This is a
failed proposal.
Consensus for its implementation was not established within a reasonable period of time. If you want to revive discussion, please use
the talk page or initiate a thread at
the village pump. |
In the interests of harmonious editing of state route road articles we endeavour to hold a community-wide naming conventions poll to get an idea of where people stand on this issue. The format is as follows:
The first week of discussion will be used for the people who are heavily involved in this dispute to make their case, to the community, over which naming convention they feel should be preferred site-wide. Once the week of discussion is over the week of polling commences, during which Wikipedians decide from a number of naming conventions as proposed during the discussion period.
Question: Should a poll be used to establish a binding decision for the naming of U.S. State Highway articles? Note that the poll in question is, based on past discussions, almost certain to not reach consensus; rather, we'll have to take a simple majority. "Binding decision" means administrators will be empowered to block people who strive to violate the chosen naming convention.
For example, Washington State Route 26
I'm still not entirely sure it's a good idea to participate here while this matter is still pending before the ArbCom, but I suppose it's good to get all the arguments out there, anyway. (Note: If you think you've seen this before, it's because I simply copied over the argument I made at WT:CASH, because why reinvent the wheel. I'm sure there's room to refine this argument, but it's good to go for now.)
WP:D defines disambiguation as "the process of resolving ambiguity—the conflict that occurs when a term is closely associated with two or more different topics." In addition, the parenthentical method of disambiguation is used to differentiate article titles that would otherwise be identical. Now, it may appear as though I just said the same thing twice using different words, but there's actually a subtle difference between the two.
As Nohat notes, Wikipedia actually uses several different methods to "disambiguate" similarly named topics. For example, there are seven kings named Charles I on Wikipedia, and not one of them gets parentheses. There's an article at Watergate scandal, while Watergate (scandal) doesn't even exist as a redirect. Turning our attention back to California, we can see that Proposition 13 redirects to a disambiguated page… but it's disambiguated by the date, not the location: California Proposition 13 (1978). I could go on like this all day, but I think my point is made.
So why do some disambiguated articles get parentheses, and some don't? I believe there's a method to the madness.
In proper English usage, a parenthetical phrase within a sentence can be dropped and the sentence will still be gramatically correct. Likewise, an unwritten (as far as I know) but widely followed convention has evolved at Wikipedia that holds that parentheses are used for articles that, for lack of a better term, "wish" they could exist at the undisambiguated title. Probably the most well-known example of parenthetical disambiguation on the English Wikipedia is Georgia (country) vs. Georgia (U.S. state). The state in the American South and the country in the Caucasus have the misfortune to share exactly the same verbal identity. Atlanta is the capital of what? "Georgia," period, end of discussion. Tblisi is the capital of what? "Georgia," period, end of discussion. They get disambiguated with parentheses because each one has an equal, logical claim to the undisambiguated article title and neither one can have it. Just as dropping a parenthetical phrase from a sentence should allow the sentence to stand on its own, it should be possible to ignore a parenthetical disambiguation and have the remainder of the article title stand as a full, accurate, and logical descriptor of the article's subject matter.
Governor of California doesn't have the same kind of claim on the name " Governor" as either of the Georgias does on "Georgia," nor does Charles I of Spain have the same kind of claim on " Charles I." In both cases, the location is an important part of their verbal identity. Try answering the question: What is Arnold Schwarzenegger's job? "He's the governor." I assure you, that answer leaves a lot to be desired up here, where we have a governor of our own and it's sure as hell not Arnold Schwarzenegger. "He's the governor of California"—now we're getting somewhere.
(stay with me--this is the important part)
The practical application of this convention is that when parentheses are used to disambiguate articles, it should be at least somewhat plausible that someone looking for one of the disambiguated articles would go to the "root" page first. If someone's interested in the state of Georgia, is it believable that they might go to Georgia first? Absolutely. If someone's interested in the governor of California, is it believable that they might go to Governor first? No. They would go to "Governor of California." I challenge anyone anywhere to prove me wrong. Imagine a disambiguation page at Governor:
I hope we can all agree that this would be, to put it lightly, absurd. Is this not also the case with, say, " Route 8"? I can think of exactly three state (i.e., non-Interstate, non-U.S.) highways in the United States that someone who doesn't actually live in the state might search for at an undisambiguated title: Highway 1 in California, Highway A1A in Florida, and maybe Highway 17 in California. Everything else, jeez, you'd have to be crazy to seek out an article called "Route 8" except out of some weird listcrufty desire to find out how many locales have a highway designated "8."
