The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no consensus. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 03:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Survey

• Support. It appears now that Canadian cities with well-known names besides Quebec City appear to have city-with-no-suffix article titles, so American cities other than New York City that are well-known should now be allowed to have city-with-no-suffix article titles. Georgia guy 18:26, 24 TJuly 2006 (UTC)
  • Why not fix the names that do not follow the naming convention or get the convention changed? Vegaswikian 05:11, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. Please read the archives. "Well-known" is not an objective standard. -Will Beback 21:30, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. I cannot believe we are debating this again. Georgia guy has opened a requested move yet completely failed to attack or rebut the vast number of reasons given in previous debates in support of the current standard. I sincerely hope that was a mere oversight and not a bad faith tactic. --Coolcaesar 19:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Per the previous requested move, the votes appear to be a tie of 11-11. Georgia guy 19:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support. "Well known" cannot ever be an objective standard, but this does not mean it is made irrelevant. Los Angeles, CA stands alone among cities of its namesake in terms of population and worldwide cultural impact, especially with the relatively-global popularity of U.S. film-making. Especially since we're discussing the English version of Wikipedia, I don't think that Los Angeles as a name needs any disambiguation.--Techgeist 02:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support. The reason to support this move is because it will better serve readers, for the following reasons. 1) The city is known as "Los Angeles". 2) People who search will search for "los angeles". 3) It reduces clutter in the title. After all, is this an article about Los Angeles, or California? 4) It's not likely to be confused with anything else. As for opposing arguments, I've heard little beyond "We made a convention, so it's a rule, and rules need to be followed." Oh, and it may make things easier for Wikipedia's editors. However, this is an encyclopedia for readers--no disprespect to the editors, who are important too, but you have to keep your priorities straight. --Yath 22:42, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Looks like the L.A. disambig page has to do with stuff dealing with L.A.. Toronto has its own page, yet there's more room for ambiguity there, and I'd wager a box of Timbits that Los Angeles is far more universally known and recognized. Neutral. I actually checked out the naming conventions -- U.S. has their own, only NYC operates without the state. While I agree that L.A. is of a level of fame (notoriety? :) equal to NYC, Paris, London, etc, I think that perhaps the conventions should be altered first; this move will keep. --SigPig 05:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose per Naming conventions (city names). Vegaswikian 05:09, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Got anything other than "we've got a rule and all rules must be followed"? --Yath 07:18, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Yes. If the guidelines are no longer working, then change them. Personally I think that all of the country guidelines should match the form of those used in the US and reflect the local political divisions. The current system seems to be creating more problems as we get more articles. If that were done, them a clearer statement can be name for exceptions that are not country specific. Vegaswikian 20:43, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose per Naming conventions (city names). Disambiguation and search are irrelevant since major "equivalents" already redirect to Los Angeles, California. If it's just about "clutter in the title", the naming convention should take precedence. I doubt readers think Wiki stinks because of "cluttered titles" that many may not even notice. The conventions pre-empt endless discussions about which cities are "well known" enough to hold sole title to a name. --ishu 05:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Can anyone point out these endless discussions? It's been mentioned before, but I'm not aware of anything so disruptive that we've had to abandon hope of having clear, concise names for so many articles. --Yath 07:18, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
    • I should have said "any number of" endless discussions. Anybody whose been around Wikipedia for a while knows that editors disagree about seemingly trivial details. I don't think all hell will break loose, and maybe I don't have to care because I'm not editing pages with debates like that on Talk:Devil's Lake (North Dakota). Maybe there won't be a fracas between Kansas City and Kansas City. But standards that are reasonable and consistently observed reduce "noise" in the discussions. --ishu 00:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
      • Maybe there won't be a fracas between Kansas City and Kansas City -- so what if there is? Would that be the end of the world? Is the U.S. city naming convention actually the result of editors who can't stand any disagreement whatsoever? We often hash out differences of opinion, and Wikipedia has survived quite well in spite of it. --Yath 01:23, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
        • I can only answer by quoting my comment above: "I don't think all hell will break loose," and "standards that are reasonable and consistently observed reduce "noise" in the discussions." --ishu 04:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
          • Hmm, very gnomic. I suppose that's my cue to stop the badgering. --Yath 06:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose, The current title follows Wikipedia's naming conventions. L.A. should not be an exception. Los Angeles redirects here anyways. --musicpvm 18:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
  • But, why is it fair that Canada gets to have random cities with no state suffix, but the United States (besides New York City) does not?? Georgia guy 18:18, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure about the Canadian ones, but I personally like the consistency of American city names. Also, if this is moved, I'm sure users will want to move all the other major cities of the U.S. as well (along with cities users personally consider to be well-known enough). --musicpvm 18:31, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no consensus. Yes, I know I participated in this discussion, but I still think it's entirely okay for me to close it as I !voted strong support, opposite the outcome. I would strongly suggest that, if someone wants to continue this discussion, this be discussed more at the talk page for the city name convention page, as suggested by some of the oppose !voters, and that a long break be taken before another formal move request is put forth for this article. As of right now, both sides are holding their ground and thus any attempt to bring the two sides together is likely going to be fruitless. -- tariqabjotu 04:32, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Los Angeles, California → Los Angeles — An alpha world city, no other alpha world city has a secondary geographical designation (e.g. Paris, not Paris, France). It is the second-largest city in the United States by population. This move proposes to ignore the US city naming conventions of City, State (comma convention). However, neither the most populous US city nor the third-most populous obey this convention. In the english language, "Los Angeles" almost exclusively refers to Los Angeles, California. The few exceptions are already covered in Los Angeles (disambiguation). There was a vote for this move from December 29, 2005 to January 14, 2006 the result was no consensus. -- R'son-W (speak to me/breathe) 01:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Survey #3

