Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (provinces)

The following aims to be a complete list of subnational entities called province...

But they're not called "province". They're called département, vilayet, marz, oblast, voblast, khoueng, aymag, etc (see List of native terms for subnational entities). And conveniently absent is anything that doesn't already conform to this proposal, like the Départements of France, Oblasts of Russia, Subdivisions of Ukraine, etc.

I'm opposed to watering everything in the world down to "province" and "county", when many countries' political and social organization doesn't follow an Anglo-Saxon model. —Michael Z. 2005-06-2 15:08 Z

the full statement is

The following aims to be a complete list of subnational entities called province on Wikipedia

This naming convention about provinces would only apply to things that have "province" in the title. It is more about syntax than translation. -- Tobias Conradi (Talk) 16:06, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why can't we do it case by case per country? I'm opposed to affixing "Province" behind every Chinese province. (Other than Taiwan Province, which is a complex controversial term that clearly requires its own separate article from simply Taiwan.) -- ran (talk) 15:35, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

Current use for China perfectly fits into "X Province, Country [dab-only]" because the affix is only used if needed for disambiguation. --Tobias Conradi (Talk) 16:08, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I think to be accurate, as an encyclopedia should endeavour to be, each country, and sometimes each province within that country, has to be viewed individually. It is indisputable that some Chinese provinces are titled differently, in Italy a province is very often named after the town under whose control it was, hence "Province of Ragusa" is correct. I suppose one could say "Ragusa's Province" but who would search for that, or has ever heard it said? Then we have the Provinces of Ireland are they to be made to conform to a Chinese or single Wikipedia standard as "X Province". My strong view is accuracy has to be observed at all times, even over what seems on the surface quite trivial. I would imagine (I say this without checking facts) that globally as in Italy "Province of X" is probably the most used, however this one phrase cannot be enforced where it is wrong to do so. Hence where a national consensus cannot be reach, each province must be titled independently according to its political, national, and traditional history. Giano | talk 12:23, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What perhaps needs to happen is for each country's "Provinces of Page" to hold a poll of interested parties similar to that currently taking place here: [1]] on Talk:Provinces of Italy. With luck this will acheive a concensus for Provinces of Italy at least, although hopefully future debates on other pages will be less heated. Giano | talk 13:01, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Dear Giano!

The provinces of Ireland currently do not need the word province at all. If we would use a country by country approach, this can lead to the mentioned 14 naming variants. I think the majority of users would agree that this is in the long run not desirable. Me as well I sometimes thought that the three variants "X", "X Province", "X Province, Country" are not the optimal versions for some provinces. But with time one gets used to it, for me and maybe some others the simplicity is compelling. Maybe before moving provinces of Italy to "PofX" what is some work (at least it was for me without bot), we could gather more people to talk about subdivisions in general. Yes debate was heated. That's what I expect when talking with someone from Sicily ;-) (was joking) Tobias Conradi (Talk) 17:32, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• How refreshing to see you have a sense of humour. Where exactly are you from? - Yes it is complicated each nation is different isn't it? Some do need the word province, some do not, and yet all are provinces. I'm so pleased you are finally coming to my way of thinking. At least Wikipedia unlike some encyclopedias does not have to be stacked on a shelf, so it has space to be truly accurate. Did you ever watch Monty Python? you should! Giano | talk 18:20, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I am from 13.3997656420545 East, 52.5377092278059 North , Earth Province, Europe County, Germany Borough, Berlin Street. I think we have to fight more to deepen our friendship. You may chose the weapons. I having nothing Toulose. But let's stick to the rule that soft pillows are not allowed. Let's meet private in this fight. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:24, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ah Prussia! Giano | talk 21:46, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

---

Hi, Tobias!

As you asked, I reviewed this proposal, and, honestly, I am of two minds about it. On one hand, standardization is great, as it reduces ambiguities and overlaps, and streamlines the whole naming scheme. On the other hand, the topic of the subdivision names, even when narrowed down to just provinces, is not that easily tamable. If everything is standardized, exceptions will start popping up sooner or later (as it is already the case with Italy, for which you will most likely need a separate subrule). I would imagine the topic of naming, when done on such great scale, is just not going to work without major sacrifices on both sides, leaving everybody unsatisfied with the final product.

Having said that, I will continue to remain neutral. Even if your proposal is rejected, I am sure your efforts will help improve at least a portion of the naming scheme, and might create basis for starting other standardization projects. Please continue keeping me posted, as I am very much interested in the direction this proposal and the discussion surrounding it will take.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 20:21, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

GNS linking project and naming conventions

Here's my proposal, based on my desire to perform a huge geodata-linking project based on a much-cleaned-up version of the public domain GEOnet Names Server data. See List of FIPS region codes for a major part of the manual heavy-lifting work, which is linking quasi-systematic names to Wikipedia articles. Doing 4000 of these was/is a pain. Once this is substantially done, a lot of the rest can be poured into a fuzzy-string-matcher together with a fairly recent capture of the FIPS ADM1 tables. -- The Anome 21:37, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

To help this work, every top-level subnational region should, at the very least, have a redirect to it in the form one of :

X Entity, Country, or

Entity of X, Country,

X, Country

where

• X is the local name transliterated into Latin script, accents and all, or the common English form, if different (Cologne instead of Köln, for example).
• Entity is the capitalized version of the local entity type, either translated into English, if there is an exact translation, or transliterated from the original language, accents and all, if not. Sometimes Entity may be null if it's already contained in X: consider "County Clare"
• Country is the common name of the country as used to name the Wikipedia article about that country, for example North Korea, not the official English-language name of "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".

