User:Born2cycle/USNChistory

Early History
City naming conventions were originally part of the regular naming conventions (now WP:Article titles), added for the first time in the following edit by User:Mav in the revision as of 13:08, July 2, 2002: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Article_titles&action=historysubmit&diff=108920&oldid=108918

This is what it said right before the city convention was moved to its own page: City names (new convention worked out on the wikipedia mailing list and elsewhere) Convention: In general, cities that exist in modern times should be named in this format: City, Nation. However, due to internal naming conflicts, cities within the United States should be named in this format: City, State. Rationale: City names throughout the world are used and reused by different nations and mean different things in various contexts. To resolve this in a consistant way, a general convention of naming articles about cities in the format of City, Nation will lead to consistency and resolve many naming conflicts and ambiguities (naming cities in the format of City, Province or City, Province, Nation would be adding unnecessarily complex information that is not needed to differentiate city names in most cases). However, the reuse of city names in the USA presents a very important internal ambiguity issue and therefore city names in the US should be treated differently than city names for other nations. For US cities, the minimum amount of information needed to differentiate the name of an American city from other American cities and from other cities outside the United States should be used. This format is: City, State (the addition of "United States of America" being superfluous to resolving internal and external naming conflicts). Tentative policy below (disputed sentence is in red) Notable and very famous cites such as, for example, Paris, France are unambiguously known simply as "Paris" internationally. However, for naming convention consistency, the article on Paris should be at Paris, France but since this is the most famous Paris in the world and the most linked Paris in Wikipedia, the page named Paris should be a redirect to Paris, France. Thus, the most famous "Paris" in the world, Paris, France, would have redirect priority over the use of the Wikipedia page named Paris (at least until every current link to the most famous Paris is fixed to point to Paris, France -- then Paris can become a disambiguation page). This final section is not policy yet and is still up for review Since Paris redirects to Paris, France, at the top of the article on the French city should be links to minor uses of the word "Paris" with a statement such as " "''This article is about Paris, France. There are also Wikipedia articles about Paris, Texas, and Paris (legendary figure)". This is called disambiguation-block format'' and is designed to quickly redirect visitors clicking on Paris who intended to go to one of its less famous meanings. Please see disambiguation for specifics on the disambiguation block format.
 * 


 * Original city guideline. edited by Mav at 09:45, August 4, 2002..
 * City guideline with concept of primary topic still infancy and unnamed 17:03, August 13, 2002.
 * Early version of U.S. guideline: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(settlements)&direction=prev&oldid=421241
 * Where things went awry:
 * diff that shows primary reason for predisambiguation is rambot.


 * Original vote/decision on predisambiguation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(settlements)/Archive_3
 * First vote found in favor of no predisambiguation! 13 to 7! (dates are unclear as this stuff appears to be a copy/paste from email): Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(settlements)/Archive_3.


 * Only six people voted about the U.S. specifically, and, despite the above result, 4 voted in favor of always disambiguate:

Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(settlements)/Archive_3

{{quotation|

City, Nation format
Subject to the above determination, cities are to be disambiguated as [City, Nation] unless there is there is a more specific rule such as [City, State] applicable to its country.


 * 1) Yes (6 votes): mav; Eclecticology; KJ; Andre Engels; Jan Hidders; Guy
 * 2) No (2 votes): Toby; Enchanter
 * Toby's note: "Subject to the above determination"? How does this vote differ from the first one?

United States
All cities in the United States are to be designated in the [City, State] format.


 * 1) Yes (4 votes): mav; Eclecticology; Toby; Guy
 * 2) No (2 votes): Andre Engels; Enchanter


 * mav's note: there are only a few truely unique city names in the US
 * Andre Engels' note: I'm in favor of the format, but only when some kind of further identification is needed for disambiguation. The page title New York, New York is to my eyes both ugly and illogical.}}

Note that the vote on the United States is under the larger heading of City, Nation format, which is qualified to apply "Subject to the above determination". Well, the "above determination" was that "Normal disambiguation" beat "Pre-emptive disambiguation" 13 to 7, and that was in a section that referred to the U.S. and so clearly applied to the U.S.

