Wikipedia talk:Argentina-related regional notice board/Archive 1

Various discussions (moved from within vote listing

• In response to the term province must be aclartatory, to disambiguate

Last year I was in[[Córdoba (province of Argentina)|Córdoba province in Argentina]].

Last year I was in[[Córdoba Province, Argentina]].

Awkward syntax and (I suspect, but I'd like confirmation from the Argentines here with reference to local preferred use) spurious capitalization. I would much prefer "Last year, I was in the [[Provinces of Argentina|province]] of [[Córdoba (province)|]], [[Argentina]]. Which yields: Last year, I was in the province of Córdoba, Argentina –Hajor 01:51, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

FYI, there are two provinces called Córdoba. That's why country disambiguation is used. What you like seems not very practicable to me. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 02:15, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

A minor detail that escaped me. Please consider: "Last year, I was in the [[Provinces of Argentina|province]] of [[Córdoba (Argentine province)|]], [[Argentina]]. Which gives a nice, elegant "Last year, I was in the province of Córdoba, Argentina". Or any number of similar, accessible variations. –Hajor 02:42, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

• In response to The word "Province" should be optional, not obligatory

many time people want use the name and with brackets you have to write [[X (province)|X province]] .... how often have I seen this. Your pipe trick is only half the truth.

My pipe trick is the complete truth. When you write, you just have to type "[[Buenos Aires (province)|]]", and after you save, the text gets saved automatically as "[[Buenos Aires (province)|Buenos Aires]]". In other words, it's the wiki program (MediaWiki) which adds the second part that reads "Buenos Aires", not the user himself. 2004-12-29T22:45Z 06:25:04, 2005-07-27 (UTC)

I seldom see that. I see more of "[[X (province)|X]] province" or (even better) "[[Provinces of Argentina|province]] of [[X (province)|X]]" because, in general, the word "province" is a clarifier, not part of the name. The parenthetical format offers much greater flexibility. –Hajor 01:51, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

why do people write "[[X (province)|X]] province" ? Why do people in ENGLISH write New York City and not new York city? Because it's needed to identify the thing. Maybe it's not 100% scientific, but this is language, language is living. Nobody speaks like "I was in Buenos Aires bracket open province bracket close. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 02:22, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

First of all, this is not about being "scientific" or not. Secondly, the people say "New York City" because they have to distinguish between the city and a homonymous state. And that, of course, is when they actually have a need to distinguish the two. But they don't always need to. Not all cities have namesake provincies. Then, they don't always say "New York City". They also say "New York" when they refer to the city. And whether the words "city" or "City" are "needed", as you say, to identify the "thing", in reality it depends on the namespace or the context and situation in which they're talking. You ask why people say "X province". Well, then I ask you why people also say "X" instead of "X province", because they actually do. 2004-12-29T22:45Z 06:29:52, 2005-07-27 (UTC)

Amusing though it was, let's ignore the attempted vocalization of wikisyntax. You ask why people write "Córdoba province". Ok, the Chicago Manual of Style says: "Words such as empire, state, county, city, kindgom, colony, territory, and so forth, which designate political divisions of the world, are capitalized when they are used as an accepted part of the proper name. When not used as an accepted part of the proper name, or when used alone, such terms are usually lowercased." See the problem? I'm not sure the "Province" in "Santa Fe Province" is an accepted part of the proper name, most particularly because the proper name is in Spanish and obeys a different grammatical structure. See also the Guardian style manual here, which offers as examples "Sydney harbour", "Monterey peninsula", and "Bondi beach"; I'd guess "Entre Ríos province" would fit in nicely with those. –Hajor 04:27, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

• In response to most of the time you want the name of the province (or "province of X")

as said, it's not true that most of the time you want the name without the word "province". Tobias Conradi (Talk) 01:32, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, that's what you say, but who knows if it's actually true. I really doubt that i would say "provincia de Buenos Aires" most of the time when I'm talking about the province. Most of the time, I would say "Buenos Aires", because people would know anyway what I'm talking about because they understand the context in which I talk. A computer program like MediaWiki can't distinguish between the two because it can't recognize the context, and that's the only reason why we need to give the articles different names. 2004-12-29T22:45Z 08:20:01, 2005-07-27 (UTC)

