Talk:Los Angeles, California

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Los Angeles, California → Los Angeles — It had been previously discussed that the name for this page should be moved from “Los Angeles, California” to "Los Angeles" (It is no longer mentioned because it seems someone erased the whole discussion page). The city of Los Angeles is an Alpha World City and therefore does not to be identified by its political subdivision (Los Angeles is the only Alpha city on Wikipedia that has its political subdivision in its name). As a matter of fact, some Beta and Gamma cities do not have their political subdivisions in their name (so then why does LA?). Just as New York City, Paris, Toronto, Madrid, Chicago and other world cities are known without mentioning their political subdivisions so is Los Angeles. If you feel that the move is not a wise choice, please support the reason why you disagree with the name change. Jfcr3wp 06:50, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Add  # '''Support'''  or  # '''Oppose'''  on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~. Please remember that this survey is not a vote, and please provide an explanation for your recommendation.

[edit] Survey - in support of the move

1. Support -- My reason is mentioned above. To me, the name itself seems to downgrade the cities classification as an Alpha city. If someone mentioned Los Angeles, how many of you would need reassurance that it was in reference to the city in California? Also being that Los Angeles is derived from Spanish roughly meaning ‘the angels’ I fail to see how Los Angeles could mean anything else in English. If it does, this is already covered in the disambiguation page. Jfcr3wp 07:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
2. Support, unless we're going to move Paris to Paris, France and London to London, England (which I wouldn't necessarily oppose). --Trovatore 08:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
3. Support per above. Georgia guy 14:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
4. Support - All oppose votes below are moot given that in its entire existance, Los Angeles has only redirected to Los Angeles (disambiguation) for all of 3 hours. Unless you're going to change that, then there is no point in not moving this article. - hahnchen 15:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
5. Support Almost all major cities have the distinction issues between the municipality, metro area, and larger administrative subdivision mentioned in one of the oppose votes below, but in almost all such cases the simple name is chosen to be the name of the city article and not a dismabiguation page. For example Madrid refers to the city even though there is a Madrid metropolitan area and a Madrid (autonomous community). This move will just bring Los Angeles in line with what other major city articles already do in Wikipedia. --Polaron | Talk 15:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
6. Support - pretty much a no-brainer. --Yath 19:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

   That is not a reason, and the closing admin will probably ignore your vote unless you give a real reason. TJ Spyke 22:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

7. Strong Support - Los Angeles is an alpha city, a name unto itself. Anywhere on earth, when you mention Los Angeles, people know exactly what that is. We have single city/town titles for very small places - Fontana Liri, Loriga and Tubou are simple examples.
   As for the Wikipedia:Naming conventions arguments against this move, as with lesser American cities like Chicago and Philadelphia, there is a very justified exception to that guideline (which is inconsistent in itself besides being only a "guideline" and not policy). Other exceptions examples are also much smaller cities like Cardiff, Edinburgh, Vancouver and Belfast ; per the letter of WP:Naming conventions, they should be "Cardiff, Wales," "Edinburgh, Scotland," "Vancouver, British Columbia" and "Belfast, Northern Ireland" respectively - but they're not since editors saw the wisdom of keeping those major notable names by themselves. As for the predicted and tired "but they don't share the name with other places like Los Angeles does" all of these examples share the names of other lesser places. Even the smaller London isn't "London, England" and that shares its name with the (arguably) major city of London, Ontario.
   Let's do this right and show the world this project has the wisdom of recognizing one of Earth's most notable settlements as it should be. --Oakshade 23:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
8. Strong Support - Los Angeles is a major world city. Just as Paris, New York City, or Chicago don't need further classification, Los Angeles should not either. It is just not necessary, and in a way downgrades this very important city. If anyone needs further clarication between the city/county/metropolitan area/etc., they can go to the disambiguation page, or be more precise in their searching. Raime 03:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Survey - in opposition to the move

1. Strong Oppose It's my personal belief that no city article should just be at the city name (i.e. Chicago should be at Chicago, Illinois and Toronot should be at Toronto, Ontatio for example). There also no reason for it to be moved. TJ Spyke 07:14, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

