Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Location Format

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[edit] Context

This discussion was moved from WP:AN/I —Quarl (talk) 2006-02-09 10:23Z

Can someone give a second opinion on whether the recent edits by User:Quarl to change [[City, State]] to [[City, State|City]], [[State]] are as totally useless as they seem? --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 05:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

As useless as they seem. --Golbez 05:37, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I always use [[City, State|City]], [[State]] myself. It means we get both the city and the state wikilinked, which can be useful. Also, there's something vaguely irritating about having that comma and space linked. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 05:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Eh, if you want the state you just click the city, where the first line should be City is a city in State. --SPUI (talk - don't use sorted stub templates!) 05:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
One click is better than two... but yeah this is probably something for the talk pages of WP:MOS. --W.marsh 14:46, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
This really doesn't seem to be an AN/I issue...perhaps you should bring it up on the talk pages of WP:MOS? My personal preference is to link both city and state; there's no reason to have our readers jump through an extra hoop/link if they want the state article. (Normally not a big deal, but every click counts when we go through our periodic growing pains and associated glacial server performance; dialup users might also find it handy.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:57, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Not totally useless. I prefer the [[City, State|City]], [[State]] form. android79 14:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. Let me try something here: {{us-city|Arlington|Texas}} -> Arlington, Texas - well stone me, it worked! Does anyone like that at all? Worth a go? No? Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 20:55, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I proposed something similar about a month ago on Village Pump and people didn't seem to understand. My proposal was one template per city. I'm not sure about using a generic template because many cities do not use a standard format due to disambiguation issues. It wouldn't work for all levels of granularity (e.g. city, county, state) nor in general for other countries. Another issue with a template like this is it always links to the state, even if it has already been linked to. —Quarl (talk) 2006-02-08 22:27Z

WP:CONTEXT#Other_considerations says, "Go for the more specific reference. Instead of linking individual words, e.g. Latin phrases, consider linking the more detailed concept: Latin phrases." Given that, wouldn't [[City, State]] be the better link? howcheng {chat} 22:57, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that's an accurate comparison. Neither Latin nor phrase are supersets or subsets of each other or Latin phrases so if they were to replace a link to Latin phrases, yes that would be bad. On the other hand, for location links like "X, Y, Z", X is a subset of Y, which is a subset of Z. Thus if X is relevant, Y is relevant. And we're not replacing the link; we're adding to it. For people that live in the U.S. and are familiar with every U.S. state, the links to U.S. states may not seem very interesting, but please consider it from a worldwide-view. Imagine coming across a link to "Podunk town, Foobar province, Uganda". Now the Foobar link is interesting. In fact this is what motivated me in the first place -- coming across "city-only" links for other countries. My goal here is immediate context for someone completely unfamiliar with the subject. —Quarl (talk) 2006-02-09 10:18Z

Also, please note that this is in the larger context of City, State, Country. If the wiki links should be like [[City, State]] because State is not relevant, then by reducto ad absurdium, we should change links to [[San Francisco, California]], [[United States]] to [[San Francisco, California|San Francisco, California, United States]]. —Quarl (talk) 2006-02-09 10:35Z

Are there links to both [[San Francisco, California]], [[United States]]? That seems absurdly redundant.
  • WP:MOS-L says: "These links should be included where it is most likely that a reader would want to follow them elsewhere...." Is there any likelihood that anybody looking at the city is more interested in the Country?
  • Anyway, there is already piping language in WP:MOS-L saying not to make "[[Rome, Italy|Rome]], [[Italy]]" so I'd say not to do it with City, State either. I agree that the WP:CONTEXT is germane.
--William Allen Simpson 04:11, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

The guideline has always been [[City, State]] rather than [[City]], [[State]]. Please follow this format for consistancy. If the article has City, State, Country, it is usually not necessary to link the country at all, but if you must, you can link it separately. Kaldari 21:45, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lists

This project violates style guidelines elsewhere (as documented above). And, it would make lists horrible to maintain.

A set of pages that I've participated in at List of Latin place names in the Balkans are already listed by Country. Adding the redundant country name to each and very city, province, or whatever would make the page even more hard to maintain than it is already!

Maybe it would be a good idea for folks to contribute to article projects rather than style mangling projects?

--William Allen Simpson 04:42, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Follow actual practices

OK, I checked, and there's not a single reference at this time to the string "San Francisco, California, United States" — and nowhere on the first few search pages where such a construct would be useful.

There are places where London, Ontario, Canada occur, and AFAICT, they should be fixed. Look at Ballymote, Ontario.

Or Uxbridge (disambiguation) or Woolwich (disambiguation). There's simply no reason to link Ontario or Canada, and thus no reason for each to be separately linked.

Moreover, this project seems a continuation of the battles over place names that took place last year. Especially North American, but also the attempt by some pedants to carry the same naming conventions into every other country under the banner of uniformity.

Well, the polls have been over for months, the RFCs have been written, and the current guidelines say "Follow local conventions" and "Maintain consistency within each country" instead. This project so-called "worldwide view" isn't acceptable.