Add  * '''Support'''  or  * '''Oppose'''  on a new line followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.

• Support as per request. -- R'son-W (speak to me/breathe) 01:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose. What's wrong with the current naming conventions? Has the status of the city changed drastically since the last RM a few months ago (above)? Is Los Angeles somehow slighted by having its state identified? Redirects take care of anyone typing the city name without the state so I'm not sure what purpose this serves. —  AjaxSmack  01:40, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with the current naming conventions? The U.S. convention to unnecessarily use a disambiguation format causes a violation of WP:NC(CN) on every article page where there is no ambiguity issue with other equally notable names. It's inconsistent with Wikipedia naming conventions used on almost all other articles, including articles for cities in most other countries. As to the purpose this move would serve: titled simply Los Angeles would make it clear that the name most commonly used to refer to this is Los Angeles. The current name can mislead the reader into thinking the most common name is Los Angeles, California. That's just wrong. --Serge 02:30, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Then the entire convention should be scrapped. Tappahannock and Apalachicola (and myriad other US locations) are equally unambiguous and their current titles could "mislead the reader into thinking [it's] the most common name" too. If people want the convention scrapped, do it at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements), not city by city. —  AjaxSmack  03:38, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

You've got it backwards. Conventions are established here, on individual article pages, not in the ivory towers of Wikipedia Talk. Conventions established and changed at individual article pages are simply reflected there as guidelines, not the other way around. Wikipedia is a grass roots bottom-up system, not a top-down authoritarian system like the military or even your city government. Wikipedia conventions evolve at the article level. --Serge 03:51, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

By the way, you're right, the entire convention, such as it is, for cities without ambiguity issues, should be scrapped. It's arguably an illegitimate convention, since it was not established by individual editors working on one article at a time, but artificially imposed on us by a bot that created hundreds if not thousands of U.S. city article pages according to the city, state format. But, until enough city names are changed at the article level, then we cannot effectively argue that the convention has been scrapped, and record it in the guidelines accordingly. --Serge 04:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

So you would support disrupting Wikipedia to make a point? Sounds like you have a fervent disdain for Wikipedia policies and community consensus, like User:Ericsaindon2 (the last user I ran into with that character problem). ArbCom agreed with my careful analysis of his disruptive behavior, so he will not be disrupting Wikipedia for a while. --Coolcaesar 05:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I would not support disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, and I resent the accusation. Please do not violate WP:AGF. I support making Los Angeles an exception to the current convention, not to "make a point", but because, like Chicago, New York City and Philadelphia, Los Angeles should be an exception. --Serge 15:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Then the entire convention should be scrapped - indeed. --Yath 08:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Los Angeles is at least as notable and unique as other cities that are "exceptions" to the inconsistent U.S. "convention" to use the city, state format even where there are no ambiguity issues: Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, ... --Serge 02:30, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support per nom. --Akhilleus (talk) 04:26, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support -- There are over 10,000 links to plain Los Angeles and I'm willing to bet that an overwhelming majority of those refer to this city. The use of California is unnecessary. --Polaron | Talk 05:02, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose and object to repeated attempts to move articles against convention, which has been rejected before for this city. Jonathunder 05:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Please do not mischaracterize the efforts of your fellow editors. Deciding whether a global city like Los Angeles should be named consistently with Wikipedia conventions used for other global cities, including other U.S. cities like Chicago, New York City and Philadelphia, or consistent with conventions used for less famous U.S. cities, like Hollywood, Florida, is hardly going against convention. --Serge 15:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose for the reasons stated by Jonathunder. This is getting ridiculous. --Coolcaesar 05:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Duja 07:40, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support - though I feel the initiator of this survey is far too respectful of the unfortunate "city, state" convention when suggesting that the large size of Los Angeles is the best reason to move the article. This and every other city with an unambiguous name should have a standard article name. --Yath 08:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• adamantly oppose (as well as being strongly opposed to yet another survey over the naming of this article). When most people say "Los Angeles", I think they are usually refering to the Los Angeles-area and not specifically to the City of Los Angeles. Even when they think they are refering to the city of Los Angeles or some part of the city of Los Angeles, they are often wrong (start looking at the what links here for the redirect Los Angeles—but then the redirect at Hollywood is much worse in that regard). What is Los Angeles? It could be the city, the county, the LA Basin, the LA metropolis, the airport, the seaport, or a sports team that may or may not play within the city limits. Having the title of the article at Los Angeles, California is the only completely unambiguous place for it to be. ^BlankVerse 12:20, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