   Also, The general usage, as specified by the guideline Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements), is for U.S. city artuicles to be named "city, state". TJ Spyke 07:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

   Comment. I agree with you there but there are three U.S. cities (that I know of) that do not follow the “norm” (New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia). The latter two do not have as strong cultural and economic impact on the country. The two latter cities also had the same problem with naming (both once had their state in their name) and both were approved to remove their state from their name. Why should they be the exception but not Los Angeles? Also if all cities where to have the same naming conventions (such as Tokyo, Japan, Paris, France, etc.) then I would not have a problem with the current name.Jfcr3wp 19:26, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

   comment right, that's my basic issue here too. It may not be a good idea — it's probably not a good idea — to distinguish "first tier, world class" cities from other cities through the titles of their articles. But as long as it is being done, then dammit, LA belongs there. If you can convince the English to go along with an article called London, England, then I'm OK with Los Angeles, California, but I'm not OK with the unilateral solution. --Trovatore 22:52, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

2. Weak Oppose for two reasons. The guideline suggests this should not be done, and the fact that "Los Angeles" alone often refers to Los Angeles County, California, the Greater Los Angeles Area, or to the area covered by Zip codes 900xx, which is a subset of the city. These are all related concepts, so it's only a weak opposition if two distinct disambig pages are created, one for the related concepts, and one for other uses of Los Angeles.

   (Also, this should have reported to Wikipedia:WikiProject California and Wikipedia:WikiProject Southern California. To the best of my knowledge, it has not yet been so reported. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 15:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

   London has the same dynamics; There's London and then there's Greater London and as far as I know, there has been no complaints (given the importance of that city, I think it would've been a serious issue by now if there were). FYI, although I don't think it was nessesary for those projects to be informed, it was a good idea nonehtheless and they have now been informed. --Oakshade 23:49, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

3. Oppose. Let Los Angeles redirect here with a disambiguation line here linking to Los Angeles (disambiguation)--contrary to what hanchen says above, that is not an indication that this should be anywhere other than where it is. Gene Nygaard 16:01, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

   Comment. That does not help. There is only one reason this article is titled as such; the "city, state" format that was a practical necessity in early 2004 because of many U.S. cities created this way with a bot. It has been 3 years now, and this is no longer necessary for major cities. Moreover, if we move the page, Los Angeles, Calfornia will remain a re-direct. Georgia guy 16:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

   Well, I'm assuming that Los Angeles is going to be the more popular search string, I don't understand why its necessary for the redirect. And for navigation purposes, it'd be more efficient. I have however, not read into the naming conventions or whatnot. - hahnchen 16:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

4. Oppose - as far as I know, the general concensus for naming U.S. cities has not changed, including major cities. This has been rehashed so many times. Mike Dillon 16:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

   The general consensus has shown excepetion to the usual naming practices for extremly large (but still smaller than Los Angeles) cities like Chicago and Philadelphia. Moving this to "Los Angeles" alone is actually consistant with consensus. --Oakshade 06:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

5. Oppose per WP:NC:CITY and WP:NC(P) and the laundry list of reasons that have been rehashed before. The fact that there is such a broad area attributed to the term "Los Angeles" only enhances the need for precision in our naming conventions. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 04:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

   1. comment so it may well have been rehashed before, but the outcome is still a deep injustice to Los Angeles. If the proposal in the guideline were in fact implemented, it would be fine with me (though I think it should apply to the whole world, not just the States). But it isn't, and isn't going to be. That being the case, there's no justification for trying to hold the line to keep out LA. --Trovatore 07:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

      1. An "injustice" to Los Angeles is irrelevant. It is the Wikipedia reader that we serve, not the city or citizenry of Los Angeles. There is no injustice to the Wikipedia reader to go to a page titled Los Angeles, California when they are looking for that particular city in California. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 08:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

         1. Sure there is. It misinforms the reader, by suggesting that LA is less world-known than Chicago or Philadelphia. --Trovatore 08:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

            1. Actually, it will just inform the reader of the gross inconsistency and lackadaisical sense of consensus that Wikipedia has. If the page moves for Chicago & Philadelphia were brought up today, they certainly would not have passed. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 08:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

