either, then I really don't see how you could be working in good faith. --] (]) 20:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	::::::I see you've hidden this subsection and closed it as "do not modify" (while it was ongoing and before I could respond); however, since your edit summary said merely that it was for "clutter reduction" I'm assuming you won't mind if I reopen this in order to keep my response logically grouped with its related predecessors.

	::::::Once again, you're entirely welcome to your opinion that "cities" and "settlements" are interchangeable terms; however, that's not my opinion, and it's wrong to assume the opinions of others on that matter. "All cities" is very different from "all settlements"; I for one understand that difference and posted accordingly based on the clearly-worded RfC, so it's honestly too late to move that goalpost within this RfC (though as I pointed out before, you're entirely welcome to open your own request on ''all'' settlements if you wish).

	::::::As for your questions, I'd be happy to try to address them, though given your loud and repeated assertions that opposing viewpoints lack merit (or indeed have never even been voiced), as well as ready accusations of bad faith on the part of others, I fear that further discussion along these lines may be less than fruitful. However, since you specifically ask what's confusing, I can say that a large area of confusion now is the fact that the RfC and its proposed options explicitly addressed city names, whereas you seemingly are addressing the names of all settlements in the US. If we can't even agree on what we're discussing, that's obviously a pretty sizable point of confusion.

	::::::As for your repeated demands for "a single article" that might be in question under E, there would be many... and this is because the rule (as clearly stated in E) applies to "all U.S. '''cities'''", and the definition of what constitutes a city is a murky one that varies considerably from state to state.

	::::::Still... even if we ''do'' accept that E should indeed be applied to all settlements (which I certainly do not), that would itself still be confusing since it would be to do away with a convention based on consistency/predictability of form and replace it with one based solely on uniqueness of geographic name. Consider: a user is creating an article for a (hypothetical) town in Arkansas named Appletown. How should it be named? The current convention provides a simple answer: "Appletown, Arkansas". That this is so is very easily understood: the rule is that a settlement always has the state name attached, unless it's on AP's list of 30.

	::::::Under the new convention you'd have no idea how to name the city without doing further research of your own to determine if there are other settlements named Appletown somewhere in the US. And what official resource should one use to determine this? What if one resource recognizes a settlement but another one doesn't? How does one then choose the proper article name? Further still, the result of the application of this convention might be an article on Appletown named "Appletown, Arkansas", while the article on its identical next-door neighbor Appleburg might simply be named "Appleburg" -- an odd difference for similar settlements based solely on the possible differences in uniqueness of the two names, a property not at all obvious to casual readers and quite possibly not even to editors. '''Such inconsistency and unpredictability of name would, I feel, be harmful; the current convention is far simpler and more consistent, predictable, and desirable.'''

	::::::I could go on. You may not agree with my opinions on the matter, but I ask you to respect them and not merely shout them down or deny their existence. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 01:57, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

	:::::::I understand and respect your opinion. I wouldn't take the time to respond in detail as I am if I didn't.<p> I'm not shutting down anything. There seemed to be consensus building that the side discussion about city/settlement semantics was relatively unimportant, so I hat closed it. You obviously had more to say, and I'm glad you did, and reopened it accordingly. That's fine with me. I hope it is with you too.<p>Context matters. Many terms are like ''city''; they have broad and narrow connotations depending on context. I certainly agree that in many formal contexts ''city'' and ''settlement'' have different meanings, where ''city'' refers to only to incorporated municipalities with some kind of government (mayor, council, etc.), while ''settlement'' includes unincorporated named places as well as cities. But in other less formal contexts the terms are used interchangeably, a city has the broader connotation too. Frankly, I think this RfC has a lot of problems, and not being clear on this point is just a minor one. I think it's a minor one because I see no reason to believe the narrow/formal definition of ''city'' was intended.<p>Anyway, you say that under '''E''' ''"you'd have no idea how to name the city without doing further research of your own to determine if there are other settlements named Appletown somewhere in the US"''. Not quite. Your only concern should be with what other uses of "Appletown" are already on WP, and '''E''' does require you to do ''that'' research. But that's a ''very good thing''. Let me explain.
	:::::::# Under '''B''' (current USPLACE) and its variants (A, C, D) that research that you apparently wish/hope to avoid '''must be done anyway'''. Indicating a fixed ] format for the title does not alleviate the article creator from the responsibility to find out if there are other uses of that title. Why? To handle any redirect and dab page issues. Regardless of the convention for the article title, the creator must see what is currently at ]. Does it exist? If not, it needs to be a redirect to ]. If it does exist, is it an article, redirect or a dab page? If it's a dab page, an entry for your new article should probably be added. If it's an article or redirect, ] needs to be considered. Should the title of the existing article or redirect at ] be disambigated and a dab page created there? Or is adding a hat note link to the top of that article enough? The ] convention for the title doesn't, or shouldn't, alleviate the creator from going through any of this research. But it does (see #3).
	:::::::#Compared to all the research and decision-making you have to do under ''B'' (or any of the others) anyway (see #1), the additional part added by '''E''' to decide whether to use ] or ] for the title of the new article is relatively insignificant.
	:::::::#The '''problem''' with any convention to default to using ] is that it makes it easy for new article creators to fail to do the research and decision-making they're supposed to do (see #1). They can just merrily create the new article at ] and easily not give another thought to the ramifications of that creation on other uses of ] in WP, resulting in problems like missing redirects, missing dab page entries, missing hat links, articles with undisambiguated titles that should be disambiguated, etc. All cleanup work that somebody else has to discover and fix. For example, I've seen cases where ] has existed for years, while ] remained a redlink all that time. That's a bad thing, don't you think?
	:::::::#In contrast, by putting the decision of whether to use ] or ] as the new title on the article creator, '''E''' inherently requires the creator to do the necessary research on the usage of "Appletown" within WP. That's a good thing, don't you think?
	:::::::#A closely related issue is summarized at CON #5 under Position 1 at ], but I'll explain it here:
	:::::::#:If USPLACE dictates <nowiki>]</nowiki> for a given city or other named settlement, then that place's relative importance is diminished in determining the primary topic for <nowiki>]</nowiki>, so another use is likely to be found primary for that name, rather than making it a dab page (e.g., ] is about the English city, not a dab page, despite how prominent the Cambridge in Massachusetts is). To many, an article being at a title other than its concise name per a guideline like USPLACE is giving up consideration for that topic in determining the primary topic for the concise name. That is, because USPLACE requires the Mass. city to be at ], and couldn't be at ] even if there were no other uses for "Cambridge" in WP, many argue that its use of "Cambridge" is irrelevant in deciding whether another use of it, that is not prevented from using ] as a title, is the primary topic. And so, all the US uses of "Cambridge" listed at ] are summarily dismissed, all because of the current USPLACE guideline.
	:::::::In summary, the "burden" that '''E''' seems to put on the creator by requiring him to choose between ] and ] as a title is insignificant because it's work the creator should be doing anyway, and it forces him to do it. If that results in a title of ] even though there is another Appletown not yet covered on WP, so be it. When that article is ready to be created, the first Appletown will be found as part of (1), and dealt with accordingly. Maybe one or the other is the primary topic. Maybe both will required disambiguation. Either way, '''E''' will require the right people at the right times to deal with the situation and get it right. The other options make it easy for them to miss all that. I see only an upside here, and no downside. Am I missing something? --] (]) 22:50, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::::The policy still doesn't actually require anybody to deal with the situation, and we will probably end up with a very inconsistently applied naming convention which new editors will either ignore or fail to understand. It seems unlikely that the same editors which leave Title as a redlink after creating Title, State (and I'm guilty of this myself) are going to suddenly mobilize to assess and possibly move every single article on a US city, and when many of the articles will still include the state name anyway, new editors aren't necessarily going to catch on to the new convention. This means that we end up with a lot of the same problems we already had, except now a bunch of articles are violating a naming convention and editors like me are going to get stuck moving pages instead of writing articles to straighten the mess out. It would be nice if people always did the research with this kind of thing, but in practice that will never happen. ] <sup>]•]</sup> 23:52, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::::Again, why do you (and many others) think US place articles are different? What I'm talking about here is something that happens automatically for almost every article created, because it's ''natural''. If you're creating an article for a topic named ''Appletown'', if it wasn't for the ] convention, you would naturally check ] first. If it's a dab page, the fact of your new article missing on it is almost certainly enough to get you to edit it and add an entry on it. If it's an existing article, it practically forces you to think about whether you need to move/disambiguate the existing article to make room for a dab page (or your new article if you think its topic is primary for this name), or just add a hatlink to this one. This is all SOP and natural for every article creation on WP, including the creation of place articles for most places outside of the US, and has been since the dawn of WP. And it has worked remarkably well, so far as I know.<p>What makes you think it would fail for US place articles in particular? --] (]) 00:22, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::::::First of all, you can't say "if it wasn't for the Place, State convention, you would naturally check Appletown first" when that convention predates Misplaced Pages (as MelanieN pointed out). Second of all, since it's our example, let's look at ] for a second. According to the ], there is one Appletown in the US, ]; Appletown is also a variant name for ]. Let's say I want to write an article on the place in Maryland; under E, what do I call the article? Does it matter that Clarksville is incorporated and Appletown, Maryland isn't, or that Clarksville's population is only 442? How about that the source for the variant name dates from 1933, and may be a historical name? Do I need to research the extent to which Appletown was/is used as a name for Clarksville, Missouri, which may not even be available online, all to write an article about Maryland? The current convention says we just put the article at Appletown, Maryland, and we're done; we can add a redirect, or a hatnote, or a disambiguation page if we feel we need to, or someone who knows Missouri geography can come along and do it later. That seems much less complicated to me, and I'm sure it would to new editors too; we don't want to drive the newbies off by making them understand a complicated title convention before they can write articles. ] <sup>]•]</sup> 01:54, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::::::Right. One simply names Appletown, Maryland's article "Appletown, Maryland". If at some point an Appletown popups up in Missouri, you simply title it "Appletown, Missouri". Easy as apple pie. :) ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 02:45, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

	::::::::B2C: Regarding your initial point on research, not so: research ''particular'' to USPLACE by dint of B (the current convention) to determine the appropriate name for a new settlement article is essentially nil, because the convention applies the comma convention across the board to all US settlements. The only exceptions where state is ''not'' to be appended are those few cities on the AP list, for which articles were all already created long ago.

	::::::::You are correct that there is always work that must be done when setting up ''any'' new article, but that's not work generated by the "comma convention" -- it's simply part of responsible article creation in general, and so doesn't bear on the relative merits of the two approaches. '''However''', your point about renaming is certainly relevant: a US settlement article created under the existing comma convention is named once and remains so named, but an article created under the E convention might well be named one way initially based on the demands of minimum disambiguation (e.g., "Appletown"), then later have to be moved to a new name (e.g., "Appletown, Arkansas") if an article for a second similarly-named settlement is subsequently created ("Appletown, Missouri", say). The current convention makes such shuffling unnecessary.

	::::::::As for your question about what you're missing, the answer is the other objections raised both by myself and others, which you by and large do not address. For instance, consistency and usability were concerns I cited in the Appletown/Appleburg example above: the current convention would apply the same consistent method of naming to the articles for both settlements: "Appletown, Arkansas" and "Appleburg, Arkansas"; the E convention, however, would potentially require the articles to be named "Appletown, Arkansas" and "Appleburg" (no state) based on the uniqueness of the two names within the US, a situation that while possibly satisfying to the rule of minimum disambiguation does not in my opinion serve the average reader who likely will neither care about nor understand such specialist considerations, and instead be puzzled by why WP's geographic articles have become so inconsistently named. Such inconsistency of title would also be at odds with much common usage. (In the interests of brevity I won't delve into the various other concerns people have raised, including TheCatalyst's point above about the effort required to reevaluate and correct the naming for every settlement in the nation...)

