Talk:Provinces of the Netherlands

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[edit] Naming

text below moved here from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Subnational entities/Naming Tobias Conradi (Talk) 03:31, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

(moved from User talk:Tobias Conradi and User talk:Eugene van der Pijll)

page move Hi Tobias,

May I ask why you moved Utrecht (province) to Utrecht Province? It is not the correct name, and it makes the titling of this article inconsistent with all other Dutch provinces. And it's inconsistent with Utrecht (city) as well. Unless there are good arguments for the new name, I'm going to move it back to its old location. Eugene van der Pijll 16:13, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi Eugene!

I wrote something about it at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Subnational_entities. I noticed the inconsistense with Utrecht (city). I cannot see inconsistence with other NL-provinces because there is no ambiguity in most cases. Hope we find a good solution for all subnational entities. (and cities.) I have no problem if you revert my edit. best regards Tobias Conradi 18:04, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The consistency with the other NL-provinces is that the article titles now claim that Utrecht is called "Utrecht Province", while e.g. Gelderland is not called "Gelderland Province". As you say, this is because there is ambiguity with the name Utrecht, but that means it's a case of disambiguation, which is done by parentheses.

This is the main problem with your list above: it mixes official names which includes the term "Region" (or whatever) with names which have a disambiguation phrase "(region)". I agree that there should be one standard for the first (for example: always capitalised); there already is a standard for the second (the disambiguation policy); it is not a good idea to have one standard covering both cases.

I'm not familiar with the conventions in most of the cases in your list, but the term Region (Province, State, etc.) should IMHO not be included in the page title for:

• the Netherlands: Utrecht (province), Groningen (province); not Utrecht Province, Groningen Province
• Belgium: Antwerp (province), Namur (province), etc.; not Antwerp Province, Namur Province
• Germany: Bremen (state), not Bremen State; (as you're German, I'd like to hear your opinion especially about this case)
• the US: Georgia (U.S. state), not Georgia State; see also Province of Georgia, not Georgia Province.

Eugene van der Pijll 23:12, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• If you write a text, what would you write: Last summer I went to the province of Utrecht, to Utrecht Province, or to Utrecht (province).

Either "Utrecht" or "province of Utrecht". Google seems to agree with me: 5180 hits for "province of utrecht"; 2430 hits for "utrecht province".

• With state it is a little different, because of the other meaning that the word can have. Maybe for state, one should use State of Bremen.
• Maybe the distinction can be made by looking whether the local entityname includes some term like province/region/county. if it does not, use brackets. :::*Altenkirchen in the article it says district Altenkirchen link goes to Altenkirchen (district), this is not user friendly. I would call it Altenkirchen District. Maybe for me as a german this sounds little strange but the worldwide audience is probably more comfortable with this. Tobias Conradi 00:48, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand why including District or Province in the title of the article is user friendly. If you do that, the user will think it's a part of the name of the region, when it really is not. I don't think of deceiving someone as "friendly".

On Wikipedia:WikiProject Subnational entities/Naming, you wrote: "X (english)" vs. "X english": if "X english" is allowed in text, why not use it for title? I don't think I agree with this, but what you actually did in this case was moving "X (english)" to "X English". As I will revert changes in the text from "Utrecht Province" to "Utrecht province" (or "province of Utrecht") when I see them, Utrecht Province is certainly the wrong location. I will move the page back to Utrecht (province), but perhaps I can live with Utrecht province. Eugene van der Pijll 15:09, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I know what I did :-) . If you can not agree with it, please put the reason on Wikipedia:WikiProject Subnational entities/Naming. It is stated as a question there and meant like that. I really do not think the uppercasing was the best thing in the world ;-). I just think, nine variants are to much, and we all together have to find out why differences exist, and why they might be usefull. Tobias Conradi 19:48, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)