• In response to why isn't Entre Ríos at Entre Ríos Province?

we can move Entre Ríos

Sure we can, but I don't think we should. Instead, we can also move all the other provinces which don't follow the Entre Ríos pattern. 2004-12-29T22:45Z 08:26:21, 2005-07-27 (UTC)

• In response to the shortest way to write

That's just half the truth, because we only need parentheses to disambiguate.

we will need them very often (90%?)Tobias Conradi (Talk) 22:01, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Secondly, I myself would never say that "I was in Córdoba Province, Argentina", because that sounds too bookish and too artificial, and it just sucks. Firstly, I'd never say "Córdoba Province, Argentina", because the comma and the pause in speech, they both suck, and because it implies a kind of telegram style or abbreviated style that I'd never use in natural spoken language, not even in written representation of spoken language. I don't care if it's Spanish, or English, or German. The comma and the pause suck.

For the US it is done that way, afaik. That's why I thought it's common in english Tobias Conradi (Talk) 22:01, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I'd use the preposition "in" instead of the comma. And that if, and only if, I'd say "Córdoba Province", but even that sounds too artificial, because it implies that "Province" is part of the "official" name, but in reality, I know that that's not the truth, and it just sucks. In Spanish, we say "la Provincia de Buenos Aires" or "la provincia de Buenos Aires" at most, and that's just to distinguish "la provincia de Buenos Aires" from "la ciudad de Buenos Aires". And then, even the capitalization or not of "provincia" is optional, not forced. And if we're within the namespace of Argentinian provinces, and if we then know we're just talking about Argentinian provinces, then we'd just say "Buenos Aires", even if we're talking about the province instead of the city. And that applies to Spanish and to any given translation.

no it's not only to distinguish province from ciudad, there is also Buenos Aires Canton. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 22:01, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I just hate to see the generic name of the province outside the parentheses, because you're forcing many users to talk in a way they'd never talk, and because everyone has a different way of talking. If we put the whole generic name between parentheses, then we don't force users to talk in a way they'd never wanna talk. We don't force them to display that part in the text that the reader reads. That's why we have parentheses: to make the word or words between the parentheses optional, but not obligatory. To me it just sounds very burocratic to try to force users to use translated words which are totally unnecessary. For example, it's necessary to say "Buenos Aires", but not necessarily "Province". You could just as well say you were in the "Provincia de Buenos Aires" or the "Province of Buenos Aires". Why use the form "Buenos Aires Province" and not, say, "Province of Buenos Aires"? Why not use the prepositional phrase with of instead of "Province" as a determinandum? That really shows you that the translation of "Provincia" is arbitrary and unnecessary and inflexible and burocratic.

sometimes it's unecessary to say Buenos Aires and it's sufficient to sy province. Maybe you take a trip to BsAs? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 22:01, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Next thing, I don't see why you wanna force me to say "in Córdoba Province" instead of "in the Córdoba Province", because you're forcing the grammatical structure and an artificial translation. In Spanish we say "la Provincia de Buenos Aires", so you even want me to mix up the grammatical structures.

what kind of article use the people in China? I mean, why are you going to teach the reader laTobias Conradi (Talk) 22:01, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

That's why I wanna see the generic name between parentheses, so English speakers and Spanish speakers don't get forced to use a certain structure they don't wanna use, even if we're just in the English-speaking Wikipedia.

The next point is, you're just talking about the length of the text one has to type. Look, I also care about that, but, nonetheless, it's still secondary. The most important thing is what gets displayed, in other words, what the reader reads when he looks at the page. In a wiki, you have to distinguish between the text that gets written, and the text that gets displayed. They're not the same. The most important thing is the end result, the bottom line. That is what the reader who visits Wikipedia sees when he looks at the page. I don't care if I have to type one hundred kilometers of text, as long as the text that gets displayed the way I want. What counts most is whether the ideas get expressed the way Wikipedia editors intend to, not whether they have to type more words. 2004-12-29T22:45Z 06:50:16, 2005-07-27 (UTC)

100% agree. what the reader sees is important. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 22:01, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Let's keep it cool

Please, everyone has its own opinion, and we are trying to find a consent that has not yet being reached in the Wikipedia.