	::::::::Finally, you wonder why some editors think US place articles are different. If you mean "why are US place article titles treated differently than WP articles in general", it's because they ''are'' different. WP recognizes that it may be appropriate for articles on certain classes of subject to follow their own particular naming conventions that vary from the broad norm; for instance, ] links to various lists that provide detailed guidance for special "naming conventions applicable to certain subject areas". ] recognizes that the names of geographic subjects in particular frequently come in varied forms which are appropriate to consider when it comes to determination of title. And ] teaches that conformance to a rule (such as minimum disambiguation) simply because it's a rule isn't necessarily proper. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 02:39, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

	====Why should the US be different from other countries?====
	'''U.S.''' Why is this only being discussed about American metropolitan entities? Why would we follow a different style for Canada or Mali? It's frankly maddening that there isn't consistency about this throughout the project and it seems like balkanizing one convention just for the States is a bad idea. —]<span style="color:red">❤]☮]☺]☯</span> 06:50, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

	: Understood and agree. Only option '''E''' offers a solution that is not US specific, and would create a precedent that can be used for other countries. --] (]) 07:24, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

	::That's a valid question and one that hasn't yet been fully addressed. There actually is a policy-based reason for treating US cities differently from the rest of the world: namely, that <nowiki>]</nowiki> is a legitimate ] - similar to the ], vocabulary and grammar between British, Canadian, and American versions of English. <nowiki>]</nowiki> is the way we name cities in the U.S., both in writing (as proven by the Reliable Source usage cited in options B and C) and in everyday conversation. We do this even when the name is unique; we do it even if the city is fairly well known. We omit the state only if the city is local to both us and the person we are speaking to. If I tell someone I am from Boise, the person will almost always reply, "Boise, Idaho?" We do this partly because this is such a big country and so many cities have similar names, but it goes deeper than that: we do it because the states are fundamental to our thinking. The states are not just a convenient political subdivision here; they pre-existed the country, they have their own history, and they have a significant degree of self government. Even the name of our country reflects the centrality of states in our thinking. This may not be true in other countries; fine, we are not asking them to do it our way. But it is the way we think here, and it is the way we name cities here, and it should be allowed just as the spellings "criticize" and "honor" are allowed. Misplaced Pages explicitly allows for these regional variations and does NOT require encyclopedia-wide consistency to overrule the fact that different communities may do things differently. --] (]) 18:21, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::Who is we exactly? There are plenty of cities where we don't disambiguate by adding the state name. '''] ]''' 16:57, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::Yes, and they are dealt with in options B and C. --] (]) 17:03, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::At best, the notion that ] is a common name for a US place is an argument for saying that ] is ''also'' a ''name'' of ]. It doesn't explain why ] should be favored over the clearly ] ] as a title in those cases where the place in question is the primary topic for ]. <p>But this notion fails the "What is the name?" test. While it is true that people often answer in the ] form when you ask them ''where'' they are from, if you ask them, ''What is the ''name'' of the city you are from?'', they are more likely to say just ]. And not only that, but if the state is already known, it's almost certainly unspecified, strongly suggesting it's not part of the name, but is just additional contextual information specified only when necessary. One of the most widely followed conventions on WP is that additional contextual information is necessary and included in a title only for disambiguation. --] (]) 00:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

	::::You seem to be saying that if there's a conversational absence of the state in cases where the state has already been specified or understood from context, that it "strongly suggests" that the state must therefor not be part of the name. That doesn't make sense. After all, once it's established that I'm talking about Tennessee politician ], I can simply refer to him as "Estes"... but that doesn't mean that "Kefauver" is mere "contextual information specified only when necessary". (It raises an interesting corollary, though: would you contend that any notable individual with a unique first name should have an article titled using ''only their first name'', since appending the surname too would constitute unnecessary disambiguation?)

	::::I'd also suggest it's mere opinion that people are "more likely to say just Placename" when asked the name of their home city/town/settlement; as above, this will likely depend on the context. One may omit the state when it's known (just as one may omit a person's surname when it's known), but I don't think it's likely you'd do that otherwise. Speaking personally, I'd likely answer in the form of "Appletown, Arkansas", unless I was speaking to other Arkansans. By the same token, if asked what someone's name is, I might very well just say "Jane", but that wouldn't mean the person is not in fact named "Jane Doe". ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 11:14, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::Huwmanbeing, much if not most of what you're talking/asking about is addressed at ], including the issue about using just the first name of people best known by first name only. The example of ] is even given there. It would be really helpful if you became familiar with all those arguments so that we didn't have to start from scratch here. If you have any questions about them, I'd be happy to talk about that. <p>Also, please remember this section is specifically about Melanie's specific argument - and that my comments are specifically targetted at refuting that argument, and only that argument. Please do not interpret my response in this section as a full blown general argument favoring '''E''' over '''A/B'''. There is much more to it, as summarized in the section I just linked. --] (]) 16:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

	:::::::B2C: Not only does your response not answer my question, but the example you cite in the "pros and cons" list is wrong and should be amended. It asserts that whenever people are the primary topic of a concise name, Misplaced Pages uses that name for the article title, '''but this is not so'''. Quoting ]: "Don't use a first name (even if unambiguous) for an article title if the last name is known and fairly often used. For example, ] is the article title, and ] redirects there. ''Only if the single name is used as a true artist's name'' (stage name, pseudonym, etc.) can the recommendations of nicknames, pen names, stage names, cognomens below be followed." It would be really helpful if you became familiar with such conventions so we don't have to start here from scratch. :-)

	:::::::As for ] herself, that example is a red herring: Cher isn't merely best known as Cher -- it's her full, legal name. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 22:18, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

	*To get back to answering the initial question in this subsection "Why should the US be different from other countries?" the answer is "Because the U.S. is not other countries". The U.S. is not France, so the conventions for naming places within the U.S. are different than France. The U.S. is not Russia, so the conventions for naming places within the U.S. are different than Russia. We can repeat this exercise ad nauseum. The reason why people, ''particularly U.S. residents'' (though not 100%) are so overwhelmingly in favor using the "City, State" standard while non-U.S. residents (though not 100%) are more in favor of reducing it to just "City" is an ] issue. In the U.S. people most frequently consider the name of the state an integral part of the name, and not just a simple disambiguator only used when confusion arises. Not wanting people in the U.S. to think this way about how they name places doesn't make it go away. It is the reality of how it works in the U.S., and wishing it away just so that we can make Misplaced Pages more internally consistent doesn't make it stop happening. The "City, State" usage in the U.S. is common, ubiquitous, and universal within the U.S., even if it is unusual in other countries. The reason "Why should the US be different from other countries?" is that the U.S. just is different in this regard. You aren't going to change the culture and geographic linguistics of the U.S. merely because you don't like it, and Misplaced Pages needs to reflect existing reality, not some ideal of uniformity that doesn't exist. --]''''']''''' 20:48, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

	*My comment toward the end of the voting section addresses this issue. I don't think that it's really as special as everyone makes it out to be and anyway there is a difference between different countries and the amount of significance they attribute to subnational entities. ] ] 11:36, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

	====Is this RFC about Born2cycle?====
	, Born2cycle has made more posts here than the next <s>two</s> THREE most active participants combined, as he usually does in move-related disputes. What would it be like to actually be able to get comments from others in a Request For Comments, instead of having the discussion dominated by the same one voice as always? ] (]) 20:37, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	:The current problem I'm dealing with from Born2cycle is that he's now twice tried to go back and amend the original request after-the-fact. The RfC is very explicitly about naming conventions for '''cities''', but he's attempting to alter it to instead cover all '''settlements''' (which is ''very'' different both in nature and scope). This strikes me as highly inappropriate (particularly since it isn't even his own RfC); it's akin to asking a poll question, then going back and changing the question after the respondents have answered... ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 20:43, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	::I see that as only a minor distraction; but it does amp up the noise. ] (]) 20:46, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::Are you saying you agree with Huwmanbeing that the use of "city" in the RfC refers specifically to incorporated municipalities and ''not'' to unincorporated settlements? How do you explain equating '''B''' with the current convention given that absurd interpretation? Why don't you have the integrity to just say you agree with me on this? It's this kind of b.s. that stretches out the discussions. And yeah, much of that is me pointing out the b.s., and why it is b.s. But blaming it on me is ridiculous. Every discussion is going to have one person who is the most active. --] (]) 21:28, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::I probably agree with you on settlements, but I haven't really studied the issue yet; I think it's a distractor. And I don't think you needed to jump in and deal with it by changing the RFC and making a big issue of it. Especially since E is going down in flames and we're not changing USPLACE, based on my computerized forecast... ] (]) 23:04, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	:When all else fails, start questioning the guy who cares? Yay strategy!<br />But here's a thought: perhaps if the participants approached this RfC from the standpoint of logical reasoning and answered B2C's inconvenient questions directly and to the point, then perhaps the whole thing would have been so much shorter? From what I'm seeing, there is nothing logical about such "reasoning" as "that variant will create problems, I'm sure, just don't ask me why" or "this variant worked for ages and causes no problems la-la-la-la don't hear you". If there's anything that amps up the noise, it's repeating the same old points over and over without addressing the question. Sadly, this picture is all too familiar in processes such as this one...—] • (]); November 6, 2012; 21:20 (UTC)
	::"The guy who cares"? Who do you mean? I would venture to guess that most or all of us here care, or we wouldn't bother to comment. It is B2C that has just essentially accused someone with whom he disagrees of having bad faith. We attempt to answer his questions, but he seems determined not to be answered. ] (]) 21:27, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::Expressing a JDLI opinion is not addressing anything. It is ] to retain the status quo. --] (]) 21:29, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::Concur with that. Note that I'm not nearly as involved as B2C in the matters of article titling, yet the "answers" to his questions some people gave so far leave me shaking my head in disbelief. When reasoning is being refuted, it hardly benefits the discussion to repeat it over and over again in hopes the other side simply goes away, yet a good number of the threads above consists of nothing but such tactics.—] • (]); November 6, 2012; 21:42 (UTC)
	:::::When it comes to "repeating it over and over", I would have to say that B2C is the one who has done that throughout this discussion. Despite being provided with answers to his questions, he repeatedly claims they have not been answered. As to the request for specific examples where titling would be a problem, that's not the basis of my objection. It's much broader than that. The system we have now is best, based on clarity, consistency, ease of use (both for editors and readers), common usage, and so on. To replace it with option E would be to add needless complexity, of the type that Huwmanbeing and TheCatalyst have recently described. Yes, all of the options can all be stated briefly in principle; but while options A and B are extremely simple in practice, the practical outcome of option E is needless complexity. This is the primary basis for my objection. As has been stated by other: if it's not broken, don't fix it. ] (]) 02:23, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::Then how on Earth does the rest of Misplaced Pages manage, I wonder? The simple fact is that it is the USPLACENAME that is out of step with the overwhelming majority of article titles in Misplaced Pages. No one has shown a single reason why US cities need to be treated any differently to all other cities all round the world, not to mention all the other articles in the encyclopaedia that somehow struggle on without the assistance of a list on AP. They manage just fine. Asking for a continuance of the current guideline is special pleading unless someone can come up with a substantive reason why cities in the USA are so very different from all other places that they need special treatment. - ] ] 03:14, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::Nick, you said this before, and you were answered before, please scroll up. ] (]) 03:35, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::::Answers that do not address the point are not actually answers. - ] ] 07:33, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::::Nick, to illustrate the second of the two answers that you do not accept address your point:
	:::::::::* '''UniquenameTown A''', 4,000 population, occurs 5% of GB entries alone i.e.
	:::::::::* '''UniquenameTown B''', 4,000 population, occurs 55% of GB entries alone i.e.
	:::::::::Do you see a difference between these two examples? ] (]) 09:20, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::::::As I said, answers that don't address the point aren't really answers. How on earth do you think your "example" even begins to address the question of why articles about US places need to be treated differently from articles about all other places, never mind when compared to articles of subjects on Misplaced Pages generally. - ] ] 10:11, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::::::Nick Thorne, I believe In Ictu Oculi may be referring to DickLyon's response to the same question in ], way back on 26 October. ] (]) 13:43, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

	LOL! ] --] (]) 21:36, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	:::::::Nick Thorne: It sounds like your objection is that the USPLACE article title policy differs in some ways from the basic broad standard of naming WP articles, but I don't see why that's a problem. Different kinds of things ''are'' sometimes commonly named in different ways, which is why it's appropriate to have conventions that recognize that. ] itself clearly recognizes that one size does not necessarily fit all, linking to numerous lists that provide detailed guidance for special "naming conventions applicable to certain subject areas". That said, one obviously must be mindful of all WP policies and guidelines, but at the same time ] dictates that following ] is not in itself sufficient to automatically trump other valid considerations.

