Wikipedia:WikiProject Indian districts/Naming

Naming
for articles of districts of India: why "X district" and not "X District"? If "district" could be considered a part of the name (not necessarily the official name) it could be capitilized, if it cannot be considered part of the name it should go in parenthesis? For geographic features it is also uppercase: Ganges River, Gangotri Glacier, Gangetic Plains, Aravalli Range, Cardamom Hills, Doddabetta Peak, Eastern Ghats. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 23:03, 10 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree; in the case of Indian districts, the word "district" is part of the proper name; the Indian district articles should be no different from articles on other civil divisions, like US counties or Argentine provinces. The reason some users have entitled articles "x district" may be a misunderstanding of the wikipedia naming convention, which says that subsequent words should not be capitalized, but proper names are exceptions to that rule. Tom Radulovich 23:55, 10 September 2005 (UTC)


 * The word "district" is not a part of the official district name. It is appended only when the district and the district headquarters share the same name. I did a bit of research on the topic a few months ago, and I found that the Indian media (Times of India and NDTV) predominantly uses "X district". Since wikipedia does prefer local usage, I applied the same formula here based on these findings. =Nichalp   «Talk»=  11:51, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
 * The contention that "District" is not part of the official name of a given district seems quite odd to me. "X District" certainly was official in British India, and the capitalised form was used; check out the Encyclopedia Britannica or the Imperial Gazetteer of India. Is there any documentation that the designation "District" was indeed "officially" dropped from district names after independence? Since most districts are named for their administrative headquarters, having no official designation that distinguishes districts from cities seems to be a recipe for utter confusion. Tom Radulovich 01:51, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


 * how does the Indian media call the Ganges River? Shall we use Singlish for articles related to Singapur? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 08:53, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * District is not a proper noun. =Nichalp   «Talk»=  09:05, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * your are absolutly right. Can you also answer the questions? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 09:47, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * River Ganga or simply the Ganga is common. To answer your second question: please see Manual of Style. =Nichalp   «Talk»=  11:49, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * There is nothing about Singlish. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 23:28, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
 * You can draw your own inference from it. =Nichalp   «Talk»=  08:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I favour this form because it falls correctly within sentences: in "Akkalkot lies in Solapur district of Maharashtra state," one can just create a link to "Solapur district" without having to make it "Solapur District|Solapur district". ImpuMozhi 00:13, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Analysis
Since this poll affects all articles and not just this particular one, I request you to shift it to the Indian noticeboard. =Nichalp  «Talk»=  08:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Since it is a discussion about districts of India it should take place where people that did not sign up to the NB can hopefully find it too. And here the discussion get's less mixed with other stuff and less probably lost. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 10:53, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

X District
Reasons to use this naming scheme:
 * district can be regarded as part of the proper name
 * District is not the proper noun. The word district is appened to the title if it conflicts with the district headquarters. eg. East Sikkim and not East Sikkim district. =Nichalp   «Talk»=  08:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * of course District is not the proper noun. But it is part of the proper name
 * This seems to be the crux doesn't it? Is it part of the proper name, and how do you know? - Taxman Talk 12:51, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * using upper case refers to a political/legal entity. Using lowercase refers to the general surrounding area.  If the article is about the political/legal entity, District should be capitalized. (BostonMA 12:14, 6 February 2006 (UTC))
 * harmonisation of geographic naming / subdivision naming makes WP easier to use for readers and editors
 * upper case, because lower case is currently not used by any other subdivision set ( WikiProject Country subdivisions/Naming )
 * keep unity with Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka
 * upper case used for other geographic namings: X River, X Plains, X Hills, X Peak, X Glacier
 * upper case used by
 * all "X Empire" (Category:Empires and kingdoms of India)
 * all "X Kingdom" (Category:Ancient Indian Kingdoms)
 * "X Cantonment" (see cantonment)
 * 95% of other subdivision articles on WP ( WikiProject Country subdivisions/Naming )
 * 95%? Do you have a reference for that figure? =Nichalp   «Talk»=  08:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * upper case used by official websites, not only in page titles. See http://districts.nic.in - The results from the first districts at this page are:
 * http://andamandt.nic.in/ Andamans District
 * http://eastgodavari.nic.in/ - East Godavari D+district
 * http://eastkameng.nic.in/ East Kameng District
 * http://lohit.nic.in/ataglance.htm Lohit District
 * http://papumpare.nic.in/Introduction.htm - Papum Pare District
 * http://uppersiang.nic.in/ - Upper Siang District
 * http://westsiang.nic.in/history.htm - West Siang District
 * http://changlang.nic.in/ - Changlang District