Therefore, I propose changing the project definition to follow actual best practices:

  1. locations such as cities should be formatted canonically as required at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places).
  2. any country should only be linked where needed to establish separate context.
  3. components of a place name should never be separately linked where they are already joined in context.

In other words, reverse all the goals of this project!

--William Allen Simpson 05:19, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

The MOS principles you've quoted are:

  • Only make links that are relevant to the context
  • Don't use a piped link to avoid otherwise legitimate redirect targets that fit well within the scope of the text. This assists in determining when a significant number of references to redirected links warrant more detailed articles.

Links to the country are almost always relevant. Ballymote, Ontario is a perfect example of a case where the links to Ontario and Canada are both extremely relevant. And the piped link to Ontario is not used just to avoid a redirect target. The Rome example is misleading because what the MOS is really trying to say is, "don't do this just to avoid the Rome, Italy redirect".

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places) is about how to appropriately name articles, not "how to appropriately link to articles".

As to your proposal point #3, well, I don't see any independent reasoning behind it other than it being the opposite of this project's goal. —Quarl (talk) 2006-02-10 08:35Z

So, we have guidelines on naming the articles, but this project seeks to hide the article names. Seems contrary to the premise, and as I mentioned earlier, a continuation of the place naming wars.

Heck, the project page specifically mentions using San Francisco instead of the canonical article name! And calls "laziness" using the canonical name!

In current Ballymote, Ontario (a single sentence stub for an obscure hamlet), the reference to "Middlesex Centre, Ontario" is piped hiding Ontario, the following reference to London, Ontario is piped hiding Ontario, and then Ontario and Canada are linked.

You cannot be seriously suggesting that a reader somehow arrived at this obscure non-notable hamlet stub, but actually is next most likely to want to know the meaning of the words Ontario or Canada?

Also, you missed several of the key points:

  • ... do not make too many links.
  • Links that follow the Wikipedia naming conventions are much more likely to lead to existing articles.
  • Links should use the most precise target that arises in the context....
--William Allen Simpson 12:47, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] United States

Although I agree with having city, state, country as three links (rather than two or one), I do not agree with your statement, "Prefer the most internationally-recognized name; for the United States, this is USA." While I would like to argue that "New York" or "California" or "Texas" or "British Columbia" or "Ontario" or any other U.S. state or Canadian Province is very clear, especially on the English Wikipedia, I do not agree that "USA" is the best form for writing the United States's name. "USA" looks bad, partially because it is an abbreviation but also becuase it is somewhat ugly and not as common as "US." I mean, if you're going to write "Los Angeles, California," instead of "Los Angeles, CA," then why would you write "USA" instead of "United States," which is the nation's conventional short name. The same logic follows, for example, with "Canada"--why "Canada" but "USA" when "United States" is more proper and nicer?

I would like you to reconsider your recommendation, and if you do not change it to "United States," i woudl still suggest it be "US" rather than "USA"--sort of like it's "UK" rather than "UKGBNI" or "US-NY" in international abbreviations, not "USA-NY." "New York, New York, United States" or "New York, New York, US," not "New York, New York, USA." Thanks. //MrD9 08:05, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay. I had already updated the user scripts to use "United States" but hadn't updated the project page yet. —Quarl (talk) 2006-02-20 13:30Z
Thanks/sorry. //MrD9 00:02, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Manual of style (links)

Hi there:

I was introduced to your project two days ago, on March 2, 2006, when MrD9 decided to apply the principles espoused on your project page to Congress of the Confederation. I reverted his changes, and he re-reverted them, citing your project page as an authority. I then read your page, and decided that this wasn't a fight I wanted to get into. However, in making his changes, there was a duplicate wikilink. You see, the Congress of the Confederation had taken up residence in both Trenton, New Jersey and Princeton, New Jersey at various points in its existence, so MrD9 had two New Jersey wikilinks. I therefore made the change “[[Trenton, New Jersey|Trenton]], [[New Jersey]]” → “[[Trenton, New Jersey]]”, which MrD9 promptly changed to “[[Trenton, New Jersey|Trenton]], New Jersey”. This is, to say the least, just plain asinine, and I reverted it, incorrectly citing Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links). Now why I write that this citation was incorrect is because, if I truly followed the citation, I would have to revert all of MrD9's changes. Therefore, I would like to request that you do two things:

  • Get your preferred styles entered into the Manual of Style. If William Allen Simpson is making improper changes to the Manual of Style, get those changes reversed. For good or for ill, the Manual of style takes precedence over a WikiProject when they're at the same level of specificity.
  • Make changes to your project page that the construction “[[(city), (state)|(city)]], (state)” is a bad idea, because it creates a needless redirect. (In the “[[(city), (state)|(city)]], [[(state)]]”, the redirect is necessary to provide the context for the state link.)