	:::::::To quote ], "our article title policy provides that article titles should be chosen for the general reader, not for specialists." As I and others have asserted, the broad and consistent "comma convention" (as USPLACE calls it) seems best for the general reader, who may not understand or appreciate the alternative of a sometimes-state/sometimes-not-state approach dictated by a reliance solely on the specialized concern of minimum disambiguation.

	:::::::B2C: It's disingenuous to dismiss others' opinions as mere IJDL and "stonewalling to retain the status quo" when valid concerns have indeed been clearly and repeatedly raised. You obviously needn't agree with others' opinions, but do please try to respect them and assume good faith. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 11:40, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::::We agree that would be disingenuous. But I didn't do that. Sorry that's how you interpreted it. --] (]) 00:50, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::::Of course you did. ] (]) 01:10, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::::::That's an accusation. Please back it up with evidence, or retract. For evidence, please at least cite the ''specific'' opinions consisting of ''"valid concerns that have been clearly and repeatedly raised"'' that you believe I have dismissed as "mere IJDL and "stonewalling to retain the status quo". --] (]) 01:34, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::::::B2C: Your words in direct response to Omnedon: "''Expressing a JDLI opinion is not addressing anything. It is WP:Stonewalling to retain the status quo.''" Also in direct response to Omnedon: "''they are all mostly expressions of jdli opinion.''" When you make claims of JDLI and stonewalling, it's reasonable to assume you mean JDLI and stonewalling. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 01:47, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::::::::I'm not denying saying that about JDLI stonewalling opinions. I'm denying that I dismissed any opinions expressing valid concerns. If you think there are such opinions that I dismissed, please specify those opinions. If you can't, please retract the accusation. --] (]) 07:05, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::::::::::You're not making sense. Describing others' points as mere "JDLI" and "stonewalling" is clearly dismissive, so how is it that you admit saying it yet demand a retraction when someone points out that you said it?
	::::::::::::::Let me put it this way: if you wish to work constructively with other editors, you shouldn't slight their opinions, nor should you complain if you ''do'' slight them and they protest. Valid opinions contrary to your own have indeed been voiced; please accept that. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 11:31, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::::::::::B2C, I have explained my objection to option E. It is based on a comparison with options A and B, and their benefits over E: simplicity, clarity, consistency, et cetera. It's all been described. You don't have to like my views; but you don't have the right to apply terms like JDLI and stonewalling to things you don't like, then demand a retraction when this is questioned. You clearly have dismissed my views on that basis. Likewise, you don't have the right to present an ultimatum in which either another editor falls in line with your demands, or else you will assume bad faith. Your accusations form a barrier to discussion. There are varying strongly-held views on this subject, as is indicated here. If anything, your behavior is polarizing, not helping, the discussion. ] (]) 13:33, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::::::::::::Huwmanbeing, I admit to characterizing and dismissing certain opinions that disagreed with my own as being JDLI and stonewalling. But this talk page is also chock full of my taking seriously a variety of opinions that disagreed with mine, and me responding to them accordingly. So I take your accusations to heart. What I'm denying is characterizing as JDLI/stonewalling and dismissing any opinion based on valid concerns. If I'm wrong about that I'd really like to know, because I would really really hate to have done that. That's why I'm asking for ''specific examples'' of any such opinions that you believe I so dismissed. I mean, if you really think I did it, it should be trivial to point out: "X said Y and that's expressing a valid concern because of Z. Yet you referred to it as JDLI and dismissed it when you said ''abc''". Something like that. If you can't find anything like that, then what on earth are you talking about? <p> Omnedon, once again I've reviewed all your comments on this talk page, starting with 17:41 2 Nov in the section about counties, which is not even part of this RfC. Your response to the RfC included subjective opinion like "status quo works", without acknowledging much less addressing all the arguments on this page to the contrary, the subjection opinion that '''E''' would not lead to a final resolution despite the "claims" to the contrary, ignoring the ''explanations'' to the contrary, and the unsubstantiated claim that "E would lead to many needless debates". My response linked to a section where I asked everyone who made this claim to explain this claim. You have not done this. Your first response (Nov 6 6:42) there does nothing to explain how '''E''' would lead to any, much less many, needless debates. Simply asserting that '''E''' will generate conflicts, is simply that: a baseless assertion. It's not an opinion based on valid concerns. It explains nothing. But I still didn't dismiss it, as my lengthy explanation and response on Nov 6 18:41 demonstrates. Your response to my comment, at 19:00, however, was dismissive, as all you did was restate your (still unsubstantiated) opinion, and addressed nothing in what I explained. Then you had the gall to say you repeatedly addressed my points? WHERE? Please identify the posts with date/time stamp. I cannot find them!<p>If you think there was a valid point you made that I characterized and dismissed as being JDLI/stonewalling, <u>please identify it</u>. Otherwise, please stop making these spurious accusations. --] (]) 16:33, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	:B2C, you may read what is written, but you clearly do not comprehend. I have explained why I feel A or B is superior to E. I have given my view and provided my reasoning. Many other editors have done the same. Option E does not have, and is extremely unlikely to receive, consensus support. Please stop attacking other editors, dismissing their views, assuming bad faith, making demands, and the like. ] (]) 16:53, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	::...and I've just won a bet with myself that a response to B2C will not include a diff with date/time stamp. That's a cookie for me!—] • (]); November 8, 2012; 17:13 (UTC)
	:::Ezhiki, I am not required to provide diffs or timestamps just because another editor demands them. My statements and arguments are present on this page. How does his kind of behavior, or yours, help anything? ] (]) 17:18, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::I'm just saying that I can't find any substantiated arguments either; only opinions, assertions without proof or examples, and their repetition. And while you are, of course, not ''required'' to give any diffs, having them would sure be helpful. Just in case B2C and me overlooked them, you know. How else do you expect him to shut up? Cheers,—] • (]); November 8, 2012; 17:29 (UTC)
	:::::You have your opinion, B2C has his, I have mine. We are all dealing with opinions here. That I have not provided detailed examples doesn't invalidate mine; as I have stated before, it is a general objection to changing from a functional, clear, simple, consistent, uncomplcated system which is in line with the subject at hand, to a system which is very complex in practice. Many other editors have expressed the same concern. That I can state my objection in a few words instead of in thousands is irrelevant. In cases where other editors have provided a great deal of detail showing why option E is problematic, B2C still refuses to accept what they say, and hammers away at the same claim over and over: that somehow option E is some sort of "final solution". The whole nature of this present discussion demonstrates that it is not. Attacking editors instead of issues is not a solution either. ] (]) 18:29, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

	:::::::Omnedon: Quite so. In fact, the points you raise are ones I (and others) share: in favor of B, you've noted its simplicity and clarity of definition, that it requires no judgment calls, has been stable over the long term, is easier both for readers and editors, etc.; against E, I see you noted that each individual article would have to be treated individually rather than subject to the single consistent title convention now used, that E isn't required given that WP:TITLE allows for varying naming conventions, etc. (As for your point that E would likely be controversial and generate conflict, that's now been very clearly demonstrated.)

	:::::::B2C: It's disappointing to see you focusing so much energy on misleading attempts to discredit other editors' clearly-articulated opinions as baseless and illegitimate, and in such a hectoring way. You're welcome to disagree with other participants' comments, but you must do so civilly and with a recognition that they're entitled to them -- particularly in an RfC where the community's comments are explicitly being solicited. ''Demanding that refutations of your own elaborate posts are required for others' opinions to be considered anything other than "IJDL", "stonewalling", etc. is inappropriate.'' Now, please: ], ], and '''let it go'''. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 19:34, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

	====What "cities" is this RFC about?====
	{{hat\|consensus is this is not worth clarifying in the RfC at this point --] (]) 23:44, 6 November 2012 (UTC)}}
	The RfC uses the term "city" while the current wording in the ] guideline uses the term "settlement". Huwman has found signficance in this difference, and contends that the scope of the RfC is limited to cities, and specifically does not apply to unincorporated settlements. I think that's obviously wrong for a number of reasons.

	I have attempted, twice , with explanation, to insert the following clarification into the RfC:

	: NOTE: Use of the term "city" in this RfC is synonymous with "settlement" as used in the current USPLACE wording. That is, "city" refers to any US settlement that has an article in WP with either title or redirect of the form ].

	In the first edit summary I wrote:
	: ''boldly add clarification about "city" meaning "settlement"''

	I also explained the addition on this talk page in where I wrote this about the insertion:

	:''If that is not the proposer's intent, he can remove it. But, again, I'm sure it is. ''

	That by Huwmanbeing, with the following explanation:

	: ''Reverting. The RfC made cities the explicit subject; one should not alter the subject of an RfC after it's already been opened and received significant comment.)''

	In the second edit summary I wrote:
	: ''Use of the word "city" in the RfC, such as equating B to the "current USPLACE", is clearly meaning "settlement". To revert, please cite usage in the RfC or comments that suggests city=formal city and not unincorporated settlements''

	Note that my argument is that the meaning of the RfC is not being changed by this clarification.

	But this was , never-the-less, with this edit summary:

	:''Reverting. Again, it's inappropriate to change the subject of someone's RfC after it's been opened and received significant comment (your personal opinion about what the requestor "clearly meant" notwithstanding).)''

	Note that Huwmanbeing makes no attempt in the reverting edit summaries or on the talk page to even address my argument about why I believe the clarification is accurate and appropriate, except to dismiss the whole thing as my "personal opinion". Well, his personal opinion is that it means a formal city, and excludes unincorporated settlements, even though nothing in the RfC supports that interpretation.

	So, how do others interpret it? Does "city" in the RfC refer exclusively to formal incorporated municipalities and explicitly excludes unincorporated settlements? Or does it include unincorporated settlements too? If you think it excludes incorporated settlements, how do you reconcile that with the '''B''' being equated with the current USPLACE convention in the RfC, which clearly includes all settlements?

	Does any one else have an issue with adding the clarification - that "city" includes unincorporated settlements - to the RfC? Since it doesn't change the obvious intended meaning, I don't see what the problem is.

