User talk:Kauffner/RM incubator

USPLACE RFC[edit]

Glad to see you're working on this. I recommend proposing it for editing on a subpage at USPLACE, before making it an actual RFC, to give others an opportunity to make it as neutral as reasonable possible.

What you have:

Indicate order of preference among the following options:

A. Put all US cities in name-comma-state format.
B. Put cities on the AP list at their common names (30 cities). Put other US cities in name-comma-state format.
C. If the city is on either the AP or the New York Times list, do not disambiguate. (60 cities)
D. Follow Britannica and Columbia. (~250 cities)
E. Disambiguate only when necessary to avoid title clashes.

What I recommend (with the PRO/CON sections needs more work):

Indicate all which are acceptable in order of preference (most preferred first) among the following options, and your reasoning:

All US cities use [[Cityname, Statename]].
- PRO: Simple. Predictable. No exceptions.
- CON: Unnecessary disambiguation. Ignores the main problem here -- special treatment of a US topic -- and so does not even address the problem of ongoing disputes about this. We have a 10+ year history of many people in countless cases objecting to this on the grounds that we don't disambiguate concise commonly used names of most other cities for their titles, no matter how obscure they may be, unless there is an ambiguity conflict within WP to be resolved.
  - Rebuttal of CON: Using a US city's "full name", which arguably includes ", Statename", is not disambiguation.
    - Rebuttal of rebuttal of CON: While both [[Cityname]] and [[Cityname, Statename]] may be commonly used to refer to a given city, there is no question that [[Cityname]] is more concise, is more commonly used among those familiar with the topic, and just as precise, when the city is the primary topic for that name. People are much more rarely the primary topic of a concise name than are cities, but when they are, we do use that for the article title (e.g., Cher, not Cherilyn Sarkisian). This is also true for almost all of our titles. There is no good reason US cities which are the primary topic for their names should be treated any differently.
All US cities, except New York City, use [[Cityname, Statename]].
- PRO: Simple. Only one well-known exception for which there is especially strong consensus support for dropping the state name.
- CON: Unnecessary disambiguation. See #1.
Cities on the AP list (30 cities) use [[Cityname]]; all other US cities use [[Cityname, Statename]].
- PRO: Status quo. Fairly simple. A few well-known exceptions. Good compromise.
- CON: Unnecessary disambiguation. See #1.
Cities on the AP list or the New York Times list (60 cities) use [[Cityname]]; all other US cities use [[Cityname, Statename]].
- PRO: Expands current list to more reasonable exceptions.
- CON: Unnecessary disambiguation. See #1.
City entries in Britannica and Columbia without the state in the entry name (~250 cities) use [[Cityname]]; all other US cities use [[Cityname, Statename]].
- PRO:
  1. Expands current list to even more reasonable exceptions than Option 4.
  2. Consistent with usage in reliable reference sources.
- CON: Retains ", state" in title as unnecessary disambiguation for all cities which are the primary topic for their respective city names, but not so treated on Brittanica and Columbia. See #1.
Cities which are the primary topic for their name use [[Cityname]]; all other US cities use [[Cityname, Statename]].
- PRO:
  1. Simple.
  2. Expands current list to even more reasonable exceptions than Option 5... to simply include all reasonable exceptions.
  3. Follows same general title criteria used for most of our articles, including most city articles, using long-form of a name only when necessary for disambiguation, thus solving the underlying problem of treating US cities specially.
  4. Affects only those cities in which [[Cityname]] currently is a redirect to [[Cityname, Statename]].
  5. Only this option will finally put to an end all controversy about USPLACE and related articles.
- CON: Opens up debate about whether a given city is the primary topic for its name.
  - Rebuttal to CON: Under all options the primary topic determination still has to be made exactly the same (and has already been made and resolved for all US cities). Even if the article is at [[Cityname, Statename]], we still have had to determine whether the city is the primary topic to know whether [[Cityname]] should redirect to that city article, to another article, or be the title for another article or dab page. This determination is completely unaffected by whether [[Cityname]] will be the title of a given city article, or a redirect to it, if it is determined to be the primary topic.

Comments transferred from main page[edit]

Indicate order of preference among the following options:

A. Put all US cities in name-comma-state format.
B. Put cities on the AP list at their common names (30 cities). Put other US cities in name-comma-state format.
C. If a city is on either the AP or the New York Times list, do not disambiguate. (60 cities)
D. Follow Britannica and Columbia. (~250 cities)
E. Disambiguate only when necessary to avoid title clashes.

Question May I comment on the wording? In option B, please don't use the phrase "common names" to describe the 30 cities, since some people contend that "city, state" IS the common name for US cities. It would be clearer and more neutral to say "For cities on the AP list, use just the city without the state name" or something similar. Thanks. --MelanieN (talk) 19:54, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with Melanie and have lots of other suggestions. I've addressed all that on the talk page. Let me know if you're okay with the direction I've taken it, and what you think about inviting others at the USPLACE talk page to edit here until we have a consensus version of the RFC itself. What we don't want is an RFC that is dismissed for claims of being biased or unfair. The best remedy for that is having all interested parties invited to input into it. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:03, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I took the liberty of taking this material and starting a "workplace" section at the USPLACE talk page. It's not an RfC, but the idea is to get the "regulars" to agree on a fair and reasonable presentation of the various positions and pro/con arguments, before an RfC is started. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:17, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Kauffner, I don't understand why you're not engaging in discussion with anyone (apparently) about this. You completely ignored my advice above about inviting others at USPLACE talk to edit "here until we have a consensus version of the RFC itself", because "What we don't want is an RFC that is dismissed for claims of being biased or unfair". You didn't follow this advice, and now we already have multiple people complaining about it being biased and unfair, just as I had predicted. And edits to the wording, after !voting has already started, is going to be messy, at best. Sigh. --Born2cycle (talk) 06:16, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the healthy debate ended when I arrived, what with all the grudges that follow me around. It didn't look like anyone else was going to propose anything though. Think we should notify more people? Hundreds of cities are involved, seems like it should be a bigger deal. Kauffner (talk) 15:34, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Normal discussion is one thing. An RfC intended to solicit input from the community at large needs to be taken seriously in order to be effective. You can't expect to word something like this in a manner that will appear fair and reasonable to everyone without soliciting input on it before going "live", so to speak. And you did get input here from Melanie and myself, and you ignored that. I really appreciate your efforts, but I don't understand why you seem to insist on going about this without collaborating with others. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:57, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

At this point, it has been rewritten several times. It hardly matters what I originally wrote. I changed "common name" to "concise name", following your advise. Kauffner (talk) 18:56, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]