Afterwards there is some confusion as to what was decided on with respect to whether U.S. cities will all be at [City, State].

but Ram-man seems to make a unilateral decision:


 * (can't get a diff for this - search for it)

First Challenge
As near as I can tell, once the Ram-bot created the articles at [city, state] for all U.S. cities in 2002, the guideline for U.S naming remained stable through 2004. However, it's difficult to ascertain the stability of U.S. city articles during that time. Perhaps the first challenge to the guideline (after the original non-approval) came in May of 2004:

Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(settlements)/Archive_6


 * more explicit evidence when this statement was added: "This policy was enacted by the Ram-bot for technical reason, but the policy for keeping articles at these titles is not currently accepted by consensus." on 16:38, May 9, 2004 by User:Nohat
 * Later (Revision as of 01:20, June 18, 2004 User:Bluelion) changed to: "There is some dispute as to the general applicability of this convention and no real consensus to support it. See the Talk page." . This dispute language remains through Jun 24, 2005 (a year later) and beyond, through Nov 9, 2005 when it is removed by User:Coolcaesar  for the first time.  But less than a month later User:Answar changes it to: "There is some dispute as to illogical nature of this convention. See the Talk page." . There is changing around, but the fact of a dispute remains through February 5, 2006.
 * "Canonical form" language added..
 * Reflect that Chicago, Illinois]] moved to Chicago. . Revision as of 15:02, August 20, 2006

Chicago

 * Due to incomplete logging in the early WP software, it's apparently not possible to know how the article was originally named. The earliest edit in the history is on October 25, 2001, but it's obvious that was not the first edit.  However, on May 27, 2002, this edit indicates the article was moved "from Chicago", implying it was at Chicago prior to that, and originally, presumably.
 * First time, apparently, a specific move from Chicago, Illinois to Chicago is proposed/discussed. 00:17, 16 Apr 2005 All objections are based on the proposed move contradicting "the standard".  There is voting for two days from  4/17 to 4/19, and Chicago loses 10 to 13.  This argument is interesting: "when one is making hundreds of edits a day, lack of convention for names would slow things down considerably.".  Editors really should double-check every link they use, and to the extent that pre-emptive disambiguation inhibits them from doing so, is an argument against it.  The decision on May 15 is "Stays at Chicago, Illinois, do not move to Chicago.".
 * Talk:Chicago/Archive_2 - a request from User:Dralwik to participate in a survey which would move Chicago, Illinois to Chicago. 30 June 2005 22:27 (UTC)
 * Talk:Chicago/Archive_3 User:Rob starts a move discussion.  18:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC).  Interesting commentary but proposal fails.  Mention of another general proposal at the guidelines.
 * Talk:Chicago/Archive_4 User:Nat Krause proposes a move that succeeds on 23:29, 14 August 2006 (UTC) Ariticle is moved to Chicago (first time, I believe)
 * Talk:Chicago/Archive_5 discussion about moving back to Chicago, Illinois. 05:14, 10 July 2007 (UTC) Apparently failed... note exception for cities on AP list, including Chicago, is added to guideline one month later, and there has been peace and tranquility ever since.

NOTE: Something that becomes quite apparent when you look at history like this is that whatever controversy there may be about a U.S. city article title (like in Chicago above), it quickly dissipates and ends once it is moved to its concise undisambiguated name.

Now, some might say that that is because those in favor of pre-emptive disambiguation are not as combative as those in favor of use the concise names whenever possible, but I think it really stems from the fact that the only reason for pre-emptive disambiguation is the convention itself, and once it is moved to the more concise name, especially after a little time, the pointlessness becomes obvious, even to those in favor of it.

That is, once an article is at its concise unambiguous name, the only argument to move it to the overprecise name is for the sake of following convention. However, as long as it is at the overprecise name, the argument that the current name is overprecise and the proposed concise name is more concise always apply, and conciseness and over-precision are relevant considerations to naming any article in Wikipedia. This is what makes any article at its overprecise title inherently unstable, as is demonstrated by this history of the Chicago article while it was at the overprecise Chicago, Illinois title.

First Proposal to dab only when necessary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(settlements)/Archive_8#New_proposal_on_U.S._cities

Later

 * The AP edit. Revision as of 21:26, August 16, 2007

Misc links

 * Settlements archives: Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(settlements)/Archive
 * User:Rambot
 * User:Ram-Man
 * County creation samples
 * Creation of many U.S. city articles:
 * And more:
 * And more, including Westwego
 * Initial diff of Westwego:
 * This is the earliest revision of Westwego, as edited by Ram-Man at 14:51, October 20, 2002:
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. counties/Archive 1
 * WikiProject U.S. states/Archive1 Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. states/Archive1
 * Oldest?
 * Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_U.S._states/Archive_1
 * Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cities/Archive_1