	Thanks! --] (]) 22:21, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:Although it says "cities", I assumed it was referring to everything currently covered by USPLACE - in other words the broader category "settlements". I can see why it might be confusing to change to the broader wording now, unless we could get some kind of retroactive consensus that that was what everyone was talking about. --] (]) 23:05, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	:Huwman thinks including settlements makes option E even less palatable. I doubt that anyone else sees a difference or would interpret settlements to be excluded, as MelanieN says. So just ignore him, and leave room for actual comments on the question. ] (]) 23:10, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	::The issue here is the unilateral changing of the wording of an RFC after many comments have already been made. Whether the change is small or large, it is inappropriate. It involves a judgement call, and a matter of interpretation. It should not be done. ] (]) 23:15, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::I understand this objection ''in general'', but as long as the clarifying note is date-stamped and signed and consistent with original intended meaning, and consensus understanding, why is this particular note a problem? I mean, ] even states: ''"If you feel an RfC is improperly worded, ask the originator to improve the wording, or {{highlight\|add an alternative unbiased statement immediately below the RfC question template.}} "'' --] (]) 23:22, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

	::Thank you, Melanie, for confirming that you also interpreted it to mean everything currently covered by USPLACE. Frankly, I think it's mostly about "city" being short and easy to type. I've tried to go with "settlement" in my last post or two, and it's a pain! <p>But in case anyone else thinks the RfC is limited to just incorporated municipalities, I think we should clarify sooner rather than later what the consensus interpretation is, which is exactly what my clarifying note would have done.<p>Good point, Dick. All the other options except only actual cities from the format, while '''E''' indicates ] for any settlement that is the primary topic for its name; ] when disambiguation is required. But I still favor more clarity over less, especially when the main argument against '''E''' seems to be based on that mistaken belief that it would create confusion and grist for disagreement. Exactly the opposite is true (still waiting for counter-examples refuting that claim). --] (]) 23:22, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::How about this for a solution: leave it as "cities", and recognize that some people might believe in good faith that it applies only to the narrow legal definition of cities. Let the discussion run its course on that basis. After some kind of resolution is reached here, if necessary there can be a separate discussion about whether to apply that resolution to unincorporated settlements as well. I suspect very few people will argue to have a different standard for unincorporated settlements than for cities. --] (]) 23:28, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::Fine. --] (]) 23:44, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
	{{hab}}

	===Move to close===

	With only 2 survey !votes on 8 Nov. and only 1 on 9 Nov, we've pretty much degenerated into rehashing old ground. It looks to me like a pretty clear majority in favor of the present compromise scheme, and roughly equal minorities willing to move in opposite directions, no matter how the rankings are weighted. Does anyone disagree? Anything that has been left unsaid? Or can we close it now? ] (]) 04:07, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
	:I agree. Nothing new is being said. In addition, recent additions to the "Pro" and "Con" sections have degenerated into argumentative, "us-vs.-them", divisive rhetoric. Seriously! "content-building editors vs. editors whose interest is contention about primacy of one place vs. another"? "incentive of "pro-United States" editors to engage in battleground behavior and dishonesty in their tactics"? This kind of "argument" can only be hurtful to the pedia, and unconstructive as far as this project is concerned; this seems to have gone on too long for anyone to ] anymore. And then there's "it is a slippery slope" yet again; please see . It's time to put a stop to this. --] (]) 18:07, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
	::I agree it is ready to close. MelanieN, if you want to edit those loaded comments in the pro and con, down to something more neutral, without losing the points being made, that'd be good. (But it is a fair point to make, I think, that contention and "us-vs.-them" battling is a problem, and that one naming policy vs. another is likely to lead to less or more of that. It cannot be wrong to point out that divisive and battleground-type behavior goes on, in fact, because it does. And it cannot be wrong to point out that one way leads to more separation or more involvement of editors who are simply contributing about the individual cities, and perhaps not interested in concerning themselves with relative standings of their city vs. faraway other cities.) --]]] 21:19, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::I'm going to leave them, precisely because I think they illustrate where this discussion is headed. --] (]) 21:36, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

	:RfCs seeking broad community consensus on issues like this typically stay open a month or longer. It hasn't been even one week yet. What's the hurry? --] (]) 21:37, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
	::Well, 10 Nov. brought zero new survey responders. Are you thinking we should do something to publicize the RfC and get more? If so, let do it. If not, let's close it. ] (]) 03:33, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
	*Way too premature to close. If anything, this should be publicized more. '''] ]''' 05:05, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
	{{tl\|cent}}
	::I see it was added on 4 Nov. to ], shown to the right here, which shows up on at least 3 village pump pages and the admins' noticeboard, as well as wherever else anyone includes the template. Is there anything else we should do to publicize it even more? Any particular talk pages you'd like to announce it on? If so, go for it. ] (]) 05:26, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::I'm the one who added it there. I'd suggest a separate notification on the village pumps and ] for starters. There are probably other wikiprojects that could be notified as well. Watchlist notice? '''] ]''' 07:05, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::Evidently the bell curve indicates a few more pump notices are only going to attract max 2 or 3 new comments. When it is closed, then really close - lock further RfCs for 12 months. ] (]) 10:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::This RfC has had many problems. First, the wording was not developed by consensus and changed after !voting began. Second, the arguments for and against various positions, stated differently than in the RfC, were (and are) still under discussion and being developed. Third, the city vs. settlement scope was confusing, at least to one editor, possibly more. Finally, people were solicited to state their preference and not encouraged to state their reasoning. Most did anyway, but many did not. In short, I think this RfC, while attracting too many people to shutdown prematurely, is still rife with too many problems to be considered definitive enough to justify shutting down better RfCs in the near future. --] (]) 21:52, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::There's still about another three weeks for this RfC. It seems premature to already be coming up with justifications for disregarding its result.] ] 21:59, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::::As for the change in wording, I had invited anyone who objects to restore the original wording; I suggest that Born2cycle either do that or shut up about it. ] (]) 23:50, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

	::::::Personally I'm not opposed to leaving it open for a bit, particularly if there's reason to think there's significant comment yet to come. It's pretty clear, though, that the responses are petering out, and the threaded discussions themselves slowing. If that continues, then closure would seem appropriate. (Still, if anyone's holding back any salient points that haven't already been beaten to death, let 'em loose.)

	::::::I should also note that the great majority of people who participated in the survey did indeed provide at least some reason for their preferences; in fact, it looks like only about three of the 40-some respondents did not, so I'm not sure how that qualifies as "many". ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 01:44, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

	;When to close
	See ]: "The default duration of an RfC is 30 days, but they may be closed earlier. Deciding how long to leave an RfC open depends on how much interest there is in the issue, and whether editors are continuing to comment." I was not aware of the 30 day default, but the declining level of interest and comments was pretty obvious. At this point, those who have said that more publicity is needed should go about making that happen, if they think that more editors will help to sway the clear opinion of the 42 so far surveyed. It's starting to remind me of Karl Rove in Ohio. ] (]) 23:50, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
	:For the record, Bkonrad posted two such notices '''] ]''' 01:48, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
	::Those look like clones of the ones I made at ] and ]. <p>Here are the current counts:
	:::'''A''': (12)
	:::'''B''': (14)
	:::'''C''': (2)
	:::'''D''': (3)
	:::'''E''': (14)
	::Based on raw !vote count, there clearly is no consensus at this point, certainly no strong consensus. That's reason for more discussion. Like I said, I thought the RfC was premature. --] (]) 02:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

	:::It appears to me that you've over-counted the Es and under-counted the Bs. How do you do that? Misinterpret "oppose any change" or "maintain the status quo"? And if you look for where you can find a majority, only B has a majority of responders putting it in their top 2 choices. Only B and C have a majority in top-3, with B ahead. And a super-majority either put E last, omitted it, or explicitly opposed it; a clear minority did that with B. No matter how you count and weight, B, the current widely accepted compromise USPLACE, is the clear winner. But go get some more !votes and let's see... ] (]) 03:17, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

	::::Dicklyon: Confirmed, Born2cycle's counts are indeed off. Here are the current survey results, in order and separated by primary choice, with names included for ease of verifiability:
	::::{\| class="wikitable"
	\|-
	\|style="vertical-align:top"\|'''A'''
	# ABCDE (Arthur Rubin)
	# AB (Omnedon)
	# ABCDE (Nyttend)
	# AB (Sbmeirow)
	# ABCDE (Huwmanbeing)
	# AB (Bzweebl)
	# A (MrDolomite)
	# AB (Mangoe)
	# ABC (LtPowers)
	# ABCDE (Eluchil404)
	# ABCDE (AgnosticAphid)
	# ADB (SarekOfVulcan)
	# A (DGG)
	# A {Jonathunder}
	# AE (Arxiloxos)
	\|style="vertical-align:top"\|'''B'''
	# BCA (MelanieN)
	# BAC (Dicklyon)
	# B (Doncram)
	# B (ClemRutter)
	# B (In ictu oculi)
	# BCEDA (Szyslak)
	# BC (Mike Cline)
	# "Oppose any change" (Carrite)
	# "Maintain the status quo" (Imzadi1979)
	# BDEAC (Batard0)
	# BCADE (Jayron32)
	# BCA (Bkonrad)
	# BCAD (TheCatalyst31)
	# BDEA (Heimstern)
	# BA (Tony1)
	# BC (Orlady)
	# BAD (Avenue)
	# B (Bejnar)
	# BA (Angryapathy)
	# BE (NaBUru38)
	\|style="vertical-align:top"\|'''C'''
	# C (Kaldari)
	# C (Marcus Qwertyus)
	\|style="vertical-align:top"\|'''D'''
	# DE (Kauffner)
	# DCB (Fyunck(click))
	# DCBEA (Orangemike)
	\|style="vertical-align:top"\|'''E'''
	# EDCB (Raime)
	# EDCBA (Born2cycle)
	# E (Hot Stop)
	# E (Ezhiki)
	# EDC (Polaron)
	# E (Opt47)
	# EDCBA (David1217)
	# EADCB (BilCat)
	# ECD (BDD)
	# E (Vmenkov)
	# E (Mattingbn)
	# EDCBA (Robofish)
	# EDCBA (Timrollpickering)
	# EDCB (sumone10154)
	# EEEEE (FormerIP)
	# E (Nick Thorne)
	# E (AunitedFront)
	# EAD (DohnJoe)
	\|}
	::::He is correct in noting that there's no consensus for dropping the current convention (B), though how/why that's a reason for further discussion is unclear. Also, given the pronounced split between the A and E alternatives, there'd seemingly be no consensus on what the current convention would be replaced with even if there was. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 13:36, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::As far as I can tell, the only difference among options A through D is that more exceptions are allowed as one progresses from A to D. They all apply the same principle to varying degrees. In option D, the exceptions are a bit harder to define, but it is still based on the same principle. Option E, on the other hand, is entirely different. On that basis, there are now <s>13</s> 17 votes that specify E as the best option, and <s>35</s> 38 votes that specify one of the others as the best option. Of course, there are many ways of looking at this. ] (]) 19:10, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::::Please note that simply tallying first-place votes is misleading and ignores much of the information provided by the voters. For instance, it appears to me that a big majority of voters whose first choice is A or D also prefer B to E, so in a head-to-head vote B would have a big advantage over E despite the much smaller difference between them in the number of first-place votes. There are many systems of varying sophistication for resolving preferences such as this; see ]. I believe the one commonly preferred by Wikimedia is the ]. —] (]) 01:16, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::::Based on the chart above, I get 32 !votes for B (11+19+2), 18 for E (17+1). The cause of clean, uncluttered municipal titling will just have to wait for another day. ] (]) 04:54, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
	*As a general clarification on what an RfC is and when to close it, Misplaced Pages plugs along day in and day out, year in and year out, churning out articles on diverse subjects. Now and then questions come up that are not easily answered. Often someone is unsure what to do and can not find anyone to help. That is what RfC was created for - a way to solicit broader input for a month in the hope that enough editors would wander by and offer advice that a consensus could develop. RfC does not work well if there are strong opinions, and it does not work well if there are no opinions. Most decisions on WP do not need to be made this week, this month, or even within a year or two - and there are decisions that take multiple years. For those an RfC is useless because it would be re-opened and closed dozens of times. When an RfC clearly seems to be leading to a decision, or clearly not leading to a decision, it can be closed early, simply to allow editors to get on with editing instead of adding pile on votes or simply arguing. All 300,000 bytes here are about this discussion. Is it worth it to spend 300,000 bytes (about 48,000 words, enough for the average novel), when nothing is changed? Despite that, I do not see any reason to close this early, as clearly there are editors who have information they would like to add to the discussion. However, I would like also to remind everyone that in building consensus, discuss the issue, not the editors. So while it is okay to say someone changed the questions, I do not see it as appropriate to name that person. And I see no relevancy to how many posts here anyone has made. And instead of saying you, I would say I, as that is the only person anyone has any influence on. ] (]) 08:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
	::Apteva "Is it worth it to spend 300,000 bytes (about 48,000 words, enough for the average novel)," - no it is not, but it raises the question of how much of those 300,000 bytes are being lost to article space edits. As a general rule in these kind of RfCs active article-side contributors tend to make their point and go back to productive work, so much of these 300,000 bytes is probably simply being lost to alternative Talkshop activities (I include myself, I am annoyed at myself at the need to spend wasted time on Talk pages recently). It would be worth letting the RfC drag on if a shortened RfC would risk a re-run within 12 months. Either way the 35:13 (or 32:16 if D counted with E) response profile is not going to change. ] (]) 09:07, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