Truth is that there are thousands of articles with names such as [[New York City]], Santa Cruz River, etc., and that naming is neither right or wrong, it's just an option.

I've read some things I would like to clarify. First I would like to say that the official name of the Argentine provinces respond to the Procinvia de X format (Provincia del Chubut, Provincia de Salta, etc). Question: Should we translate Provincia or not? Second, I believe its important to keep the name of an Article as clear, simple and closer to the end-user as possible.

In my opinion, the benefits of naming an Article one way or the other can not be "I have to type less", but "That's the proper name", or "that's the english name", or even "that's what the end-user would probably search for".

Now, I kindly ask you to present your pros and cons in a more tidy way. I propose the following format, but its imperative that we keep the points short, not duplicated, and add no comments in between:

• X (province) and variants
  • advantages
    1. No need of full typed pipe when the word Province is not needed.
  • disadvantages
    1. Needs full typed pipe when don't need the word Province.
• X Province and variants
  • advantages
    1. Literal translation of the spanish official name "Provincia de X".
  • disadvantages
    1. Needs full typed pipe when don't need the word Province.

I'll add a couple of things to the above, so as to keep the discussion from straying again.

1. It is just not possible to have a format that satisfies everyone and that fulfills all possible goals. But Wikipedia offers the possibility of redirects.
3. Please please everybody stop proselitizing a format, don't assume the other party is somehow ignorant of the obvious, don't resort to precedents (as if this were a trial), and sign your posts. We're going into uncharted space here, making an important policy and remaking the whole portion of WP that refers to Argentina, so let's keep it cool and sensible.
4. The user needs to be able to find things quickly. But in many cases the user will find an article by jumping from another article. When the user comes in from the Search dialog, s/he should find a redirect or a disambiguation page. Once exposed to a unified format for province name citation, s/he will learn. Let's not assume that users will be discouraged by not finding an article after just the first try.
5. Maybe (sorry) there's an extra alternative. There could be an inline template, e. g. {{argprov|Santa Fe}} that expands to, say, [[Provinces of Argentina|province]] of [[Santa Fe (province of Argentina)|Santa Fe]]. --Pablo D. Flores 10:58, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Bottom line, the problem here is that we have to use province because most of cases there are a city with the same name. That said, province is clearly disambiaguational, so, in my opinion, it should be beetween parenthesis. Below is my proposal:

Provincia	Capital
Jujuy (province)	Jujuy (city)
Salta (province)	Salta (city)
Catamarca (province)	Catamarca (city)
Tucumán (province)	Tucumán (city)
Formosa (province)	Formosa (city)
Chaco	Resistencia
La Rioja (province, Argentina)	La Rioja (city)
San Juan (province)	San Juan (city, Argentina)
Mendoza (province)	Mendoza (city)
San Luis (province)	San Luis (city)
Córdoba (province, Argentina)	Córdoba (city, Argentina)
Misiones	POsadas
Corrientes (province)	Corrientes (city)
Santa Fe (province)	Santa Fe (city)
Entre Ríos	Paraná (city)
Buenos Aires (province)	Buenos Aires (city) (is not the capital but)
La Pampa	Santa Rosa (Argentina)
Neuquén (province)	Neuquén (city)
Río Negro (province)	Viedma
Chubut	Rawson
Santa Cruz (province)	Río Gallegos
Tierra del Fuego (province)	Ushuaia

In the examples above, province is to desambiguate, nothing more; when there is no need to desambiguate, I think it would not be needed to be used.--Jfa 13:03, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for offering a very good solution which I think would work very well. Just one additional comment: with the province located at Salta (province), you could conceivably argue primary topic disambiguation for the city and have it at Salta a secas: no disambig tag in the article title but with a disambiguation header at the top of the article. (That's how we had the Mexican states and cities organised -- eg, Veracruz (state), and Veracruz for the city -- before we decided to adopt the "federalised" solution of Veracruz, Veracruz, for the city and Veracruz for the state.) Wouldn't work for Córdoba, but Corrientes, Neuquén, etc. -- no problem. –Hajor 15:05, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree with that. The words between parentheses are just for disambiguation. 2004-12-29T22:45Z 06:08:59, 2005-07-28 (UTC)