  Comment. All those things are named after the city and they are all in California. The name "Los Angeles, California" is standard in postal addresses, but apart from that, how widely is it used?? Is there, for example, a Los Angeles, Texas that this city needs the state suffix to distinguish it from?? Georgia guy 14:34, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Los Angeles, Chile is a provincial capital. Gene Nygaard 01:54, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. BlankVerse, your argument is to move Los Angeles (disambiguation) to Los Angeles. If that were to happen, I would argue this page should be Los Angeles (city), since , California does not disambiguate it from all the other uses, since they too are in California. --Serge 15:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

  Read the Los Angeles, California article, and especially go through the edit history of the article. The Los Angeles, California article keeps trying to morph into an article about the Greater Los Angeles area rather rhan being only about the City of Los Angeles. And that is the part of my argument that both Georgia guy and Serge ignored. Most of the time, when people talk or write about Los Angeles area, they are talking about the Los Angeles area and not specifically about the City of Los Angeles. My personal opinion is that the redirect at Los Angeles should go to either the Greater Los Angeles Area article or the Los Angeles (disambiguation) article, instead of to Los Angeles, California. ^BlankVerse 09:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose this effort to find consensus only three months after the last survey ended without consensus, and nine months after a prior survey ended without consensus. In all seriousness, can't we have a convention that specifies a "cooling off" period between proposals? Looking at the history of this and other similar discussions, the interval between proposals seems to shrink, and the sarcasm seems to increase. --ishu 16:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose rehashing this discussion yet again. Mike Dillon 17:21, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose again. There are potential ambiguities which the present naming convention could resolve. (Most of the existing links to Los Angeles probably mean the Greater Los Angeles Area, rather than the city.) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:55, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support per Associated Press dateline style. ccwaters 18:20, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. The ASsociated Press seems like a good reason. There's already three american cities (New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia) that are not named by the City, State standard, and two of those cities are smaller than LA. This Los Angeles is clearly the primary meaning of "Los Angeles." There is no particular reason to keep it here, except in the interests of a conformity that has already ceased to exist. john k 18:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Since Los Angeles redirects here, a move will have no effect on the other related uses; the disambiguation page is one click away now, and will be one click away if and when this is moved. For the record, I would support renaming any other truly unique place names (no matter how small the town might be) if it's the most common usage. The convention doesn't matter; consensus in the article space drives conventions, not the other way around. Kafziel ^Talk 18:30, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support As Los Angeles is the largest example of this name, as well as one of the largest cities in the world, this makes perfect sense. Whenever spoken about around the world, the place "Los Angeles" is assumed to mean Los Angeles, California, unless otherwise denoted. Changing it to just "Los Angeles" without a redirect will help people who don't know what state it's located in find the article quickly. Having smaller cities like Chicago and Philadelphia as city name-only articles seems unfair to Los Angeles, as they are smaller cities. Jimbo 19:42, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support --evrik 19:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Weak support Los Angeles would be more informative. Note that I was canvassed by Serge. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 20:03, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Strong opposition. We have a sensible naming convention and there is no pressing need to rename this article. There isn't any problem with "Los Angeles, California". Naming conventions serve a purpose, making it more convenient for editors and more logical for readers. -Will Beback 20:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose. This follows the naming convention so leave it alone. If you want this changed, then change the convention. I would support a move of Los Angeles (disambiguation) to Los Angeles since that seems to be a more reasonable target page given the differences between the county and the city and the uses to define an area. Vegaswikian 21:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

  Comment: See the comments above made in response to BlankVerse's vote to oppose. Georgia guy 21:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