	;Degenerated

	The last E vote is by ], a new account yesterday (Nov. 18), who hasn't yet figured out that talk page comments should be signed. I think we're done here. ] (]) 04:41, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
	:My comment was meant to indicate that there is no compelling reason to close this now, other than the fact that it has consumed a great deal of time. The discussion is at times borderline bickering but is basically quit civil, and not at a level that appears to need any immediate action. My recommendation is see how it is going in a week, but it can probably be safely removed from central notice now. <s>My further recommendation is to close it by simply removing the RfC tag, and not asking anyone to formally read it and formally close it (silently allow it to be closed as no consensus for any change).</s> ] (]) 07:44, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
	::I disagree with that. I think it should be FORMALLY closed, possibly as "no consensus for change" but better as "consensus not to change" the current guideline of USPLACE. The last thing we need is to let this novel-length discussion peter out without any resolution. There has been a lot of participation ((55 different people to date), and people's input needs to be respected. If it's closed informally, it becomes just another in a long string of inconclusive debates on the subject. If it is formally closed, that should put a period to the arguments - and hopefully suggest to the side which did not prevail that they should accept the judgment here and stop fighting the convention at individual article talk pages. --] (]) 16:50, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
	{{archive bottom}}

	== International cities on the AP dateline list ==

	The AP also lists 27 cities outside U.S.: ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], and ]. In other words, ] is ], ] is ], ] is ], and ] may have learned something or other while on the road to ]. As I hope these examples illustrate, the AP list must be considered a floor. There are numerous other cities, both in the U.S. and outside, that are most familiar and recognizable when they are given by their concise names. ] (]) 14:38, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
	:I disagree with your ''conclusion'' that the AP list must be considered a floor. My reasons have been stated above. — ] ] 08:31, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
	::AP is an American media source, so it is appropriate to use it as a Reliable Source reference for how to style American names. There are many other media sources in the rest of the world, so it would not be appropriate to try to apply AP standards to the rest of the world. --] (]) 14:52, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::100% agree. "Madrid, Spain" may well be used in the US, but it is hard to imagine it is common currency elsewhere. ] ]] 14:55, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::To me these examples illustrate what sources show, that American style, not just AP Style, is adding State/Country more than BBC or Australian Broadcasting Corporation would do. Which is reflected in Google Books as well which seem to follow USPLACE naturally without books knowing that books are doing it. Secondary to the main benefit, that "Some place, Virginia" is more informative than "Some place" on its own. ] (]) 11:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::*So you always favor adding more information to the title? Hey, we also put in a pronunciation guide or the mayor's name. You do realize that there is generally an article attached to these titles in which the name of the state is given? The title should tell the reader the name of the subject, which it can't do if you try to include everything except the kitchen sink. ] (]) 04:31, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
	:::::*Agree with Kauffner, to make the title most informative would mean add the whole article and more to the title. ] (]) 05:55, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
	::::What is easily recognizable is in the above discussions seems to mean, what is easily recognizable to me, or to some subset of readers that I have in mind. WP is universal, and the most clearly comprehensible form must be the form that everybody will understand, and nobody possibly mistake, and the only conceivable way of doing that is always to give the name of the country. There are contexts in which even names like Moscow and Paris and London mean something other than the city that some people or even most people may be thinking of. The only stable way to resolve it is to always follow a uniform rule, and there is only one rule which can end all arguments: always use the country. Anything else is guesswork, or unstable. ''']''' (]) 20:50, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
	::::: In such contexts, it is not going to be hard to explain what is meant. Bickering about article titles is, I agree, a nuisance but this idea seems to me to be unnecessary instruction creep. ] ]] 14:55, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

	::::: As is made clear ], titles are supposed to be recognizable ''to those familiar with the article's topic''. ] is not familiar to me, but it is to anyone familiar with that New Jersey city, which should include anyone searching for it. --] (]) 21:53, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

	== Tool to check for comma convention ==

	I found https://toolserver.org/~magnus/catscan_rewrite.php
	* depth: 1
	* categories: Departments of Argentina, Provinces of Argentina
	* templates: Infobox settlement.
	This shows all provinces and all departments, if they use the template. There is only comma dab. I did this, because some user claimed that would normally be parenthetical dab. ] (]) 00:37, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

	== Request for comment ==

	{{rfc\|style\|rfcid=3C42910}}
	Hi everyone. I propose that the common naming convention for places across the world be changed. It has already been done for Canadian places at ], but for other countries, the common naming consensus should be adjusted to remove the state, province, island name from the end if possible, because it is an unnecessary disambiguation, unless it is not a ]. At ], it states only specific ] communities in a ] guidebook show have no state names at the ending of the title, such as ]. However, other destinations, like ], should be allowed to be renamed to Tacoma in this case, as it is the primary topic. In any case, I do not understand why Canada would obtain an exception to this rule. <font face="Impact">]]]</font> <sup>(])</sup> 17:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
	:As far as U.S. cities are concerned, there was a very extensive RFC within the last couple of months, with more than 50 participants (see above). It was closed as "maintain the status quo" - that is, add the state to all U.S. cities (]) except for named exceptions like ]. So the situation with U.S. cities is pretty well settled and I doubt if anyone wants to see it reopened so soon. For most other countries I believe it already follows the convention you are suggesting, namely, to add the state/province/départment/whatever only if needed for disambiguation. Maybe you could restate your request for comment to make that clearer, with non-U.S. examples of what you think needs to be changed. --] (]) 17:13, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

	*'''Support'''. {{green\|'''Brilliant'''}}. While this would of course affect USPLACE as did the previous RFC, it's quite a different proposal in at least two important respects:
	*#The previous RFC offered multiple choices and was complicated. This is much simpler: ''disambiguate simple place names only when necessary'', period. Then, for each country, all the country-specific guidelines could be simplified to indicate only how places that require disambiguation should be disambiguated.
	*#The scope here is all countries, not just the US. The proposal is to apply the basic naming principle already used in the vast majority of our titles, ''disambiguate names in titles only when necessary'', consistently across all place names, bringing them all in line much better with each other, other articles, ] and ].
	*:Though the transition may take time, the experience with countries like Canada and Australia indicates it's not problematic. The key is to remove the ''requirement'' to add the higher-level geographic name in the titles. Then, with time, the titles will gradually migrate towards ''disambiguate only when necessary''.<p>Some might complain that this makes the titles unpredictable. Again, this has proven not to be problematic in any country that already follows this convention, and the lack of predictability is actually a good thing. In every case where the title must be known, it should be actually checked (which, let's face it, is no big deal). Having a naming convention that may or may not call for disambiguation in each individual case makes it much more likely that people will do the checking that they should, thus avoiding a variety of problems (See ] and ]). --] (]) 18:09, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

	*I also like this idea. I don't see any particular reason for pre-emptive disambiguation. ] (]) 18:14, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

	*Oh, brother. Above I said "So the situation with U.S. cities is pretty well settled and I doubt if anyone wants to see it reopened so soon." What I should have said was, nobody EXCEPT BORN2CYCLE wants to see it reopened so soon. My reaction, and the reaction I suspect of most here is, we should accept the decision above regarding USPLACE, which was based on a very extensive discussion very recently, and spare us from another million words of repetitious debate on the subject. Accept the fact that "disambiguate only when necessary" is already the policy for most of the world, accept the consensus after multiple discussions that USPLACE is an exception, ]. PLEASE. --] (]) 18:22, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

	* '''Strong Oppose''' – if the proposal seeks to overturn the recent consensus at the USPLACE RfC, it's a non-starter. And B2C should be slapped with a ] for going against his previous statement that he would accept a clear consensus. ] (]) 03:44, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	*'''Oppose''', urge speedy close. The previous RFC is still on this page, and OMGTOOMANYOPTIONS is not a valid reason for overturning consensus. --] 04:03, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

	This was discussed at length quite recently on this very page, with clear consensus to keep the current convention. Let's move on. ] (]) 04:43, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

	*'''Support''' there's an element of common sense that says all cities should be treated similarly. '''] ]''' 05:32, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	*'''Strong Oppose'''. We just had this discussion, and there was a consensus against this option there. You can look at that discussion if you want to see my reasons for opposing this idea. ] <sup>]•]</sup> 05:54, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	*:You expressed some concerns in that discussion, but weren't they all thoroughly addressed to your satisfaction? Was something missed? Thanks! --] (]) 18:07, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	*'''Strong Oppose''' -- been here, done this (see above). I would suggest the RfC be closed. ] (]) 14:19, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	*'''Support'''. I don't understand why the opposers see this RfC primarily as an attempt to overturn USPLACE. Surely having "disambiguate only if necessary" as a formal ''general'' guideline is a sound idea; one which does not preclude it from co-existing with consensus-based ''exceptions'' such as USPLACE?—] • (]); January 10, 2013; 15:49 (UTC)
	::The intent to disrupt the consensus at USPLACE is clear in the proposal and in B2C's reaction. There is already a general principle of disambiguating only when necessary, and it is already frequently given too much weight, for example where it is works counter to recognizability and precision. ] (]) 16:15, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	:::"Disrupt consensus?" Surely you're familiar that ], aren't you? '''] ]''' 16:21, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	:::Diclyon, my reaction is also that it's a suggestion brilliant in its simplicity, even though I don't necessarily agree that implementing it automatically precludes any and all exceptions. With that in mind, do you think I'm being disruptive as well, just because I disagree with your point of view?—] • (]); January 10, 2013; 17:49 (UTC)
	:@Ezhiki, isn't "disambiguate only if necessary" ALREADY the guideline for most countries? My understanding is that it is, with USPLACE being a conscious exception. In other words, this RfC proposal is merely restating what is already the situation for most countries, while not allowing for the USPLACE exception. (I think the original proposer was laboring under a misunderstanding; they seemed to think "add the state" was the current rule for "places across the world", with Canada being an exception.) --] (]) 16:51, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	::Yes, it is for all practical intents and purposes, but this is exactly why it's a good idea to formally document it as a general, top-level guideline (and if, as you think, the original proposer indeed though that "add the state" is the current rule for places across the world, then it's even more important to document the real state of the matters, lest someone else gets confused). Not everything has to be about USPLACE!—] • (]); January 10, 2013; 17:46 (UTC)
	*'''Support''' the general principle, '''Oppose''' a complex and potentially disruptive way of going about it. As MelanieN says above, this is pretty much ''de facto'' policy for most of the world although it is clear that USPLACE is an exception, and by and large supported to remain as one. All that's really needed is to amend the ] so that it begins something like: "Ordinarily unique place names are not disambiguated by adding a state, region or other qualifier to the title. However, it is often the case that....". ] ]] 19:59, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	*'''Strong Oppose''' Since Born2cycle has made clear that he regards this proposal as specifically about overturning USPLACE, I strongly oppose it. The USPLACE issue was decided just a few weeks ago and should not be reopened. I have proposed another wording for an RfC below, if anyone wants to comment on it; otherwise let's just let it die. --] (]) 22:37, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	*:I said no such thing. The proposal is most certainly not ''"specifically about overturning USPLACE"''. In fact, the wording is quite clear that it is about "places across the world", which, last I checked, ''includes'' the US, but is not "specifically about" the US. It would affect all places that currently have unnecessarily disambiguated titles, including but not limited to many places in Japan as well as the US. This proposal is about bringing worldwide universal consistency in place naming. To see it as "specifically about" the US is missing the entire point! --] (]) 23:28, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