Gauchos Pesados

Has anyone ever heard of Gauchos Pesados? I never did, and that's why I've set a VfD on the article some time ago. But the article is well writen. Please, vote at the Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Gauchos Pesados. -Mariano 10:30, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Due to the recent discovery of several hoaxes by the same user who did Gauchos Pesados and many other already deleted hoaxes under the IPs 200.73.180.10 (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log) and 200.73.180.22 (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log), we should consider voting for deletion the Glamorous cumbia article as stated in the no original research policy, and all links to both articles. -Mariano 12:06, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Deustch

It seams Ze Germans have been very productive lately. There's a lot of information about de:Argentina already there, including articles about the provinces (de:Jujuy (Provinz)), cities (de:San Salvador de Jujuy, regions (de:Región Noroeste Argentino, de:Región Patagonia Argentina, de:Puna), and others: de:Liste der Provinzen Argentiniens, de:Julio Argentino Roca. If anyone is interested in trasnlating them into English or Spanish, good luck. (Please, no machine translations). -Mariano 09:55, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

also the article on the Flag of Argentina could use some content from de:Flagge Argentiniens (which is a featured article in de). Two bad I have zero german in my pocket. SpiceMan 08:48, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

San Martin

I'm trying to expand the article on José de San Martín. What I've written so far can be seen at User:SpiceMan/San Martin. My goal is to make it a Featured Article, which means not only expanding this article but also make the articles around him more complete. Any help really appreciated. SpiceMan 12:36, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Province naming convention (vote)

There seems to be a slight majority of proponents in favor of a format like this XXX (zzz), where zzz is a disambiguation item, either province or province, Argentina or AR. I strongly favor XXX (province[, Argentina]) and I believe most of the rest of us here could live with it, provided there are alternative names as redirects (that's an entirely different can of worms we've yet to open). Basically we should have names like the one posted in the table above. We've had plenty of discussion; could we try to reach a consensus about this option now? Please don't add an opinion or repeat the ones above; just say "yes" or "no". I don't mean to appoint myself as an authority here, but it's about time.

PS: As per a request, the proposal is (for the moment) restricted to provinces (not cities).

To the proposal of naming provinces as above, I say...

• Yes. --Pablo D. Flores 14:29, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
• Yes. Go figure... --Jfa 16:05, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
• Yes. –Hajor 18:17, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
• Yep 2004-12-29T22:45Z 06:19:54, 2005-07-28 (UTC)
• No. but, of course, I will accept the decision of the majority (even if ugly!) -Mariano 07:35, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
• Yes. A/B 'Shipper ? ^(talk) 17:59, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

Hey folks can you please wait with this comma thing? Did anybody of you ever have seen this? What will you do with departments and barrios etc.? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:21, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

If you vote here, we must assume you have taken the time to think about it. I think. This proposal is for provinces only; departments and barrios are a different thing (they are many and scattered). I for one intend to wait and see everybody's opinion before I start renaming articles. --Pablo D. Flores 20:26, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Why shall I vote Yes/No if I am undecided. I am on the way to do some research. There is discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(subnational_entities)

And why not look for a solution for the departments as well? Maybe later on we will move all back. Little bit more planning please - disculpe soy alemán, like to do some planning. Let's avoid double work. Nobody will die if this waits a little. Category:Argentine_national_parks use "X Designator". A little bit different but also Rivers, Mountains, Islands in WP use this. I started Matrix of subnational entities - anyone knows quantatiy of departments? What is the level after departments? Districts? Municipalities? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 14:37, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Each province, as sovereign in matters of its own subdivisions, is different: Buenos Aires only has partidos under the provincial level, which are in fact municipalities, although most of the interior partidos are large and has more towns and villages besides the head. The partidos are divided in cuarteles (old use) or localidades, which in fact doesn't has authorities, besides appointed delegates. In the other provinces, which are divided in departaments, their caracther varies beetween them: in Santa Fe departaments are administrative, doesn't has elected officials, and are subdivided in communes and municipalities; in Mendoza, departaments are as same as Buenos Aires' partidos. This is in fact a very complicated matter that need to be investigate...--Jfa 14:19, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Note also that the naming conventions differ even in Spanish. People say "Partido de Tigre" (Buenos Aires) but "Departamento Constitución" (Santa Fe). From the long (endless) discussion at WP:Naming et al I seem to recall that local variants were considered more important than uniform formatting at the international level. I would happily extend this to the lower administrative levels. Note also (that's 2 also's) that rivers and mountains are 1) not administrative divisions 2) differently named in English (you can say "province of XXX" or "XXX province", but not "river of XXX").

