Talk:Rome, Italy/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

What's the use of putting this page at Rome, Italy, and having Rome redirect to it? Rome, Italy should only be necessary if there's more than one Rome (I can imagine there's some US towns called Rome), but in that case Rome should be a disambiguating page, and not redirect to Rome, Italy. As I don't know about any other Romes, I'll leave it like this for now. jheijmans

Zundark, the link that you removed:

Pages that link here: [1]

was meant to keep available the list of pages (you counted more than 350) that contain a link to Rome, I would guess the majority of which referring to the italian town. I had put it to be able to see those pages and not the recent pages that I can see if I click on the ordinary system link.

I think that it could be useful (for the many that are looking for the pages that link to the town's article, however named) to put it again in the article, perhaps with a better description than mine.

About the renaming of the article, recently Venice, Italy was reverted to Venice (even if there should be another one in California, I think) and the change was presumedly made for an obvious simplicity purpose. I agree with that change, IMHO it is too much "taxonomic" to call it this way, because it produces by paradox that the correct form for Wikipedia is not the one (quite) universally and immediately used by everyone (at least in english-speaking world), but another one, in atlas or dictionary style: yet, we all think of Rome as Rome, and even one who is eventually looking for Rome, Georgia would look for Rome at his first attempt. Also, it would be a heavy complication to adapt all the future edits regarding Rome, specially for newcomers (I besides imagine that the work of correcting all the existing 350+ links would be a longlasting passtime for the eventual volounteer).

I read your addition to the disambiguation page, and I can tell you that I had also read the mentioned example of Paris _before_ disambiguating, but since the article had been renamed, I considered it appropriated to just leave the possibility to edit Rome if someone wants to add about Rome, Georgia or about the third one or about new eventual voices. A disambiguating page would have also contained other related topics such as Roman Empire, Roman Triumph and similar entries. Moreover, after a Rome, Georgia (of which I'm becoming very curious :-) is eventually edited, how can it be found apart from specific exact search? It wouldn't have much sense to say in Rome, Italy that another place is called Rome; but it would be appropriated if an article existed named Rome.

Honestly I find that it could be better to go back to the previous situation, and maybe much more simpler. --Gianfranco (o Roma, o morte :-)))

When there is one meaning which is far more common than others, then it's probably not a good idea to make it into a disambiguating page. (Someone already explained this in Wikipedia:Disambiguation, using poker as an example.) This is certainly the case with Rome, so I think it ought to be moved back to Rome. As you say, we can easily add a line to the Rome article pointing to Rome, Georgia and suchlike. Even if someone changes all 350 links, this wouldn't stop people accidently linking to Rome in the future - after all, they have a right to expect that Rome is about the Rome. --Zundark, Wednesday, April 10, 2002
Here, Here Zundark. Rome the article should be on Rome the page. People look at you weird when insisting on calling the overwhelmingly most famous Rome, "Rome, Italy". In this case, a disambiguation page is not appropriate, in the same way as a disambiguation page is not appropriate for the Paris article. Just have a list of the other Romes of the world at the bottom of the article. And when that list becomes too large, then create a link to a page called Romes of the World. However, Rome, Italy does need to be a redirect to Rome --maveric149, Wednesday, April 10, 2002

With all due respect to the residents of Paris, Texas; Athens, Georgia; and Moscow, Idaho; I'm with Mav here. The choice of whether to make a simple term into a disambiguation page is a flexible one. It's entirely appropriate for a page like "Rome" to be full coverage of the overwhelmingly most well-known city, and have a few links to the others at the bottom. It might also be appropriate to do it the other way in some cases. That's a judgment call, and we shouldn't be afraid to make those judgments. -- Lee Daniel Crocker

Hrmmm... you all have valid points; I debated with myself for quite a while on whether or not to move it. I seem to have a different perspective from the rest of you - while I certainly agree that when I hear "Rome", my brain automatically tags it ", Italy" unless otherwise indicated, in an encyclopedia I'd look under either Italy or Rome and still expect to find the article in an index of headings (or search engine in the case of Wikipedia). But then, I grew up visiting Europe on a regular basis and learned to automatically tag a city with its location (try looking up "Frankfurt" in Germany sometime). But I may be unusual (or unique) in that. Either way, I apologize for creating extra work on you-all's part, and will bear this exception to standard Wiki article nomenclature in mind. pgdudda

After much discussion on the wikipedia mailing list and elsewhere, a new consistant wikipedia naming convention was developed for cities. For the US it is City, State and for all other cities of the world it is City, Nation. --maveric149, Monday, July 8, 2002