			Consensus is sought as to the correct way to refer and link to major American cities such as ] and ]. The discussion is being held at ].
	===Recommend closure or rescoping===
	TBrandley: This RfC would affect US placename convention, which (as other editors rightly point out) was already the subject of a very recent and very lengthy RfC – one which closed as "maintain status quo". I see no reason to reopen the question again so soon. I would strongly recommend either:
	* closing this RfC in deference to the recently-completed one, or
	* changing the scope of the RfC to address specific conventions elsewhere exclusive of the US.
	Thanks ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 17:30, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	:For what it's worth, I think that the very insecurity of those who itch to close this RfC is an indication that the consensus around USPLACE isn't really as strong as it's purported to be. Anyway, forget about USPLACE for a while and look at this suggestion on its own merits, with the ''whole'' of Misplaced Pages in mind. Overall, it's a good formal ''general'' guideline which represents fairly accurately the practices followed for most countries in the world, so we might as well document it. I, for one, see no good reason to speedily close this RfC just because some USPLACE supporters are scared to death it will overtake USPLACE if implemented! If the consensus is indeed strong that USPLACE should stand, then implementing the guideline proposed in this RfC will have absolutely no effect on it.—] • (]); January 10, 2013; 17:59 (UTC)
	::The consensus is indeed strong, and I don't think anyone is "scared to death" of this RfC. For myself, I simply see no point in re-hashing this less than two months after closing the previous RfC. The examples given in this latest RfC relates directly to USPLACE, so the focus seems pretty clear. ] (]) 18:07, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	::: Indeed. Further, "Maintain status quo" is the default result when there is "no consensus" on an issue, which was the case with the previous RFC (not to mention that determining any kind of consensus from such a poorly structured proposal would be very difficult). As consensus is developed through discussion, efforts to stifle civil discussion (including refusals to discuss, and calls for closing, this clear and simple RFC), and thus development of consensus, are inherently disruptive. --] (]) 18:04, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	:::: B2C, the consensus was to maintain the current practice. It was discussed extensively very recently, and the new RfC only gives United States places as examples. What's disruptive is the inability or unwillingness of some editors to accept the consensus. ] (]) 18:12, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	::::: The finding of ''consensus'' for maintaining the current practice from that discussion is without basis by any definition of consensus, but most notably ]. Consensus was ''never'' established for the practice of unnecessary disambiguation for US Places, and the fact that previously uninvolved editors, like the one who started this RFC, keep proposing it be changed, is just more evidence of that. --] (]) 18:21, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	::Ezhiki: In what way is wishing to avoid duplicating an already completed recent discussion a sign of weakness in anyone's position? To suggest ulterior motives on the part of others who ''do'' wish to avoid such a rehash (myself included) is not in good faith.

			== Capitalisation of "oblast" when used as the name of a Ukrainian administrative division ==
	::B2C: How is it "disruptive" or "stifling civil discussion" to consider avoiding another lengthy debate on questions already exhaustively discussed in a previous RfC only weeks ago? I'm happy to participate in civil discussion, but at the same time express my preference to ]. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 18:32, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	:::Huw, as I explained in several places above, I disagree this RfC as a "duplication" of the USPLACE RfC at all (even considering the examples used). While it is, of course, your right to disagree with this assessment, please respect the right of other people to have opinions which differ from your own. For my part, I was merely pointing out that every single plea urging to ''speedily'' close this RfC came from the folks who were vehement to keep USPLACE up and running during the previous RfC. And while this fact alone isn't indicative of any "ulterior motives" (not even my words), it's most certainly curious.—] • (]); January 10, 2013; 19:16 (UTC)
	::::The only examples given -- "Seattle" and "Tacoma, Washington" -- are indeed exactly what USPLACE deals with. I say once more: this was discussed at great length just recently. Given the clear focus of this new RfC, it is indeed at least partly duplication. ] (]) 19:27, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	:::::So why focus on the duplicative part and completely disregard the substance of the proposal? Do you (or other opposers) ''really'' object to documenting the "disambiguate only when necessary" practice as a formal guideline, providing that consensus-based exceptions (which USPLACE claims to be) are explicitly recognized?—] • (]); January 10, 2013; 19:45 (UTC)
	:::Huw, a previously uninvolved editor has made a proposal and requested commentary. The community, including you, should respect that. Not engaging in substantive discussion about the proposal (no one has responded to anything I said in support of it, for example), based on dubious claims about there being a consensus opposed to the proposal, is not only disrespectful, but disruptive. If you can't see how or why, I can't help you. --] (]) 20:00, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	::::The "previously uninvolved editor" made the proposal and vanished. They have not been here to respond to comments, specifically to my comment that their proposal is based on a misunderstanding of the current situation. --] (]) 20:26, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	:::::No idea who this editor is or where they went, but I don't see how that matters. The only demonstrated misunderstanding associated with this RfC has been yours, first by inexplicably thinking the proposal might be referring specifically to Canadian cities, and later thinking it applied only to US cites apparently based on the erroneous assumption that places in all other countries already are consistent with ''disambiguate only when necessary''. After all that to say the proposal is "based on a misunderstanding" takes some chutzpah. --] (]) 21:20, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	::::::Perhaps you should ]? ] (]) 21:34, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	:::::::Would love too, instead of dealing with all this ]. But nobody has addressed any of the points I made in favor of the proposal in my first comment on it above. --] (]) 21:39, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	::::::::No stonewalling is occurring. Many editors had input on the USPLACE RfC and a huge amount of discussion took place, leading to the result that the current practice stands. This new RfC clearly involves USPLACE. You stated that this RfC would involve all countries, not just the US; and clearly this depends upon overturning established consensus on USPLACE. You claim there was no consensus. Certainly there was not unanimous agreement; but that's not required for consensus. We simply do not need to discuss this again mere weeks after closure of the last discussion. ] (]) 21:55, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	:::::::::Again, by no definition of consensus that I know, certainly not per the one given at ] or in any dictionary, has there ever been anything close to consensus regarding the unnecessary disambiguation of US place names. Of course unanimity is not required to have consensus. But you also can't have strong arguments and large numbers on both sides and still claim some kind of consensus. That's quintessential "no consensus", which is what we have here, and that makes for fertile ground for ''more'' discussion, not less, including the consideration of broader/simpler proposals, like the one made here. --] (]) 22:22, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	::::::::::B2C: It's true that there's clearly no consensus for changing the current convention. The last RfC on the subject demonstrated that very clearly, which is why it was closed with a determination to keep the current convention. What puzzles me is why you consider that result problematic or unacceptable. If I understand correctly, you seem to be suggesting that reaching no consensus to change a convention means that discussions to change it must therefor continue to be repeated (and indeed increase) until the change you seek is made, but I don't think that's quite how things work.
	::::::::::That said, I'm perfectly happy to discuss new matters that we haven't already beaten to death during our recent very lengthy debates, but am less inclined to keep retreading the same ground over and over every few weeks. Again, it seems like a ]. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 01:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
	::::::::Omnedon: Quite so -- I don't know what "stonewalling" B2C is referring to. All I'm asserting is this: that having just gone through a lengthy and elaborate discussion of the pros and cons of placename disambiguation as part of the previous RfC (which reached no consensus for any change), it's probably not necessary to immediately rehash it all again. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 01:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
	:::::::::The previous discussion went way beyond "no consensus to change". In fact, there was a clear consensus AGAINST moving to a "no unnecessary disambiguation" rule for US cities. Out of the 58 people who posted opinions there, only 18 (31%) expressed a preference for the method proposed by this RfC and endlessly endorsed by B2C, namely, "no unnecessary disambiguation in US placenames". The remaining 69% of editors wanted at least some "unnecessary disambiguation" for US cities. A plurality, 34%, wanted to keep the existing "compromise" position of listing the state name except for 40 named cities where the state name is omitted. A significant minority, 26%, wanted to disambiguate ALL US city names, no exceptions. A few (8%) wanted a larger list of cities where the the state name is omitted. The bottom line is that the consensus, by more than 2 to 1, was that US city names should NOT follow the "no unnecessary disambiguation" rule. It's hard to see what B2C would accept as consensus, if 2 to 1 is not enough. --] (]) 03:06, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
	B2C, as far as I can see, you want one thing regarding this issue: no "unnecessary disambiguation" in titles, ever. No compromise. There are reasons why many of us do not feel this is best for the encyclopedia or its users. They've been stated again and again. You say, "...the only way the problem here -- place name titles inconsistent with disambiguate only when necessary -- is ever going to be resolved, ..." So are you saying that you will never accept any other solution? If so, how are we supposed to discuss this and try to reach compromise? There are other solutions. One is to acknowledge that the principle you support isn't the only principle involved in article titles, that the "one size fits all" approach may simply not work in such a diverse environment, and that Misplaced Pages, like the world, is more complicated than that. ] (]) 23:08, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	:Why are you making this about me? This is not about what I will accept! Who cares about what I will accept or not? <p>I didn't start this proposal. I'm just the messenger. I'm just pointing out that as long titles remain unnnecessarily disambiguated, they will remain an obvious problem for many. You may not like that. You may not like me pointing it out. Sorry. But don't blame me for it. That's just the way it is, and you, I nor anyone else has the power or ability to change that. What we can change is the titles so that they're not so obviously inconsistent and problematic. --] (]) 23:34, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	::Articles titled according to USPLACE are neither problematic nor inconsistent. I am asking you because you are involved in the discussion. You are not "the messenger", but an active participant. So I ask you again if you can accept any solution aside from absolute adherence to this one principle. I think it is a fair question. This is not about you; but you are the one insisting that there will be problems unless we go your way on this. ] (]) 23:48, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	:::Yes, I'm a participant, and one of those who recognizes that unnecessary disambiguation is inconsistent and therefore problematic. But I'm not the only one, nor only part of a small minority (if that were the case I would not be a participant). And I'm pointing out that even if I quit WP for good as soon as I finish this post, there will be problems as long as this problem remains unresolved. That fact has nothing to do with me. Again, what I will accept or not is irrelevant. It's like me asking if you'll accept that the problem will not be resolved until the problem is fixed. What is the point? --] (]) 23:57, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	::::The point is this: you wish to discuss this further, but if you have no intention of accepting any solution but your own, then where is the hope of compromise? I believe you have the best interests of the encyclopedia at heart. But this issue was just discussed very extensively just recently, and mere weeks later we are here again; the one who opened the RfC hasn't commented further, but you are again pushing the same agenda. ] (]) 00:06, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
	:::B2C: To suggest that unnecessary disambiguation must always be "problematic" is certainly an opinion you're entitled to, and one that we've already explored in great depth. Your position is clear. However, you must understand that there's no agreement on that in this forum, and no consensus on changing the current convention (as clearly demonstrated by the results of the recent RfC on the subject). I understand you consider it "unresolved" since it didn't produce the result you personally sought; however, the last RfC '''did''' resolve... with a determination to retain the current convention. I know you dislike that outcome, but that is indeed the outcome that it reached. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 02:10, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