In any case, regardless of the actual name of the province articles, I'd like to see a uniform treatment of locations in Argentina of the form (city of) [[Rosario]], [[provinces of Argentina|province]] of [[Santa Fe Province|Santa Fe]], [[Argentina]] ("(city of) Rosario, province of Santa Fe, Argentina"). --Pablo D. Flores 14:49, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

More naming conventions

I was wondering if Peninsula Valdés was correct as a name... In keeping with other titles, it should be Valdés peninsula (or Valdés Peninsula); if we take it as a whole expression it should be Península Valdés (with accented í). While it is very easy to move the page and create redirects, there should be a standard in the first place. I tend to consider "Península Valdés" as an indivisible whole, much like "Puerto Madryn". BTW, Quilmes Atlético Club also looks positively weird... Sorry about the nitpicking — it looks as if I was born for that. --Pablo D. Flores 15:39, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

As little as I like it, the club's proper name is Quilmes Atlético Club (afa page. I made some redirections that I considered a normal user would attempt. -Mariano 16:05, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Since when are geographical feature indivisible? Maybe look at peninsula project if this exists - Argentina is not the only country with peninsulas. We most not reinvent the wheel. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:26, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

There is no such WikiProject, apparently. Note that Valdés peninsula exists as a redirect. The thing is that, for most people I think, the place name is heard as indivisible, "Península Valdés". Note that I simply moved it from Peninsula Valdés, which was a typo, missing the accute accent on the í. --Pablo D. Flores 20:40, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

no project but I found Category:Peninsulas, wouldn't this imply Valdés Peninsula.? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:01, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Categories often go by "Politics of Country" I saw e.g. "Argentine politics" I will move this to "Politics of Argentina". Maybe keep this format in mind if creating new Categories Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:26, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Second that. Especially since the corresponding articles use that format (XXX of Argentina or sometimes XXX in Argentina). --Pablo D. Flores 20:40, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Administrative Divisions

Instead of discussing this issue in each province articles and Departments of Argentina, I'll address the issue here.

The administrative divisions vary among provinces, it is self determined. For instance, Córdoba is divided in departamentos, which are subdivided in pedanías, which are divided in municipalities, and there are comunas which are administrative entities below municipalities, although they're not integral part of a municipality in administrative terms (I don't know what that means, I just found out about this).

On the other hand, Buenos Aires is NOT divided in departamentos. It's divided in municipios usually called partidos (Municipalidad de La Matanza, not Departamento). The usual organization scheme of these municipios is in an Executive Department (Departamento Ejecutivo) and Legislative Department (Concejo Deliberante) which adds confusion about the issue: the municipality's government is usually called departamento referring to either the Executive or Legislative branch of the municipality government (or both).

There are 2171 municipios in Argentina according to this. Another example is Entre Ríos, here you can see how confusing the thing is: the province is divided like Buenos Aires in municipalities with a heading saying Ciudades cabeceras de Departamento, refering to the cities where the Executive and Legislative branches are located.

So I'm bringing this so we discuss how to organize this mess. SpiceMan 11:40, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

No need for Mass suicide, if we use the proper title for each thing, then it shouldn't be such a problem. Partidos will still be partidos and departamentos won be nothing else but departamentos. Of course, it will be necesary to fix some incorrect articles that explain the political divisions of Argentina. I Guess we are a Federation after all. -Mariano 11:58, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

new list and same/similiar-name info at Departments of Argentina. If i got it right there are 376. Maybe there will be some places, like Villa XYZ, San Martín Department in different provinces, and at the same time Villa XYZ in different departments of the same province, so province and department name will need to be added. Maybe like Villa XYZ, San Martín, Corrientes? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 23:58, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

I created Partido, to avoid lengthy and also little wrong wikify like [[Departments of Argentina|partido]] in the future. I you see an old link, maybe change it. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 00:14, 14 August 2005 (UTC)