  Vegaswikian, you suggest, "If you want this changed, then change the convention". Wikipedia conventions are established and changed by editors in article space, that's what is being done here. The guidelines (which is what you're really referring to) simply reflect what the conventions currently are. They cannot be changed until the conventions they reflect evolve, such as through moves like this one (as well Chicago and Philadelphia). --Serge 17:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support alternate move: Moving Los Angeles (disambiguation), rather than Los Angeles, California, to Los Angeles. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:42, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support. I'm relatively new to this debate, however I have always been bothered that Los Angeles is under Los Angeles, California, as to me this seems to directly contradict Wikipedia's most commonly used name policy... Decafpenguin 01:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support - I would have been opposed to this if not for the conversions of Chicago and Philadelphia. I find it baffling that there is so much opposition to this one when Chicago and Philadelphia, which have far more ambiguity surrounding it (given far more items named "Chicago" and "Philadelphia" - song titles, movies, etc.), passed quickly. It looks stupid when you have New York City, Chicago, and Philaelphia without the state... but not Los Angeles. What's the rationale there? And why didn't anybody opposing this make such an effort to strike down the other moves? Either way, if the rule of thumb is "global cities don't need the state", then this is a no-brainer. - Bssc81 14:02, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support If Chicago and Philadelphia were moved, it goes without saying that Los Angeles should be too. Kirjtc2 18:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose, Chicago and Philadelphia should be moved back. I like how all American cities follow the same naming convention; this is also the most common convention in everyday usage. It creates consistency across all U.S. articles. If articles continue to be moved, unnecessary discussions will pop up at every article about an American city. Plus Los Angeles redirects here anyways, so I don't see how a move would be useful. --musicpvm 18:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

  But, how about New York City?? Georgia guy 19:05, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

  In that case, the name of the state is already in the name of the city, so New York City, New York sounds too redundant. --musicpvm 22:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

  "New York, New York" is a common usage. In fact, there's even a song by that title. It's how I address my letters to that city. -Will Beback 22:55, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

  You should probably be careful with that. If your letter is headed for one of the four outer boroughs, "New York, New York" won't get it there. You need "Brooklyn, New York," or "Jamaica, New York," or whatever. john k 02:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

  The Post Office doesn't have any problem with it. They regard the subject of this article to be (spelled out) "Los Angeles, California". -Will Beback 05:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

  That is not correct. The "California" part of the mailing address simply specifies the state in which the city is located; the state in which a city is located is not part of the name of the city, and it's arguably misleading to some foreign readers (and, apparently, to you) to name our articles in an ambiguous manner with respect to this point. --Serge 07:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

  The official name of the place is "City of Los Angeles", but we don't use that either. I don't think it's misleading to anyone to call this article "Los Angeles, California". I'm not mislead. -Will Beback 09:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

  The official name is not relevant. What is relevant to being consistent with Wikipedia naming conventions is the name most commonly used to refer to the subject of the article. Per the google test, "Los Angeles" alone has 25 times more references than "Los Angeles, California".

  Results 1 - 20 of about 310,000,000 English pages for "Los Angeles" -"Los Angeles, California"

  Results 1 - 20 of about 12,900,000 English pages for "Los Angeles, California".

  Including the state in the article title accomplishes nothing. Why violate the best known and most influential naming convention in Wikipedia for no reason? --Serge 20:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

  What are your search terms? Can you link to them? I'd say that we should include "Los Angeles, CA" as equivalent to "Los Angeles, California" for the purposes of comparison. -Will Beback 21:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

  I did a Google search myself and I got a total of 86.8 million. Georgia guy 22:04, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

  <-----------------------------------

The search terms are shown in the results by google. Here is a search for "Los Angeles" without "Los Angeles, California" and without "Los Angeles, CA"

Results 1 - 20 of about 329,000,000 English pages for "Los Angeles" -"Los Angeles, CA" -"Los Angeles, California" link