I recognize that not everyone is going to see this "verbal identity" thing as I do, and for what it's worth I think the other side's arguments have considerable merit as well. This is merely my attempt at an explanation of my own thought process on the matter, and I hope it helps people understand it better. — phh ( t/ c) 17:01, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
For example, State Route 26 (Washington)
For example, State Route 26 (WA)
For example, Washington Route 26
(Disambiguate only if the official route name, as defined by the state, does not include the name of the state.)
What does "official name" mean? Do different states name their highways differently? Can we get some examples? -- Cyde↔Weys 21:02, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways/U.S. state highway naming conventions has a lot of the names. -- SPUI ( T - C) 21:34, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
This seems to be the most sensible one to me. I canot for the life of me see why we'd name something other than what it's actual name is. Redirects and disambiguations follow, of course, because people will search for "Texas Route 2469" or whatever, but the actual article shold be as "State 2469 (Texas)" or even "T-2469 (Texas)". - brenneman {L} 03:59, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Bunchofgrapes - I agree that it's possible and do realise that there are times when we chooe to name something other than it's name, but would you agree that in the vast majority of cases the "real" name is the article's name? - brenneman {L} 04:13, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
(Disambiguate only if the official route name, as defined by the state, does not include the name of the state.)
Rationale: Each state has its own legal names for state highways, and possibly for their common names as well. For example, Minnesota state law defines it as "trunk highway", but in common use, nobody says "trunk highway". People just say "Take Highway 100 south to the Crosstown, then go east until you hit Highway 55 near the airport. Then, look for the sign saying ' Fort Snelling'." Someone in New Hampshire might say, "Take Route 87 east to Route 85, then take Route 85 north to Route 108, then look for the old water tower." Local residents of each state are probably best suited to figure out what's the most common usage. -- Elkman 04:26, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Add more sections of naming conventions if someone comes up with any.
State route naming is ambigious, surely U.S. State route naming would be more accurate? Markb 12:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
This is a
failed proposal.
Consensus for its implementation was not established within a reasonable period of time. If you want to revive discussion, please use
the talk page or initiate a thread at
the village pump. |
In the interests of harmonious editing of state route road articles we endeavour to hold a community-wide naming conventions poll to get an idea of where people stand on this issue. The format is as follows:
The first week of discussion will be used for the people who are heavily involved in this dispute to make their case, to the community, over which naming convention they feel should be preferred site-wide. Once the week of discussion is over the week of polling commences, during which Wikipedians decide from a number of naming conventions as proposed during the discussion period.
Question: Should a poll be used to establish a binding decision for the naming of U.S. State Highway articles? Note that the poll in question is, based on past discussions, almost certain to not reach consensus; rather, we'll have to take a simple majority. "Binding decision" means administrators will be empowered to block people who strive to violate the chosen naming convention.
For example, Washington State Route 26
I'm still not entirely sure it's a good idea to participate here while this matter is still pending before the ArbCom, but I suppose it's good to get all the arguments out there, anyway. (Note: If you think you've seen this before, it's because I simply copied over the argument I made at WT:CASH, because why reinvent the wheel. I'm sure there's room to refine this argument, but it's good to go for now.)
WP:D defines disambiguation as "the process of resolving ambiguity—the conflict that occurs when a term is closely associated with two or more different topics." In addition, the parenthentical method of disambiguation is used to differentiate article titles that would otherwise be identical. Now, it may appear as though I just said the same thing twice using different words, but there's actually a subtle difference between the two.
As Nohat notes, Wikipedia actually uses several different methods to "disambiguate" similarly named topics. For example, there are seven kings named Charles I on Wikipedia, and not one of them gets parentheses. There's an article at Watergate scandal, while Watergate (scandal) doesn't even exist as a redirect. Turning our attention back to California, we can see that Proposition 13 redirects to a disambiguated page… but it's disambiguated by the date, not the location: California Proposition 13 (1978). I could go on like this all day, but I think my point is made.
So why do some disambiguated articles get parentheses, and some don't? I believe there's a method to the madness.