Antireasons:
 * Political divisions need not reflect geographical ones. We say The Terrai and not Terrai Plains
 * this is not about leaving the specifier out of the name, but about upper/lower casing.
 * See: Naming conventions (subnational entities). The word district is appended to the title. =Nichalp   «Talk»=  08:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Current supporters of this article naming scheme:
 * Tobias Conradi (Talk) 23:56, 5 February 2006 (UTC
 * Tom Radulovich 16:33, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * BostonMA 17:13, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
 * ΜιĿːtalk 09:49, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

X district
Reasons to use this naming scheme:
 * Indian media uses it
 * Hindu: 1, 2
 * Express India: 1, 2
 * It falls correctly within sentences; in say: "Akkalkot lies in Solapur district of Maharashtra state," one can just create a link to "Solapur district" without having to make it "Solapur District|Solapur district".

Antireasons:
 * if "district" is not considered part of the name, then the general disambiguation style of Wikipedia "X (district)" should be used. Using the pipe trick one could write "Solapur (district)|" which yields "Solapur (district)|Solapur". Text would be "Akkalkot lies in Solapur of Maharashtra state"
 * would increase the naming scheme variants for country subdivisions within Wikipedia
 * the media also uses "river X" and "X river" - nonetheless in WP we standardize article names to "X River".
 * media also uses "Spencer county, Indiana, US" but in WP counties are written uppercase "X County"

Current supporters of this article naming scheme:
 * User:Nichalp
 * Gurubrahma 13:02, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Ganeshk ( talk ) 21:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * ImpuMozhi 00:30, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * -Bhadani 09:29, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Aksi_great (talk) 14:07, 28 April 2006 (UTC) (see my comment below for reason)
 * -- Lost(talk) 06:39, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment:
 * Why would you ever go with X (district), the lack of consistency is much more of a problem than anything I see that that could help. I'm not so worried about what form we have, but that they are consistent. - Taxman Talk 12:52, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I certainly do not like "X (district)". I am supporting "X district". ImpuMozhi 03:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Capitalizing is making the "District" part of the name. It is not. - Ganeshk  ( talk ) 21:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
 * why is it not? One could also say: "It is." because, Adilabad is a town, but the district is Adilabad District. And lots of the district websites themselves use the word. But if it is not part of the name, why then do they use it? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 19:14, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


 * --cjllw | TALK  04:53, 26 April 2006 (UTC) although without strong feelings one way or the other, I think that lowercase 'district' is just fine, and there seems to be no consistent evidence that "District" forms part of the entity's name. I'm aware that sites like nic.in frequently capitalise it, but I also see there Other Words which are Capitalised which may not Accord with other Common English conventions, so not (to me, anyway) a clincher.
 * Kindly also see my comments at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Indian_districts#Vote --Bhadani 09:29, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 * do you really want to build your opinion on that? You claim "you were forced" - you will not see tears run over my face. People are infatuated, wao now you make it personal. You created 100s of stubs ... I don't know how much did I - but what does it have to do with finding the best way of naming in wikipedia? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 14:12, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I support the X district convention because district is not part of the name. If it were part of the official name then it would be the same in all the languages of India. But that is not the case. Take the example of Ahmedabad. If Ahmedabad District be the real name, then the same name would be used even in gujarati. But in Gujarat distric is called 'jilla' - So Ahmedabad district becomes Ahmedabad jilla and not Ahmedabad District jilla. The same is the case for all other languages. It is just because this is the english wiki that we must X district. Also I must request other editors on both sides involved here not to take this issue personally. That mars our goal of trying to reach to some decision. - Aksi_great (talk) 14:07, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
 * part of names can be translated. There are lot of rivers that use X River. It does not mean that locals use this name. This is english WP. jilla as a term then gets translated as it is done in WP for other country subdivisions too. Compare Category:Subdivisions by country. The swedish do not use the word municipality in swedish, the romanians do not use County in romanian. But in WP people translated the native terms. And use upper case or parenthesis. (only some exceptions in the Phillipines). Tobias Conradi (Talk) 16:15, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Is this debate still on or has the convention been decided? -- Lost(talk) 06:40, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Usage in Indian media:
I searched how Indian media refers to the district names. I looked at two respected newspapers, Hindu and Express India. Both of them use the smaller case when referring to the districts.

Hindu: 1, 2

Express India: 1, 2

Please comment. - Ganeshk  ( talk ) 22:43, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

X (district)
Reasons to use this naming scheme:
 * WP-style dab

Current supporters of this article naming scheme:

District of X
Reasons to use this naming scheme:
 * can be found on official websites

Current supporters of this article naming scheme:

Related discussions

 * Discussion in February 2006 -- Ganeshk  ( talk ) 21:46, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Talk:Nashik district -- Ganeshk  ( talk ) 21:28, 9 June 2007 (UTC)