--Serge 22:07, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Your Google search results are completely meaningless because they do not tell you at all about which "Los Angeles" they are refering to. ^BlankVerse 07:48, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Los Angeles is a world-known city, and the statename is just unneeded. --- Dralwik|^{Have a Chat} My "Great Project"
• Strong Oppose per musicpvm. Search4Lancer 06:26, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose for now. I know that I voted to support the Philadelphia move (which I cannot change), but per musicpvm and others, I now realize what kinds of precedents these individual proposals and renamings will provide. I wish there was a clearer, less confusing, and less cluttered new discussion (which I will not start) at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) or any other appropriate place for central discussion on which cities are to be renamed. There are now 4 active proposals to rename other U.S. cities at WP:RM. Pretty soon we may have 10, 50, 100, who knows how many U.S. cities on WP:RM, that will pretty much claim the same proposal for a move in different flavors. Maybe Serge and others like that, but I don't. I would rather have either all cities that people wish to rename to all be renamed at once or not at all. If this article were a part of another class of articles, like capitalization, airports or television shows, painful steps would be taken to conform to the convention (content as well as naming). As for the merits of renaming Los Angeles, I would probably say support because it is a global city. But since there is a major ambiguity between the city, its metropolitan area, and the county, it would be a weak support. Tinlinkin 09:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Support I'm not really convinced by some of the oppose arguments. One argument that I find especially perplexing is that which states that people who say Los Angeles often are referring to the metropolitan area (or the airport or some other entity). But doesn't that apply to almost any city in the world? If I'm visiting a friend in a suburb of Paris, I'm very likely going to tell my friends that I'm going to Paris, not Hauts-de-Seine. I could sometime in the future tell someone I'm catching a flight to Tehran, even though Imam Khomeini International Airport is not in the city of Tehran at all. Additionally, there are some opposers who are objecting to this proposal on the grounds that the large volume of move requests is annoying, without addressing the merits of the proposal. Can some of the oppose !voters please explain why they feel it is necessary for USAmerican cities to follow this city, state naming convention, while Canadian cities (and the rest of the world) are free to have their provinces, prefectures, etc. etc. removed from the title? (Note how Flin Flon, pop. 6,267, garnered consensus for a move but this Los Angeles move, pop. 4 million, is being met with great resistance.) I'd like to understand your perspective, but I'm just not seeing it right now. Thanks (for the responses) in advance. -- tariqabjotu 16:32, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• All I can say is, good luck with that. When irrational emotional reasons form the basis of one's perspective (like arguing for "consistency" with a naming guideline that itself is inconsistent with the best known and most influential naming convention in all of Wikipedia), there is no way one can explain his perspective in an objective way that makes sense (because, it doesn't). --Serge 16:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• 'Can some of the oppose !voters please explain why they feel it is necessary for USAmerican cities to follow this city, state naming convention, while Canadian cities (and the rest of the world) are free to have their provinces, prefectures, etc. etc. removed from the title?' Sure. We neeed to review why the differences exist and see is any of these guidelines need to be changed before making random changes. I do not take the oppose votes as saying they favor the current guideline and that it would gain consensus support if a 'vote' was held today. I'm torn between both forms of the guideline so I don't know what I would do if we had a vote today. Vegaswikian 19:57, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• But since the guidelines reflect what the conventions are, and the conventions are established and evolved at the individual article level, how do you change the guidelines without first making moves at the individual article level like this? What you're suggesting, creating/modifying a guideline that is not based on evolved and proven consensus-based convention in article space, is how we got into this mess in the first place. This is how evolutionary systems work. There are periods of transition that aren't "clean". That's okay, and trying to avoid it is not a good reason to avoid changes such as this one. --Serge 20:17, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• Support as per bssc81's rationale. Olessi 20:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose as undesirable in general, and because of a tendency to make far too many article names less meaningful by stripping out useful information. Gene Nygaard 01:54, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose This discussion has really gone nowhere in, oh, I don't know how much time. Given the lack of success of these discussions in this forum, and the number of other city articles debating renaming, I don't think individual city article talk pages are the place to discuss this. What needs to happen, IMHO, is to close the debate/discussion on all of the renaming debates, and open one discussion/vote on what the standard naming convention for U.S. city articles should be, and what exceptions to that (if any) should be made. It's simply not practical for every city article in the U.S. to follow a naming convention w/o the state name (see Richmond, Virginia, Richmond, California; or Louisville, Kentucky, Louisville, Colorado as examples of why that one won't work. There are simply too many cities in the U.S. with duplicate city names). But I could possibly see making this exception for, say, 10-25 of the largest cities in the country. I just won't support this debate, because the issue is greater than talking about it at the city of Los Angeles talk page. Dr. Cash 02:32, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Support - since this is a primary topic, no disambiguation is needed and the most common name in English can and should be used, which is Los Angeles.
• Oppose as it was decided just a couple months ago to keep it here, mostly by people who actually know the city and edit the article, and that should not be undone by people trying to promote an agenda and prove a point. Bubba ditto 22:34, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments:

Response to Musicpvm

• Musicpvm, the "unnecessary discussions" to which you refer keep popping up at cities that have , state in their name, not vice-versa. The "consistency across all U.S. [city] articles" that use of the U.S.-centric comma convention creates also creates an inconsistency with cities in most other countries. This is not the U.S. Wikipedia, it's a worldwide Wikipedia. The same conventions should apply to all cities in Wikipedia, not a separate inconsistent convention for U.S cities only. --Serge 19:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

  Other countries should follow the U.S. convention. It's sensible. -Will Beback 19:35, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

  The peace and tranquility that the Canadian editors have experienced since their split from the U.S. policy speaks volumes. What would be "sensible" in re-adopting a convention that only creates turmoil and conflict? Why would anyone look at the U.S. mess and say, "hey, we should do that too"? Also, even if the U.S. convention was adopted worldwide, in would still violate WP:NC(CN), and thus would still be the root cause of much debate, turmoil and conflict. --Serge 19:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

  Not to get personal, but much of the conflict and turmoil about the U.S. convention is due to your activism on the issue. How many page moves have you proposed? -Will Beback 20:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

