Talk:Davao (province)

Requested move 11 October 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No move. This comes down to a discussion over WP:PRECISION. In well-reasoned arguments, the majority of participants find the current titles sufficient to distinguish the articles in accordance with the policy's wording that titles should be "precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that". Cúchullain ^t/c 17:46, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

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• Davao (province) → Davao (historical province)
• Zamboanga (province) → Zamboanga (historical province)
• Misamis (province) → Misamis (historical province)
• Lanao (province) → Lanao (historical province)
• Surigao (province) → Surigao (historical province)
• Mindoro (province) → Mindoro (historical province)

– WP:PRECISE. Current titles are still ambiguous and may refer to (or may be confused with) any of their present day provinces. It also does not help that our current convention also uses (province) for existing provinces that are ambiguous like Isabela (province) Leyte (province) and Laguna (province). RioHondo (talk) 16:05, 11 October 2015 (UTC) --Relisted. George Ho (talk) 00:54, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:NCDAB and WP:PRECISION ("titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that" [my emphasis]). There does not seem to be any ambiguity and the provinces into which these were divided are linked in the intros for easy navigating. —  AjaxSmack  00:10, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Here are the current provinces created from those former provinces:

1. Mindoro (province) — Occidental Mindoro and Oriental Mindoro provinces.

2. Surigao (province) — Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur provinces.

3. Lanao (province) — Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur provinces.

4. Misamis (province) — Misamis Occidental and Misamis Oriental provinces.

5. Zamboanga (province) — Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga del Sur and Zamboanga Sibugay provinces.

6. Davao (province) — Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, Davao Occidental and Davao Oriental provinces.

Wouldn't it be better to have those as disambiguation pages that link to their former and existing provinces to direct our readers properly to the article they are trying to search? Because in practice, any of them could be called or be referred to by their former plain name or as X Province, especially by the older generation.--RioHondo (talk) 01:57, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

There is no need for new dab pages; those already exist (e.g. Zamboanga, Misamis, Surigao) and they link to all of the provinces you mention. Lengthening the disambiguator in these titles would not make navigation any easier or the situation any clearer. The dab pages explain the situation clearly enough. As far as "any of them could be called or be referred to by their former plain name" goes: if that is really the case, then the reader will type "Zamboanga" (et al.) and arrive at the dab page. —  AjaxSmack  03:25, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

The following are existing provinces titled following WP:MOSPHIL: Abra (province), Antique (province), Aurora (province), Isabela (province), Laguna (province), Leyte (province), Samar (province). Apart from ambiguity with those titles, they also copy from the guideline for existing provinces which may lead our readers to be confused between current and former ones. As there is no existing guideline for historical provinces, I hope this disambiguation style could provide for a clearer distinction for those provinces.--RioHondo (talk) 16:18, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

• Support because the current titles are incorrect and misleading. There are not currently provinces.

Category:Provinces of the Philippines should be subdivided between current and not current. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:16, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Policy and guideline appears to be lacking in advising to not give articles misleading titles, but that doesn't mean misleading titles shouldn't be avoided. The title is the big text at the top of the page, the first thing read, the most forceful thing read, and possibly the only thing read. It, in isolation, asserts that Davao is a province. This is not true, without "historical" or year span, or some indication that it refers to something past, the title is misleading. To this point, it is irrelevant that technical disambiguation is unnecessary, or that an incorrect term redirects, as long the incorrect term is not the big text at the top, and is not listed in the category system. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:23, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose, I think. I agree with AjaxSmack's comment about WP:PRECISION. As far as I can gather, if these articles are moved the current titles will still redirect to them anyway. That's generally a clear giveaway that the extra disambiguation is unnecessary. Jenks24 (talk) 05:38, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment. The ambiguous article titles can be made to redirect to their plain name disambiguation pages under a "Provinces" section. For example: Zamboanga (province) —> Zamboanga#Provinces. That way we are able to guide our readers to the specific province article they are trying to search.--RioHondo (talk) 06:21, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:PRECISE. Other similar classes of articles on Wikipedia don't have unnecessarily longer titles just to avoid confusion. For example see Category:Former counties of the United States. Besides, if we follow your logic, we should move General Santos to General Santos City and Sultan Kudarat to Sultan Kudarat (province) because they may be confused with the actual persons. Again, the title is not the place to add unnecessary though helpful text. The WP:LEDE is the place for that. —seav (talk) 12:39, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Actually, there is no naming those places any other way as they do enjoy primary topic for those plain names. Whereas Zamboanga (province) or Davao (province), do we have those historical provinces as primary topics for Zamboanga Province and Davao Province? Or are they still ambiguous with their current provinces considering their current provinces may have more coverage now for any mention of their root + province? Put it this way, if Sultan Kudarat was also the name of a former province in the Philippines, would you put it at Sultan Kudarat (province)? If Metro Manila is also a province, not a region, I would have also included Manila (province) for renaming to Manila (historical province), even if the current name isn't exactly the same as the historical province. Anyway, the category where these articles are located is at Category:Former provinces of the Philippines so I'm good with moving them to X (former province) also.--RioHondo (talk) 14:20, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

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