               • The current setup just isn't fair. If you think that's not a problem, I disagree. This will keep coming up over and over again until it is fair; you can't just say "we've talked about it before" when the setup remains so blatantly incorrect. --Trovatore 16:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

               1. "Fair"? That seems to be an emotional attachment which is quite baffling. There is no "pride" at stake. Los Angeles' status as world class city is not tarnished or enhanced by what its Wikipedia article is titled at. The purpose of the title is to simply state what the subject of the article is about. Any support vote that is based on "pride" or some "world class" ego modifier misses the point completely. It has no bearing on whether or not the article is correctly titled and if a Wikipedia reader can easily find the article they are looking for. The problem with the current set up isn't a matter of "fairness" but a matter of inconsistency brought about through vaguely defined "exceptions". The issue will keep coming up until the naming convention WP:NC:CITY takes a firm stance for consistency and eliminate the vague exceptions. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 18:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

                  • I disagree. WP undervalues Los Angeles with the current setup. Consistency would be fine, but it should apply to the whole world, not just the US; otherwise it looks like there are a few cities that everyone knows in the whole world and don't need any other jurisdictional name -- but none of them are in the US. And that's just not true. --Trovatore 19:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

                  1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It has no bearing on the value or stature of any city in any part of the world. I would love to see Worldwide consistency but even though the US has the largest overall number of related city articles and the majority of Canadian & Australian articles follow a City, State convention, the current culture of Wikipedia is very anti-consistency. Now I do recognize that the State importance has more prominence in the history and culture of the United States then in other parts of the world. That could be a large source of the disconnect with our countries in wanting to attach the province/department/etc to their city names. There is simply not the long standing historical connection to those. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

                     • I still say you're wrong. It's too bad that this scheme is used to distinguish "great" cities from other ones, it shouldn't be that way, but it is that way, and given that, it's just an affront not to include LA. --Trovatore 03:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

6. Oppose. I remember when the large Texas cities were nominated to rid themselves of the state name. There's no good reason to move to Los Angeles from where it is, no matter how large the city is. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
7. Oppose. There is no consensus to do this in the discussions on changing the US settlement naming convention. Also for many people LA refers to Los Angeles County, California, or Greater Los Angeles or Greater Los Angeles Area so the city may not be the most logical choice for a redirect. In fact, it may not be what they wanted in the first place. A redirect should not send a large number of readers to the wrong article. Vegaswikian 05:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

   That's exactly why we have disambiguation pages for articles like Greater Toronto, Greater London and Île-de-France (region)... all of these "greater" metropolitan areas are anchored by cities that have only their names in their respective article title. Nobody had demonstrated any reason why Los Angeles should be excluded from this group. --Oakshade 06:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

   Comment. Your reason to oppose suggests that this article should be at Los Angeles (city). As the city's name, Los Angeles, California is rarely used except when writing postal addresses. It does not logically distinguish it from one of the above. If there were, for example, an equally major city of Los Angeles, Texas, that is what this name would dis-ambiguate it from, in which there is no good reason to dis-ambiguate it as such. Georgia guy 13:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

8. Oppose - per WP:NC:CITY. There is no official meaning to "alpha city" or "world city" (I've never heard the terms until today) and I fail to see why Los Angeles should be un-disambiguated. Given that "Los Angeles" is such an ambiguous term even in local usage (is it the city? the region? the entire megalopolis?)... This also raises huge issues with LA's subsidiary "neighborhood districts" - I say I'm going to "LA" when I mean I'm going to Canoga Park, Los Angeles, California... which is true, but not the whole truth... do we move all the neighborhoods to Canoga Park, Los Angeles? Moving causes more trouble than it's worth, IMO. FCYTravis 07:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

   As a resident of Los Angeles, my answer is it's the city. If you refer to the "Los Angeles metropolitan area", you actually say "Los Angeles metropolitan area." Just like Chicago is referred to as the city and Chicagoland refers to the area including all of its neighboring cities. --Oakshade 07:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

   But that's not how it works in common usage. "I'm going down to LA" quite often means, just going south. It's Valspeakesque, but there you have it. Ask the average person where they're going, they're not going to say "Oh, I'm visiting the Los Angeles metropolitan area." FCYTravis 07:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