  Until today's Texas triplet, I believe I've only proposed 2 or 3 city moves. I had nothing to do with proposing the moves of New York, New York to New York City, Chicago, Illinois to Chicago, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Philadelphia, or this move. I also was not involved at all with all the debate, conflict and turmoil on the Canadian city pages that you can see in the talk pages, and archived talk pages, and move logs of Toronto, Montreal, and all the other Canadian cities until they split from the comma convention. Trying to pin any of that on me is laughable. --Serge 21:01, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

  Hardly laughable. The vast majority of your user tlkk page comments for the last ten months [2] have been dedicated to instigating moves or canvassing support for them. I don't see anyone else making a campaign of this. So yes, the turmoil does have one main source. -Will Beback 21:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

  That I've been active on this issue in indisputable. The fact that my user talk history reflects this should be no surprise. How effective have I been? That's not very clear. Pardon me for trying to introduce logic and reason to the debate. And, the main point remains: I had nothing to do with proposing, or instigating the proposals of, the moves of New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia. If I didn't exist, they would have all still happened. Same with all the Canadian turmoil. If you don't see that, you've chosen to bury your own head in the sand. --Serge 21:36, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

  I don't think it is inconsistent for U.S. cities to have the current naming convention. It is common practice for cities to be written as "city, state" in the U.S. (no matter how notable they are). In other countries, this convention is not as common. And the "unncessary discussions" I mentioned are just starting. Are you planning on having all the articles moved? Users will want every city, town, village, etc. moved, whether it's notable or not. We can't draw the line anywhere. --musicpvm 22:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

  No one is disputing the fact that city, state is commonly used to refer to cities in the U.S. The issue is whether city, state is the most common name used to refer to a given city. In this case, for example, is Los Angeles, California the most common name used to refer to this city, or is it Los Angeles? As far as not having the ability to draw the line anywhere... sure we do. We can draw it where it's drawn for almost every article in Wikipedia - For the article title use the name most commonly used to refer to the subject of the article, except where it's necessary to disambiguate. That's a very clear tried and true place to draw the line used by the vast majority of Wikipedia articles. Why not use it for U.S. cities too? --Serge 23:22, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Observation

Just an observation that most of those who oppose this move tend to advocate the broad agenda of defending the use of the city, state convention against any exceptions, even for obviously world famous and unique names like Los Angeles. --Serge 16:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Why does fame make the current name less valid? Some of those who oppose the move do so because there has been no clear reason of why the naming conventions shouldn't be followed in all cases. The one reason given above, that "the current name can mislead the reader into thinking the most common name is Los Angeles, California" would apply to all population centers in the US with unambiguous names, not just a few large cities. And, if this is a legitimate concern, it should be addressed at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements), not piecemeal, city by city. Otherwise it borders on disruption to prove a point. ("If you wish to change an existing procedure or guideline...set up a discussion page and try to establish consensus.") -  AjaxSmack  16:51, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, please, you guys are really grasping out of desperation. First, The policy against disruption to prove a point applies to disruption in article space, and hardly applies to proposing changes, voting, and voicing one's opinion, on talk pages. The policy on assuming good faith, on the other hand, applies to opinions expressed about others on talk pages, and your comments above insinuating bad faith disruption on my part are clearly in violation.

Second, the fact that the argument I made earlier applies to other articles too does not mean it cannot be made here. And you're ignoring the point I made earlier that conventions change at the article level, not at the talk pages about guidelines. Whether you like it or not, Wikipedia editors make changes to conventions, one article at a time, by consensus. This is a fundamental characteristic of Wikipedia. In fact, since the alleged "convention" for U.S. cities that you're trying to defend, to use the city, state format whether there is an ambiguity issue or not, was established not by consensus one article at a time, but by a bot-assisted attempt at authoritarian fiat, is why there is so much turmoil about it: true consensus for a no-exceptions U.S. city, state policy was obviously never established.

Finally, as to your first question about fame, that is the characteristic that determines whether other world-famous cities are disambiguated or not (e.g., Paris, Nice, London, Montreal, Auckland, Beijing, Tokyo, São Paulo, Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, etc., etc.). The question is: why shouldn't Los Angeles be consistent with that convention? And the only rational answer is: there is no reason Los Angeles should not be consistent with that convention. Your vote changed to be in accordance with reason and logic, rather than hysterical emotion, would be appreciated. Thank you. --Serge 17:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is disrupting Wikipedia: and Talk: pages to prove a point. Is it time for (another) RfC? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:53, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Are you threatening another user? Come on. Kafziel ^Talk 18:56, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Rubin, with all due respect, I think you need to review WP:POINT. I am doing all the "do"s, and avoiding all of the "don't"s. Note the first part of it is, State your point; don't prove it experientially. About all I do is "state my point". I certainly don't go around moving articles to make my point, which would be doing it experientially. And if your "(another)" remark was mean to insinuate that I've been subject to an RfC before, that would be news to me. For the record, I had nothing to do with the previous votes on Los Angeles, and my only involvement this time is to vote, make comments, and inform those who voted on Philadelphia about this vote (see below).