In proper English usage, a parenthetical phrase within a sentence can be dropped and the sentence will still be gramatically correct. Likewise, an unwritten (as far as I know) but widely followed convention has evolved at Wikipedia that holds that parentheses are used for articles that, for lack of a better term, "wish" they could exist at the undisambiguated title. Probably the most well-known example of parenthetical disambiguation on the English Wikipedia is Georgia (country) vs. Georgia (U.S. state). The state in the American South and the country in the Caucasus have the misfortune to share exactly the same verbal identity. Atlanta is the capital of what? "Georgia," period, end of discussion. Tblisi is the capital of what? "Georgia," period, end of discussion. They get disambiguated with parentheses because each one has an equal, logical claim to the undisambiguated article title and neither one can have it. Just as dropping a parenthetical phrase from a sentence should allow the sentence to stand on its own, it should be possible to ignore a parenthetical disambiguation and have the remainder of the article title stand as a full, accurate, and logical descriptor of the article's subject matter.
Governor of California doesn't have the same kind of claim on the name " Governor" as either of the Georgias does on "Georgia," nor does Charles I of Spain have the same kind of claim on " Charles I." In both cases, the location is an important part of their verbal identity. Try answering the question: What is Arnold Schwarzenegger's job? "He's the governor." I assure you, that answer leaves a lot to be desired up here, where we have a governor of our own and it's sure as hell not Arnold Schwarzenegger. "He's the governor of California"—now we're getting somewhere.
(stay with me--this is the important part)
The practical application of this convention is that when parentheses are used to disambiguate articles, it should be at least somewhat plausible that someone looking for one of the disambiguated articles would go to the "root" page first. If someone's interested in the state of Georgia, is it believable that they might go to Georgia first? Absolutely. If someone's interested in the governor of California, is it believable that they might go to Governor first? No. They would go to "Governor of California." I challenge anyone anywhere to prove me wrong. Imagine a disambiguation page at Governor:
I hope we can all agree that this would be, to put it lightly, absurd. Is this not also the case with, say, " Route 8"? I can think of exactly three state (i.e., non-Interstate, non-U.S.) highways in the United States that someone who doesn't actually live in the state might search for at an undisambiguated title: Highway 1 in California, Highway A1A in Florida, and maybe Highway 17 in California. Everything else, jeez, you'd have to be crazy to seek out an article called "Route 8" except out of some weird listcrufty desire to find out how many locales have a highway designated "8."
I recognize that not everyone is going to see this "verbal identity" thing as I do, and for what it's worth I think the other side's arguments have considerable merit as well. This is merely my attempt at an explanation of my own thought process on the matter, and I hope it helps people understand it better. — phh ( t/ c) 17:01, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
For example, State Route 26 (Washington)
For example, State Route 26 (WA)
For example, Washington Route 26
(Disambiguate only if the official route name, as defined by the state, does not include the name of the state.)
What does "official name" mean? Do different states name their highways differently? Can we get some examples? -- Cyde↔Weys 21:02, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways/U.S. state highway naming conventions has a lot of the names. -- SPUI ( T - C) 21:34, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
This seems to be the most sensible one to me. I canot for the life of me see why we'd name something other than what it's actual name is. Redirects and disambiguations follow, of course, because people will search for "Texas Route 2469" or whatever, but the actual article shold be as "State 2469 (Texas)" or even "T-2469 (Texas)". - brenneman {L} 03:59, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Bunchofgrapes - I agree that it's possible and do realise that there are times when we chooe to name something other than it's name, but would you agree that in the vast majority of cases the "real" name is the article's name? - brenneman {L} 04:13, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
(Disambiguate only if the official route name, as defined by the state, does not include the name of the state.)
Rationale: Each state has its own legal names for state highways, and possibly for their common names as well. For example, Minnesota state law defines it as "trunk highway", but in common use, nobody says "trunk highway". People just say "Take Highway 100 south to the Crosstown, then go east until you hit Highway 55 near the airport. Then, look for the sign saying ' Fort Snelling'." Someone in New Hampshire might say, "Take Route 87 east to Route 85, then take Route 85 north to Route 108, then look for the old water tower." Local residents of each state are probably best suited to figure out what's the most common usage. -- Elkman 04:26, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Add more sections of naming conventions if someone comes up with any.
State route naming is ambigious, surely U.S. State route naming would be more accurate? Markb 12:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)