— DLJessup (talk) 16:57, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Two comments:

  • To DLJessup, if you look at the page as it currently is (after your edits), all of the cities but Trenton are written with the city wikilinked and the state wikilinked. "Trenton, New Jersey" is the only current "together" link, while "Annapolis" and "Maryland" are both separately linked. Therefore, on the page, the format is inconsistent, with "Trenton" being the only exception. Therefore, I changed it to be consistent within that document, and if you had looked at the document and not just the "diff" link, you'd realize that I had accidentally left two NJ wikilinks but that your correction was, according to you, correcting the wrong format to something that is wrong becuase it's inconsistent within (the same section on) the same page. Therefore, if you insist on changing it back, change them all back, not just one of them.
  • The [[city, state|city]], [[state]], format is much more useful than the one on the MOS link, since many times when reading articles and seeing a place, information about the area is much more important than the 5 square mile town or something that it's about. Further, the hyperlinked comma looks wrong, and the "split" format is used on many U.S.-related pages becuase it provides for a cleaner, more detailed and more easily accessable link format. Therefore, I would suggest that this become the format the MOS uses for locations. //MrD9 18:33, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

MrD9:

  • Please do not add a (redundant!) wikilink to my posting. Global changes to postings (such as moving inappropriately placed postings or fixing indentation) are borderline, but OK; actual changes to the text of other people's postings is not.
  • I really don't understand your first point, and I don't think it's because I have a problem with reading comprehension. I think that you're mixing two or three separate points, and, as a result, you don't actually make a single one. Nonetheless, I will attempt to answer it:
    • “The format is inconsistent.” In the narrow sense in which you are using inconsistent, it is. However, it is perfectly consistent with the rule: if the state has already been wikilinked, there's no reason to break it out separately. In other words: yes, it is; so what?
    • “if you had looked at the document and not just the ‘diff’ link”: as it happened, I did look at the document. On the other hand, it is fairly clear that you did not read the post to which you are responding; otherwise, you would have read my sentence, “Now why I write that this citation was incorrect is because, if I truly followed the citation, I would have to revert all of MrD9's changes,” and realized that I'd already stipulated your point that, if I were following the citation, I would have had to revert all the links.
  • As to your second point:
    • I am skeptical of the [[city, state|city]], [[state]] format, but I'm willing to live with it if it gets into the Manual of Style. However, with the Manual of Style specifically contradicting that format, your work is going to be undone by well-meaning editors who (silly them!) think that they should be following the Manual of Style. Please reread my post. I specifically asked that the WikiProject get the Manual of Style changed if they wish to continue it.
    • “the hyperlinked comma looks wrong”: that's an aesthetic judgement with which I disagree.

— DLJessup (talk) 20:01, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

DLJessup,

  • I am sorry for adding the "(redundant!) wikilink" to what you had written. When I had finished writing, I smimply had looked back up and noticed that "Congress of the Confederation" had no wikilink, and since it was the page we were talking about, I added it so others could follow. As I noticed now, there was one in the first sentence, and the link is link breaked across my screen, so I did not see it. You have my sincerest apologies.
  • My first point was meant to be quite simple: You wanted "Trenton, New Jersey" wikilinked as one, but at the same time "Annapolis, Maryland" was wikilinked as two. The same was true for New York and Philadelpiha. Therefore, my point was that you should either make them all of the MOS format or keep them all the split format, not mix the two. I did not separately wikilink "New Jersey" with Trenton becuase "New Jersey" had already been wikilinked to itself with Princeton, so I did not want to add another redundant wikilink, which is why I kept it in plain text; although I'd like to think everyone knows what state Trenton is the capital of, the average reader (or the non-US one) can't be expected to know much more beyond, possibly, the big ones like NY, LA, Chicago, ....
  • Inconsistency: Someone will notice the different formats on one page ([[Princeton, New Jersey|Princeton]], [[New Jersey]] vs. [[Trenton, New Jersey]]) much more easily than he or she will notice them on different pages. Sadly, however, it's impossible for the latter to be fully consistent (which, by the way, I am not using as justification for using one format over the other; it's simply true, since anyone can edit). And I did realize that you said you'd have to revert all of my changes, which is what you should have done first (but at least it's done now) to maintain intra-page consistency.
  • The basis for that it's ugly, with your disagreement noted, is simply that it looks bad when the whole location is wikilinked (including the country).
    • You may think "London, Ontario, Canada" is ugly, but we in fact think "London, Ontario, Canada" is ugly. (taken from from this project's page; the difference lies in "London, Ontario" between the two examples)
  • I really do not think our goals are at odds with each other. Sorry for any problems I may have caused you, especially since I was just "fixing" what seemed to be at odds with this project's page, almost everything I'd seen with NJ-related pages, logic, and what I find to be most useful. //MrD9 20:17, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

MrD9:

Dern it, you had to be all polite and gracious, and now I (deservedly) feel like a schmuck for the tone of my responses. Wikipedia:Civility is probably the policy I have most trouble with. I don't have anything material to add, but I want to just apologize for my tone.

— DLJessup (talk) 05:01, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

It's ok... happens to everyone. //MrD9 22:53, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 13:57, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 18:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)