If you honestly believe I'm doing something inappropriate, please don't make vague accusations here, please tell me exactly that that is on my user talk page. Thanks. --Serge 19:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm proposing an article RfC to discourage page moves like this without debating the naming guidelines as a whole. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh! Well that sounds reasonable... on the surface. But wouldn't that preclude exceptions to guidelines, which is inherently understood to be part of them? Also, what to do when naming conventions themselves are in conflict with each other? For example, Los Angeles, California, New York City, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania violate WP:NC(CN), while Los Angeles, New York City and Philadelphia violate WP:NC:CITY. In fact, WP:NC:CITY violates WP:NC(CN) for U.S. cities (the Canuks had the sense to separate from the U.S. nonsense, and they've had nothing but relative peace ever since... does that tell you anything?). --Serge 01:09, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I can't speak for "you guys" but I did not "insinuate" that this is a disruption to prove a point. I stated clearly that it "borders" on disruption (much like Aachen borders on Belgium and the Netherlands but is part of neither.) I did assume good faith but the effect of this proposal is a end run around the naming conventions. These conventions are hardly "alleged"; they explicitly state that "the canonical form for cities in the United States is [[City, State]] (the "comma convention") (exceptions include Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City)." The convention also notes that it is amendable which implies it should be done at the talkpage and not by baseless challenges of individual cases. I call them baseless because no reason has yet been presented as to why the move needs to be made. Los Angeles' fame does not derive from its status in Wikipedia and is unlikely to be affected by noting its being a part of California. I am awaiting such evidence and will change my vote if it is sufficient in gravity. I'm sorry if I implied "hysterical emotion"; that certainly is not my mindset and I don't really care where the article is -- I just haven't seen anything remotely resembling a compelling reason for ignoring the naming convention. (If I were imbued with hysterical emotion, I would propose, oh let's say, three of four hundred name changes of US cities based upon the same non-reasoning used to justify this one.) -  AjaxSmack  20:44, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

That would be a lot of work to do all at once, but a good idea. By the way, you still have it backwards. Conventions and the evolutions of each are determined by editor behavior in article space, not by written guidelines anywhere. --Serge 21:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

It's true that conventions derive from behavior but the guidelines that codify them are not continuously subject to unlimited and/or arbitrary influence. If they were then the whole concept of convention and the resulting guidelines would be meaningless or, at best, tautological. -  AjaxSmack  22:02, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a balance. The guidelines are documented in a place to summarize what the current conventions are, as guidelines, so each editor does not have to analyze hundreds of articles to figure out the conventions are on his own. The guidelines themselves say they are not written in stone. There are exceptions, and they evolve. The changes, like this one, occur in article space, and later, if sufficiently significant, are reflected in the documented guidelines. But to argue against a change because the "conventions" happen to be currently documented as such-and-such is backwards. First the conventions - the behavior - must change, then the documentation of what they are is to be changed accordingly, not the other way around. Do not confuse Wikipedia guidelines with dictatorial law. --Serge 22:09, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't confuse them with law at all. But the guidlines do prescribe behavior. If write an article on the great metropolis of Look and Tremble, it should be under Look and Tremble, Florida whether it is unambiguous or famous or not. Compelling reasons provide exception but they have not been presented here. —  AjaxSmack 

Sure they have, you just don't find them compelling. That's fine, reasonable people may disagree on whether reasons are "compelling". That's why we have the vote. To me, FWIW, the most compelling reason is that Los Angeles should be named consistently with all other world famous cities, and that the U.S. city, state format is obviously primarily a disambiguation convention, which has no application in this particular case. --Serge 22:57, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

To me, it's an example of putting precedent before good taste. What's worse, it wasn't even created by thoughtful editors, but by the default behavior of a bot. The U.S.'s city articles were added in their thousands in "city, state" format, and then later editors came along and feared to consider the matter. My fear is that the idea that things shouldn't be changed because they've been that way for a while will gain more adherents as Wikipedia grows older. It's already the primary argument being used to justify not moving yoghurt. --Yath 23:11, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

We can move things if there's a good reason. The reasons break down into two groups: 1) the convention is invalid and no article should be in "city, state" format unless absolutely necessary. 2) Certain cities are so well-known that they should be exmepted from the convention. Both are wrong. The convention prevents endless debates (like this one) over the naming of cities. The contention that certain cities should be exempted because of size or fame leads into another set of debates over which cities qualify. There is nothing wrong with the naming convention and there's no reason to exempt this or any other article. The convcention is simple, straightforward, and gives consistency to our reference work. I've never seen a gazetteer or atlas use internally inconsistent methods of naming cities. -Will Beback 23:33, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

3) There is no need for the convention, since we already have a good way to name an article - we use the name of the subject.