			I have made an ngram review of "X O\|oblast" for the oblasts listed at ]. While many of these do not give an ngram result, where they do, they do not show that ''oblast'' is consistently capitalised in sources (per ] and ]) that would lead us to a conclusion that we should cap these names on WP. See , , , , (no result for Kyiv Oblast), , and - others retured no result. A cursory look at Google Scholar results would confirm mixed capitalisation - , and . For these names in Cyrillic, oblast (о́бласть) is not capitalised. There is therefore no to argument that capitalisation from the native language gives rise to a need to capitalise the term in English. The same would be true for other administrative divisions (eg raion). The same is likely true where the same terms are used for other nations (eg Russia). ] (]) 02:35, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
	===Reword?===
			:I agree, but see ], ], and especially ]. —⁠ ⁠] (]) 06:28, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
	So let's reword it (after all, the proposal as made<s> doesn't make any sense</s> ''(striking as unduly harsh)'' and reflects an incorrect understanding of the actual situation). How about this: RfC to affirm that the names of cities should be listed in the most concise way, without adding unnecessary disambiguation, except when a different rule has been formally agreed to for a particular country. (I put it that way because I don't know if there are other countries that have stated a preference to add the state/province/départment to the city name, or if it is just the U.S.) --] (]) 19:57, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
			::RM results that boil down to "capitalize because the sources I prefer and cherrypicked like to do so" are pretty common when people deeply involved in some topic show up in force to dogpile an RM (or one or two bloviate at tremendous length with their personal ] about why something "is" a "proper name" despite numerous RS not treating it as one by capitalizing it). As our editorial pool shrinks, the entire RM process is starting to fail because too few editors pay any attention to it at all, and those who show up to comment too often have a "screw the guidelines and policies, I want capitalization in {{em\|my}} topic else" attitude with no regard to sourcing and guidelines. The way to get around this is to do a bunch of source research beforehand showing that the capitalization level is nowhere near what we'd expect for WP to be capitalizing. Not just n-grams but Google News and Google Scholar and IA Scholar results – e.g. showing that lowercase "oblast" clearly dominates in journals, but do more such searches for all these terms so the evidence is unassailable. Then do a mass RM that is "advertised" at various higher profile venues like ] and here and ] and even ] and ] if it seems to warrant that. Make it clear that the earlier RMs were based on false claims about the capitalization level in the source material and that you can prove it. This is basically the same situation as all that sports raft stuff: topic-devoted editors are hell-bent on over-capitalizing, but do not have the sourcing to justify it. Same with the state panhandles (an RM saga that still continues). <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 06:59, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
	:That's a very different proposal. There is nothing nonsensical about the current proposal, nor does it reflect an incorrect understanding of the actual situation. If you really think it does, please explain how. --] (]) 20:00, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
			:::I'm not sure practices in other languages should be used to decide what to do in English; different languages just have different conventions. French, for example, capitalizes noun forms (like ''Amérique'' for America) but definitely not demonyms (like ''américain'' for American). French does ''Amérique centrale'' for Central America but ''Amérique du Sud'' for South America, though that may be similar to the difference between "North America" and "northern America".
	::It certainly does. The proposal states "I propose that the common naming convention for places across the world be '''changed.''' It has already been done for Canadian places at WP:CAN, but for other countries, the common naming consensus should be adjusted to remove the state, province, island name from the end if possible, because it is an unnecessary disambiguation, unless it is not a primary term." But this would not be a change, it is already the current understanding; the "unnecessary disambiguation" has already been removed from countries other than the U.S. The proposer then goes on to give US cities as examples, thus wanting to reopen USPLACE, which is the reason for the "strong oppose" !votes to the proposal as stated. If the proposer has examples from countries other than the US where this policy would represent a change, let them show an example. Without such examples, it is asking for a reaffirmation of the current situation, and the only "change" would be to eliminate the specific exception of USPLACE. --] (]) 20:13, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
			:::I guess in English there's disagreement or uncertainty over whether the type descriptor is part of a proper noun or a separate noun being modified by a proper ]. ] says "station" is lowercase except where "Station" is already part of the name, leaving that question up to sourcing. Conductors say ] and not "South", and "Penn Station" not "Penn" (which means the university). But they might say "Back Bay" or "Yonkers", so we have ] and ]. But many people write e.g. "Back Bay Station" as if "Back Bay" is a short version of the full proper name, just as "New York" is a short version of "New York City", which is never written "New York city". This is somewhat unsatisfying, but so is the difference in pronunciation between "Kansas" and "Arkansas", so ''c'est la vie''.
	:::Even if the proposal affected only the US, it would be a change, of course. The point is to make all place names consistent with ''disambiguate only if necessary''. Whether that affects the places in 10, 5, 3, 2 or just 1 country that remain inconsistent with ''disambiguate only if necessary'' doesn't matter.<p>Anyway, your assumption that ''"the "unnecessary disambiguation" has already been removed from countries other than the U.S."'' is incorrect. The examples provided in the proposal are obviously meant to be illustrative. It's not unreasonable to assume that people should be able to grasp the concept from just one example. But if you need another...
			:::Given sometimes the type descriptor is incorporated into the name and sometimes it's not, and given that capitalization of type descriptors in general seems to be common in English though not always universal, I think declaring as a style choice that English Misplaced Pages always capitalizes would be acceptable as an arbitrary choice between two common conventions, and also safer in that we'd never mistakenly lowercase a name where the descriptor ''has'' been incorporated, which seems to happen over time or for words where the short version is already taken.
	::::] → ]
			:::It looks like ] already favors the capitalized version, and given that ''some'' professional English sources use that convention, it's not wrong for Misplaced Pages to choose it arbitrarily. Especially given that the short versions of these names are already taken by city names, it seems likely that the type descriptors have or will some day be firmly incorporated by English speakers. -- ] (]) 19:11, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
	:::If you still think the proposal does not make sense, or reflects an incorrect understanding of the current situation, please explain how. --] (]) 21:11, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
			::::To be fair, the naming convention page is silent on capitalisation except for the usage. Weirdly the Ukrainian English-language newspapers I can find use the word "region" instead of oblast in their reporting... ] ''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:top;">]</span>''·''<span style="font-size:small; vertical-align:bottom;">]</span>'' 21:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
	::::OK, good, thanks. There's an example of a place that could get affected by reaffirming the "no unnecessary disambiguation" policy, and suggests there is a need to reaffirm it. That was certainly not the place that the original proposer had in mind here - they were targeting American cities - but it does show a need for a reaffirmation such as the one I am proposing here. It appears that ] is not an anomaly but is the result of a preference by the Project:Japan people. Looking at ], it appears that the Japan folks DO want the prefecture added to cities; if that is based on consensus, then Japan could be specified as another exception. <br>The rewording I have proposed would address this and similar cases. I really don't see why you are objecting to my proposed wording. Is it because my version specifically allows for exceptions like USPLACE, while the original proposal was worded so as to cast doubt on USPLACE? Face it, the only type of RfC that is going to pass here is one that specifically does not reopen the USPLACE discussion. Not because people are "insecure" about an exception for US cities (which was reviewed by more than 50 people only 6 weeks ago and reaffirmed by a 2-to-1 ratio), but because we are sick and tired of the endless haggling about it, and would like to see that issue put to rest (or allowed to remain at rest) so that we can get back to improving the encyclopedia. --] (]) 21:50, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	:::::I'm not (necessarily) objecting to your proposed wording (that's not support either). I'm pointing out that it's a completely different proposal, and that nothing which you've said is wrong with the current proposal is actually wrong. Whether the proposer knew which if any places besides the examples listed would be affected is irrelevant. The proposal is to simply bring all place names that currently unnecessarily disambiguate in compliance with ''disambiguate only when necessary'', period, whatever/whereever they may be. That's what we're supposed to be discussing. I'm sorry you and so many others are stick and tired of the haggling about it, but the fact is that the current unnatural/inconsistent situation is obviously problematic not only to many of us regulars, but to many previously uninvolved editors. Until this gets resolved, by actually fixing it, proposals like this are going to be made. The situation is very reminiscent of what happened at Yogurt/Yoghurt. Those favoring restoring the original title were blamed by those favoring the status qho for all the consternation, but it was new uninvolved editors that kept raising the issue over and over, and the issue was finally resolved, as we had predicted, only when the original title was restored.<p>Similarly, the only way the problem here -- place name titles inconsistent with ''disambiguate only when necessary'' -- is ever going to be resolved, is by making all the place name titles consistent with ''disambiguate only when necessary''. Don't blame the messenger. That's not a threat. It's a simple prediction based on facts and years of observation. --] (]) 22:17, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	::::::In other words, yes, the original proposal here IS an attempt to overturn the recent discussion and reopen discussion on USPLACE, and you are supporting it on that basis. Thank you for confirming that. In that case, I will go back up to that proposal and make my opposition clear. I'm disappointed that you are unable to accept the result of the previous discussion, but there WAS a discussion and consensus was reached (whether or not you agree with it), and the clear feeling here is that people don't want to reopen it. IMO it would have been decent to allow for some kind of grace period (at least longer than six weeks?) before attempting to overturn that decision. --] (]) 22:33, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
	:::::::Again, by no reasonable standard of consensus could the result in the previous discussion be construed as "consensus". The closing admin notably did not use that word. The result was "maintain status quo", and I agree with that being a reasonable result of that discussion, given the preference for status quo when there is no consensus. But that should not preclude further discussion. To the contrary - we need more discussion to actually achieve consensus. Indeed, discussion is how we develop consensus on WP. And now, perhaps to that end, someone has made another proposal. A related but simpler and broader proposal. I applaud that, and so should you. --] (]) 23:41, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

			== Region-specific guidance for Turkish cities ==
	::::::B2C: You describe the current convention as "obviously problematic", but that view isn't one shared by most involved editors. Most of them (indeed more than two-thirds, based on the many responses to the last RfC) actually favor some form of exceptional disambiguation in this case.

			Can we add some specific guidance for Turkish cities? For some cities, this is almost getting to ridiculous levels. For example, count how many Smyrna's are in the lead of ] in this version (there's one extra in the footnote as well). Btw, there's also ] and ] articles. Historic names should usually be presented in "Names" or "Etymology" sections, except significant ones such as Constantinople in the lead of Istanbul for example. However, non-English alphabet versions should also be in "Names" or "Etymology" sections. Turkish is spoken by 85-90% of the population. The rest is mostly Kurdish. Except Arabic, other languages would be less than 0.1% ] (]) 16:41, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
	::::::That said, I understand that you do consider any exception to the broad rule of minimum disambiguation as a "problem" to be solved, but by no means is that necessarily so. Indeed, Misplaced Pages acknowledges that to follow a rule just because it's a rule is ]; instead one must determine how and whether to apply a rule based on ], reasonability, previous agreements, the best interests of readers, and other unique considerations of the case. We've openly considered such things in this forum many times, and explored at great length the pros and cons of current and alternative proposals – and the outcome has been the continued retention of the current convention. That's a valid result.

			== Türkiye ==
	::::::Might consensus emerge in the future to change the convention? Of course. But it hasn't yet, nor has it even come close. Certainly if editors raise points that haven't already been talked to death, it'd be very good to discuss them; however, merely repeating the same debate over and over every few weeks simply because a vocal minority are unhappy with the status quo seems (again) like unnecessarily beating a dead horse. ] <span style="font-size:smaller"><nowiki>]<nowiki>]</nowiki></span> 11:41, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

			Could we get a section addressing users adding Türkiye or replacing Turkey with Türkiye? I usually revert those edits and point to ] or another MOS-related guideline, but it would be helpful to point here. ] (])<span style="font-size:85%;"> If you reply here, please ].</span> 05:54, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
	:::::::Years and years of discussion of an issue (by hundreds of people) without resolution is a problem. Ultimately, that's what makes the current convention "obviously problematic". The root problem (not quite as obvious) is that unnecessary disambiguation is inconsistent with how we choose most of our other titles on WP, including the titles of most our other articles about places. That inconsistency makes the problem ''inherent'' to this convention. If others choose to ignore or deny these problems, that doesn't mean they don't exist, or are not obvious. For years people also claimed there was no problem with the ] title - but the discussions (by dozens if not hundreds) persisted, averaging about one RM per year, and countless other intervening discussions, for over eight years. But as soon as the title was changed, that "nonexistent" problem was resolved, finally and permanently. We saw similar and arguably more analogous situations when the conventions for Canada and Australia place names were loosened to no longer require unnecessary disambiguation... years of pointless discussion were replaced by a few short and productive renames in a sea of peace and tranquility. That experience with Canada is what apparently motivated this proposal, by the way.
			:Probably easier to have a generic “use the main articles title”; we may eventually move the article to Türkiye, and even we do we will have the problem in the opposite direction. ] (]) 06:13, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

			==]", ] or an English exonym, if there is one ?==
	:::::::Choosing to continue the convention is indeed a "valid" result, just as "valid" as was the result, RM after RM after RM, to retain the ] title, and the early decisions to retain the unnecessary disambiguation conventions for Canada and Australia. But these "valid" results didn't address their respective problems, much less solve them. Only results that actually changed the situations to address the respective root problems were the problems solved.
			A discussion at ], regarding a mountain on the Polish—Czech border, may be of interest. —] <small>] • ]</small> 17:44, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

			== Primary topics and ] ==
	:::::::I stopped raising this issue myself years ago. That doesn't mean I refrain from participating when others raise the issue, as was the case in the previous RFC, and this one, not only by sharing my opinion, but also by explaining the reasons I hold my opinion, and by pointing out the flaws in other arguments. I do this because I believe it will help us achieve the only way to resolve the issue sooner.