   Casual Valspeak-esque usage of terms is not an encyclopedic method to determine the name of a city. I myself have used the phrase "I'm going to New York" when I actually meant that I was going to Suffolk County, New York, but that in no way means that we should alter the consensus agreed-upon-title of New York City by itself. --Oakshade 07:30, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

9. Weak oppose. I think that all U.S. cities should be "city, state" for consistancy. Right now "Los Angeles" is a redirect to "Los Angeles, California" and that article has three (!) redirect notices at its top. Leave it as such; articles should have the most correct title, even if another title is more popular or common. —ScouterSig 14:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
10. Oppose. Guidelines such as WP:NC(P) become worthless when exceptions are used in cases that are not exceptional. Moving the article simply because other cities have been moved weakens the guideline. If city-only-names are desired, the change should be made to the naming convention itself, not by adding more exceptions. --- The Bethling^(Talk) 20:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

    Los Angeles is exceptional, just as it was determined for places like Chicago and Philadelphia. Nobody has demonstrated why Los Angeles is not exceptional. --Oakshade 22:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

    I don't believe that Chicago and Philadelphia qualify as being exceptional. There is no harm to readers of Wikipedia if Los Angeles stays named as it currently is. I don't think that anyone has shown that Los Angeles is an exceptional case on its own, and merits breaking from the guidelines. --- The Bethling^(Talk) 22:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

    Editors and consensus have disagreed with that opinion and found Chicago and Philadelphia to be exceptional enough to move the article titles to single names. Los Angeles is larger and more internationally famous than those cities. --Oakshade 22:26, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

    The fact that one article was changed is not a reason for additional articles to be changed. The style for naming US city articles is city, state. There has been a lack of consensus to change this. So unless there is some really good reason, the current articles should stay. Given the various meanings of LA, I fail to see how we can say that one use is predominate. Being exceptional is not a criteria for anything that I'm aware of. Vegaswikian 23:44, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

    Not only has there been two US cities that have made the move to single names (smaller cities, I might add), but someone proposed New York City be moved to "New York City, New York" and consensus was OPPOSED to that move - see Talk:New York City/Archive 2 (title of article). The policy of WP:CONSENSUS, which supersedes WP:NC(P) which is only a guideline, decided to have all three of these cities as single names. Los Angeles is easily exceptional enough to to be in line with the consensus found with those cities. --Oakshade 00:35, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

11. Oppose. Per reasons given in previous surveys and above. -Will Beback · † · 21:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
12. Oppose because of reasons above. -ChristopherMannMcKay 00:44, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
13. Adamantly opposed. per my arguments in the four other proposed page moves, and the arguments I state below. BlankVerse 10:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
14. Oppose because of reasons given in previous surveys and above. Perhaps Jfcr3wp should be investigated with the Checkuser tool to ensure he/she is not a sockpuppet of a certain editor who has repeatedly launched these types of polls in the past on this talk page in violation of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and other core Wikipedia policies. This is getting really irritating. --Coolcaesar 06:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments:

The reason why the previous requested move is not shown is because it was archived (see the archive box above). The most recent nomination is recorded at Talk:Los Angeles, California/archive3#Requested move #3. Tinlinkin 07:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh cool thanks! Jfcr3wp 07:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed this is the forth time that this page has a requested move and every time there is always a no consensus. Again, other cities had the same problem yet they all passed it on their first try. What is it about Los Angeles that seems to get people to oppose the name change? Jfcr3wp 19:38, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

General comments: "Alpha city" and "World city" are described in that article. Not really that relevant, IMHO, but someone did ask.