Then, the actual article itself for that region can be placed at

X Entity, Country, or

Entity X, Country, or

Entity of X, or

X, Country, or even

X

as appropriate depending on local naming conventions and uniqueness. -- The Anome 21:29, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

your proposal allows for "EoX", "E X" but not "X E". country disambiguation seems buggy, 1) missing "EoX, Country" 2) "X, Country" looks like City. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 21:42, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Some thoughts

Canada, eh??

More broadly, It seems to me that if most of the articles for provinces in a given country do not include the word "province", the disambiguation should be in the form of a parenthetical. Antwerp (province) fits in better with East Flanders and Hainaut than does Antwerp Province. Same deal with Dutch provinces.

Beyond that, I am relatively indifferent. I would basically suggest that where the form "X Province" is used in English, we use that; where "Province of X" is used in English, we use that, and where neither is used, we use parenthetical disambiguation. john k 00:58, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

lead or follow? we can influence what is used. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 01:19, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Follow. It is not our job to influence usage. Certainly not on something like this, where there is no particular argument for encouraging one usage over another. john k 02:14, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

where there is no particular argument for encouraging one usage over another - if they are equal we can stick to one. the particular argument would be consistent naming for all subdivisons. I am not talking about reinventing english. It is only about cases where no variant is absolut unusual (=wrong). Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:02, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with john k about parenthetical disambiguation being the best. The "X Province" format is all well and good when the word State, Province or Department is conventionally used as part of the short name (see States of Venezuela) but it's the wrong way to go about disambiguation. For instance, that one problematic US state is at Georgia (U.S. state), not Georgia State. –Hajor 00:30, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

parenthetical disambiguation being the best you really want to move San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí to San Luis Potosí (city) and San Luis Potosí to San Luis Potosí (state) ... in order to get parenthetical article names? That are harder to write in text? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 01:07, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

That's a strawman, Tobias. Parenthetical disambiguations (or other forms of disambiguation) only when needed. The Mexican states can reside at locations without a disambiguating clarifier because we decided to adopt the "comma convention" for the cities -- essentially as a form of pre-emptive disambiguation. What you are suggesting (and what you have done to Guatemala, Honduras, Argentina, Costa Rica, etc., etc., etc., in breach of logic, consistency, and local usage) is the equivalent of San Luis Potosí State. –Hajor 02:09, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Dear Hajor. I like comma convention for cities. It gives additional info and everybody familiar to US-style city-naming can deduct that an article with comma is about a city. What I found for english countries was a lot of "X County" and "X County, Michigan". Here the comma is used in similiar way to city disambiguation. Breach of local usage? I think the above mentioned countries use mostly spanish language? You prefer "X (county in Michigan)"? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 02:39, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

This is another important point. Local use -- the names as they are given and used within the country in question -- should be given precedence over any and all attempts to standardize the entire world. I have no opinion on Michigan county articles -- that's for the US wikipedians to decide, and there's enough of them. (I'm glad to hear that you, like me, support the comma convention for cities, and for much the same reasons. I'd actually like to extend its use, and just this week I posted about the possibility on Talk:Venezuela and Talk:Brazil (it's easier with federal countries). But, of course, that's not something I'm going to embark on without first hearing from those whose knowledge of Brazilian and Venezuelan naming conventions is greater than mine.) –Hajor 03:46, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Why not have San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí and San Luis Potosí (state) Wikipedia is not consistent; and, as I just demonstrated, those í's are pretty tough to get right, anyway.  ;->Septentrionalis 01:57, 27 July 2005 (UTC) (UTC)

Comma disambiguation for cities should only happen in countries where this is common. I am not certain about Mexico (although I will admit that I'd prefer San Luis Potosí (city) to the highly awkward San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí), but we certainly shouldn't have monstrosities like Frankfurt, Hesse and Frankfurt, Brandenburg, and the like. john k 02:45, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

because the latter is localy also called Frankfurt an der Oder. But F, Brandenburg is not that bad. Well very unusual for me (I live in Berlin, Germany near to this town) but why not. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 03:09, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, is a monstrosity, but it's both in accordance with local usage and part of a structure for Mexican city and state articles that is internally consistent, coherent, largely non-surprising, and agreed upon by a cabal of Mexican wikipedians. Veracruz, Veracruz, and Campeche, Campeche, are much less monstruous. I'm surprised that San Luis Potosí (city) doesn't exist as a redirect; I'll take care of that now. –Hajor 03:46, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Frankfurt an der Oder should be so named. This is a local, official, and complete system of disambiguation, and WP really ought to stick with it. The only question is whether we should follow the German wikipedia and move Frankfurt to Frankfurt am Main.

Roman provinces

Please reconsider the use of X Province for the Roman provinces.

• It is not historic usage
• It is not English usage.
• It will make much more difficult a treatment of the late Roman provinces, after Diocletian, who broke them up into smaller bits, often carrying the same name divided by number or adjective (1st X, 2nd X, 3rd X, X Narbonensis), Septentrionalis 01:30, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

of course it's not historic ;-) (just thinking that Caesar was not speaking english) if there is english usage maybe this better. I think at the end, only few provinces need disambiguation at all. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 02:42, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, and Gallia provincia is unusual in Latin, because unnecessary. When it does occur, it usually has the force of "Gaul, the province," not of a proper name. Septentrionalis 13:34, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Related discussion

Please see also: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (subnational entities). More of same. –Hajor 14:42, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Consolidating discussion

Please see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions for a discussion on consolidating redundant or competing pages for places, countries, etc. Maurreen (talk) 17:25, 16 August 2005 (UTC)