			How should we decide the primary topics of "{{xt\|Placename, Country}}", "{{xt\|Placename (city)}}", "{{xt\|Placename (town)}}", etc., especially for some countries (like the ]) whose cities cannot have articles named {{xt\|Placename, Country}}? ] may be useful references. ] (]) 15:20, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
	:::::::I didn't understand why people were so enamored with the ''h'' in ] that they fought tooth and nail to retain it year after year, all along claiming "there is no problem" and those seeking change were beating a dead horse, etc. But no change was possible until enough finally realized how silly their position was. The same kind of thing happened with TV episode names (where one contingent insisted on adding the TV series name to the title of articles about TV episodes even if the episode had a unique name), though in that case it had to go to Arbcom before sanity and consistency finally prevailed. I'm similarly perplexed by why people here are so insistent on keeping an exceptional (and obviously problematic) inconsistent convention. And I realize no change is possible here also until enough finally realize how silly their position is. Since it took eight years with Yoghurt, I'm in no position to predict how long it will take here. But it will finally occur, I'm fairly confident about that. --] (]) 18:50, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
			:{{ping\|John Smith Ri}} There is a difference between naming conventions and eligibility as a primary topic, i.e. a page name does not need to be eligible to be the preferred title of an article in order to be in contention for primary topic; it is sufficient for the page name to be eligible either for preferred title or redirect. For example, ] is the primary topic of ] even though the latter would never be allowed as the title of the article. And so ] is a primary redirect to ] even though ] exist in the US. (Note that ], England, is not in contention for primary topic since ] is neither a valid title nor redirect to that topic.) -- ]]]] 16:58, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
			::However, ], England is the primary article for “Birmingham”. ] (]) 17:34, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 17:34, 23 October 2024

Please post discussions about Railway station names at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (stations).

view · edit Frequently asked questions Why is the article on Georgia named Georgia (country), and Georgia is instead a disambiguation page? The consensus is that there is no primary topic for the term "Georgia". Supporters of that position successfully argued that since the country is not significantly more commonly searched for than the US state of the same name, it cannot have primary topic over the US state. Opponents argued that internationally recognized countries should take precedence over sub-national units like the US state. Some opponents argued that the current setup conveys a US-centric bias. Attempts to rename the articles to a natural disambiguation title like "Republic of Georgia" or "State of Georgia" have not reached any consensus (see the list of archived discussions). Why is the Ireland article about the island, while the article on the country is named Republic of Ireland? The naming of Ireland articles dates back to 2002. Previously, content for both the island and country appeared on the same page, but it was then decided to move content and the page history about the country to its official "Republic of Ireland" description, while keeping content about the island at "Ireland". Ever since, this issue has been heavily disputed, but there has not been any consensus to change this status quo. Previous failed proposals have included making the country the primary topic of "Ireland" instead, or using parenthetical disambiguation titles like "Ireland (island)" and "Ireland (country)". According to an ArbCom ruling in 2009, discussions relating to the naming of these Ireland articles had to occur at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Ireland Collaboration. In 2023 this requirement was withdrawn so discussions can take place on the talk pages as normal. Why do articles on populated places in the United States primarily use the ] "comma convention" format? Why is there an exemption for cities listed in the AP Stylebook as not requiring a state? This is an issue where different rules of Misplaced Pages:Article titles can conflict with each other, thus consensus determines which ones to follow. Most of these articles were created by User:Rambot, a Misplaced Pages bot, back in 2002 based on US Census Bureau records. When creating these pages, Rambot used the "Placename, State" naming format, initially setting a consistent naming convention for these articles. Supporters of keeping the "Placename, State" format argue that this is generally the most common naming convention used by American reliable sources. Opponents argue that this format is neither precise nor concise, and results in short titles like Nashville redirecting to longer titles like Nashville, Tennessee. After a series of discussions since 2004, a compromise was reached in 2008 that established the Associated Press Stylebook exception rule for only those handful of cities listed in that style guide (the dominant US newswriting guide) as not requiring the state modifier. There has been since no consensus to do a massive page move on the other articles on US places (although individual requested move proposals have been initiated on different pages from time to time).

Need for clarity on linking major American cities

Consensus is sought as to the correct way to refer and link to major American cities such as Los Angeles and Boston. The discussion is being held at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Linking#Need for clarity on linking major American cities.

Capitalisation of "oblast" when used as the name of a Ukrainian administrative division

I have made an ngram review of "X O|oblast" for the oblasts listed at Oblasts of Ukraine#List. While many of these do not give an ngram result, where they do, they do not show that oblast is consistently capitalised in sources (per WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS) that would lead us to a conclusion that we should cap these names on WP. See Chernivtsi Oblast, Donetsk Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast, Kherson Oblast, Kiev Oblast (no result for Kyiv Oblast), Lviv Oblast, Poltava Oblast and Sumy Oblast - others retured no result. A cursory look at Google Scholar results would confirm mixed capitalisation - Sumy Oblast, Donetsk Oblast and Kharkiv Oblast. For these names in Cyrillic, oblast (о́бласть) is not capitalised. There is therefore no to argument that capitalisation from the native language gives rise to a need to capitalise the term in English. The same would be true for other administrative divisions (eg raion). The same is likely true where the same terms are used for other nations (eg Russia). Cinderella157 (talk) 02:35, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree, but see Talk:Russian occupation of Kherson Oblast/Archive 1#Requested move 29 April 2022, Talk:Russian occupation of Kherson Oblast/Archive 1#Requested move 11 June 2022, and especially Talk:Cherkasy Oblast#Requested move 12 May 2022. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 06:28, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

RM results that boil down to "capitalize because the sources I prefer and cherrypicked like to do so" are pretty common when people deeply involved in some topic show up in force to dogpile an RM (or one or two bloviate at tremendous length with their personal WP:OR about why something "is" a "proper name" despite numerous RS not treating it as one by capitalizing it). As our editorial pool shrinks, the entire RM process is starting to fail because too few editors pay any attention to it at all, and those who show up to comment too often have a "screw the guidelines and policies, I want capitalization in my topic else" attitude with no regard to sourcing and guidelines. The way to get around this is to do a bunch of source research beforehand showing that the capitalization level is nowhere near what we'd expect for WP to be capitalizing. Not just n-grams but Google News and Google Scholar and IA Scholar results – e.g. here showing that lowercase "oblast" clearly dominates in journals, but do more such searches for all these terms so the evidence is unassailable. Then do a mass RM that is "advertised" at various higher profile venues like WT:MOSCAPS and here and WT:NCCAPS and even WT:AT and WP:VPPOL if it seems to warrant that. Make it clear that the earlier RMs were based on false claims about the capitalization level in the source material and that you can prove it. This is basically the same situation as all that sports raft stuff: topic-devoted editors are hell-bent on over-capitalizing, but do not have the sourcing to justify it. Same with the state panhandles (an RM saga that still continues). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:59, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure practices in other languages should be used to decide what to do in English; different languages just have different conventions. French, for example, capitalizes noun forms (like Amérique for America) but definitely not demonyms (like américain for American). French does Amérique centrale for Central America but Amérique du Sud for South America, though that may be similar to the difference between "North America" and "northern America".

I guess in English there's disagreement or uncertainty over whether the type descriptor is part of a proper noun or a separate noun being modified by a proper noun adjunct. Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (US stations) says "station" is lowercase except where "Station" is already part of the name, leaving that question up to sourcing. Conductors say South Station and not "South", and "Penn Station" not "Penn" (which means the university). But they might say "Back Bay" or "Yonkers", so we have Back Bay station and Yonkers station. But many people write e.g. "Back Bay Station" as if "Back Bay" is a short version of the full proper name, just as "New York" is a short version of "New York City", which is never written "New York city". This is somewhat unsatisfying, but so is the difference in pronunciation between "Kansas" and "Arkansas", so c'est la vie.

Given sometimes the type descriptor is incorporated into the name and sometimes it's not, and given that capitalization of type descriptors in general seems to be common in English though not always universal, I think declaring as a style choice that English Misplaced Pages always capitalizes would be acceptable as an arbitrary choice between two common conventions, and also safer in that we'd never mistakenly lowercase a name where the descriptor has been incorporated, which seems to happen over time or for words where the short version is already taken.

It looks like Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Ukrainian places) already favors the capitalized version, and given that some professional English sources use that convention, it's not wrong for Misplaced Pages to choose it arbitrarily. Especially given that the short versions of these names are already taken by city names, it seems likely that the type descriptors have or will some day be firmly incorporated by English speakers. -- Beland (talk) 19:11, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

To be fair, the naming convention page is silent on capitalisation except for the usage. Weirdly the Ukrainian English-language newspapers I can find use the word "region" instead of oblast in their reporting... SportingFlyer T·C 21:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Region-specific guidance for Turkish cities

Can we add some specific guidance for Turkish cities? For some cities, this is almost getting to ridiculous levels. For example, count how many Smyrna's are in the lead of İzmir in this version (there's one extra in the footnote as well). Btw, there's also Smyrna and Old Smyrna articles. Historic names should usually be presented in "Names" or "Etymology" sections, except significant ones such as Constantinople in the lead of Istanbul for example. However, non-English alphabet versions should also be in "Names" or "Etymology" sections. Turkish is spoken by 85-90% of the population. The rest is mostly Kurdish. Except Arabic, other languages would be less than 0.1% Bogazicili (talk) 16:41, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Türkiye

Could we get a section addressing users adding Türkiye or replacing Turkey with Türkiye? I usually revert those edits and point to wp:commonname or another MOS-related guideline, but it would be helpful to point here. Classicwiki (talk) If you reply here, please ping me. 05:54, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Probably easier to have a generic “use the main articles title”; we may eventually move the article to Türkiye, and even we do we will have the problem in the opposite direction. BilledMammal (talk) 06:13, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Sněžka", Śnieżka or an English exonym, if there is one ?

A discussion at Talk:Sněžka#Requested move 17 July 2024, regarding a mountain on the Polish—Czech border, may be of interest. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 17:44, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Primary topics and WP:USPLACE

How should we decide the primary topics of "Placename, Country", "Placename (city)", "Placename (town)", etc., especially for some countries (like the United States) whose cities cannot have articles named Placename, Country? The existing rules applied to Canada may be useful references. John Smith Ri (talk) 15:20, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

@John Smith Ri: There is a difference between naming conventions and eligibility as a primary topic, i.e. a page name does not need to be eligible to be the preferred title of an article in order to be in contention for primary topic; it is sufficient for the page name to be eligible either for preferred title or redirect. For example, Barack Obama is the primary topic of Obama even though the latter would never be allowed as the title of the article. And so Birmingham, United States is a primary redirect to Birmingham, Alabama even though other Birminghams exist in the US. (Note that Birmingham, England, is not in contention for primary topic since Birmingham, United States is neither a valid title nor redirect to that topic.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:58, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

However, Birmingham, England is the primary article for “Birmingham”. Blueboar (talk) 17:34, 23 October 2024 (UTC)