Los Angeles is somewhat unique among US cities in that there are parts of the (legal) city which are not referred to as being in Los Angeles; Hollywood, Encino, and Venice come to mind. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:04, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

There's a different dynamic now than there was back when Chicago and Philadelphia were moved, Jfcr3wp. Chicago and Philadelphia were moved during lulls in the debate about what the US convention should be. If anything the Chicago move is what kicked this latest round into high gear. Also, saying other cities passed on their first try isn't true, Chicago had at least one failed move request before it was moved. Seattle, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Houston, and Denver have all had at least one failed move request. It's nothing personal against Los Angeles, the issue for many is at the naming convention level. You may be interested to take a stroll through Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) and the archives. --Bobblehead 19:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Quite true. It's an unfortunate allowance of the vague "exception clause". Since a sizable segment of editors are in favor of strengthening the consistency of the convention, the only way to get these exception moves through is to try and find a lull in the debate when a number of editors are simply not paying attention. That is a rather twisted concept of consensus gathering. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 19:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

And that is not gathering consensus, it's finding a way around consensus. I'm not suggesting that you would attempt to do that. Since the timing would have to be perfect and I don't know of a way to predict when that window opens it may not be possible other then by sheer luck. Vegaswikian 23:49, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Reference: Previous suveys where WP:CONSENSUS approved the moves of the smaller US cities of "Chicago, Illinois" to "Chicago" - Talk:Chicago#Requested_move and "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania" to "Philadelphia" - Talk:Philadelphia#Requested_move --Oakshade 07:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why the article for the city of Los Angeles should not be at Los Angeles

"Los Angeles" is highly ambiguous. It could mean the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, the Greater Los Angeles Area, the Los Angeles Basin, an airport, a seaport, several different professional sports teams (including the awkwardly named Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim), a university, a state college, a city college, and many other things. It could even refer to something as broad as Southern California. Paradoxically, City of Los Angeles is the name of a passenger train.

As the description at Greater Los Angeles Area says:

"... people outside of Southern California commonly refer to the entire region as L.A. even though it includes five counties, more than 100 distinct municipalities, and more people than any individual state except for Texas, New York, Florida, and California itself."

This confusion about what is "Los Angeles" can easily be seen in the Los Angeles, California article (and especially in the article's edit history) where editors are regularly adding information that does not directly involve the city of Los Angeles. It can also be seen in the What links here for the Los Angeles page that currently redirects to Los Angeles, California. Many of those wikilinks are intended to link to a "Los Angeles" other than the City of Los Angeles.

The question of what is part of the city of LA, and what is not, can confuse even residents of the Los Angeles area. Hollywood, when it isn't being used to refer to Cinema of the United States (or other things), is a district in the city of Los Angeles, as is North Hollywood, but West Hollywood is a separate city. Venice is part of the city of LA, but neighboring Santa Monica is an incorporated city, and neighboring Marina del Rey is an unincorporated community administered by the County of Los Angeles. "East Los Angeles" could mean either East Los Angeles, California (an unincorporated community), the eastern portion of the city of LA that includes communities such as Boyle Heights, or the East Los Angeles region, which is the eastern portion of LA County including the previous two East LA's, plus cities such as Montebello and Pico Rivera. San Fernando in the northern corner of the San Fernando Valley is a separate city entirely surrounded by the city of Los Angeles.

My personal opinion is that Los Angeles should be a disambiguation page, but that is unlikely to happen, so it should be a redirect to Los Angeles, California. It is the easiest way for finding links that were intended for all of the other places and things that are called Los Angeles. BlankVerse 10:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The above long list can all be taken care of at Los Angeles (disambiguation), as the overwhelmingly primary referent for "Los Angeles" is the city. Come on, this is completely a side issue; a great many articles (not just about cities) are at titles that have a great many meanings. When there's one meaning that's hugely predominant, you put a dablink to a disambig page at the top.

Note that the dablink at the top is also exactly what you have to do at Los Angeles, California, so putting the article there doesn't even address your concern.

(Note to Septentrionalis: By the way, this is also the refutation of the article that "New York City" is a special case because "New York, New York" can also mean New York County. That's obviously overwhelmingly the subordinate meaning, so the city article could be at New York, New York with a dablink to New York County. Obviously the real reason people didn't want to go for that was that New York is a great city, which of course it is, and if London stands alone then so should New York City. And Los Angeles.) --Trovatore 10:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I was not in on that decision; but editors who were said at the talk page for WP:NC (settlements) that that is why New York City was moved. I observe that this one is not likely to be moved; but then Los Angeles, California is unambiguous. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:54, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.