Oh, and the statment the convention prevents endless debates (like this one) is laughable, as this debate is all about the convention. If it didn't exist, Los Angeles would be at Los Angeles and nobody would be upset about it. --Yath 23:40, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Yath and can only add that Will's (who I canvassed, by the way) contention that the contention that certain cities should be exempted because of size or fame leads into another set of debates over which cities qualify is also laughable. Most other countries do exactly that (like Canada, for one), and they don't have anywhere near the troubles that we have. The root cause of all the contention regarding U.S. city article names is the insistance by Will and a handful of others to apply the city, state format to city articles that don't have ambiguity issues. If Will were right, then he would have no problem citing a few examples of what he's talking about in other countries. But he can't, because the debates of that type exist solely in his fantasy. I'm not saying there won't be any debates. But not like this. Note that all of the recent changes, Chicago, Philadelphia and now Los Angeles, are started naturally by newcomers to this issue. The source of such newcomers is infinite, because the "convention", such as it is, is fundamentally problematic. As long as Wikipedia has a general policy of using common names when possible, and Los Angeles stays at Los Angeles, California, which is in obvious conflict with that, you will have people who will come along and will feel strongly that it should be moved to Los Angeles. Same with most other city articles. There is no end in sight, except to change the U.S. city article convention to be consistent with the rest of Wikipedia. To believe that U.S. city naming conventions becoming more consistent with the naming conventions used throughout the rest of Wikipedia will simply trade one set of debates for another is to believe without basis. --Serge 00:09, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

The convention would prevent endless debates if it were followed, as opposed to being disregarded by people who then deny they were doing anything questionable. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

And if we were talking about a policy rather than a guideline, your complaint would have better standing. But it isn't. And a lot of people don't like it one bit. So calling it "questionable" to oppose the guideline is overreaching. --Yath 00:48, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Professor Rubin, I agree with you... if the city, state convention was followed universally there would be no conflicts or debates. However, that's fantasyland irrelevancy. Back in the real world, the problem is that the reason the city, state convention is not universally followed is very reasonable and logical. Wikipedia editors like the ones who made the suggestions for, and voted for, the recent moves of Chicago, Philadelphia and now Los Angeles, did so because the comma convention inherently conflicts with the better known and more recognized Wikipedia convention of using the most common name for a given subject as the article title. There is simply no practical way around that that I can see, other than dropping the comma convention for city articles without ambiguity issues. Can you? --Serge 00:53, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

For a specific example of what I'm referring to above (the relevant statement is in bold), see the vote and comments of Decafpenguin above, where he writes, "I'm relatively new to this debate, however I have always been bothered that Los Angeles is under Los Angeles, California, as to me this seems to directly contradict Wikipedia's most commonly used name policy..." This, my fellow editors, is a natural, logical, and rational perspective. The prevalence of this rational perspective is why there is no consensus for the current convention to always use the comma convention for U.S. cities, and why there will never be such a consensus, and why there will be continuous conflict and debate until the convention is dropped. --Serge 16:42, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Serge wrote above: "Conventions and the evolutions of each are determined by editor behavior in article space, not by written guidelines anywhere." This is absolutely wrong. Conventions can originate first and the behavior follow, and that's the way it should be. An established convention should not be overturned by changes to individual articles, but by consensus that the convention needs changing. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:33, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Vote Canvassing

Full disclosure... I wasn't going to canvass, but then noticed that [edit: some] opposition votes came in all of a sudden [edit: relatively speaking, not literally all at once] together. Sure enough, they [edit: the ones I noticed, not ALL of the opposition votes] were all notified on their talk pages about this vote by a certain user. So I went ahead and notified on their talk pages all those who recently voted on the Philadelphia move, and had not voted here yet. --Serge 18:33, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Your entire user page is devoted to canvassing votes on this crusade: to say you haven't done so is disingenuous. Jonathunder 18:40, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I saw this on WP:RM. I think Serge needs to retract his comment, and possibly cancel the "vote" and restart it no early than a week from now. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

By "canvassing" I meant posting notifications on user's talk pages. I have no reason to hide my agenda, which I make known on my user page. At least I don't deny that I have an agenda... --Serge 18:48, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I want to point out that I was aware of this poll before Serge contacted me, and I'm sure almost all of the others were as well. We've participated in a lot of discussions on this topic, and I just hadn't gotten around to posting my thoughts on it yet. He didn't try to tell anyone how to vote, and he didn't discriminate between allies and opponents. Let's not blow it out of proportion. Kafziel ^Talk 18:51, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

It is not true that all of the opposition votes were individually canvassed. In some cases (mine included), it was via the Southern California regional WikiProject. I don't think that contacting editors with known regional interest about proposed changes to a major article in their region counts as "canvassing" in the same way as contacting individual editors. Mike Dillon 01:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand this whole "canvassing" business. US City names is a topic in which I have a longstanding interest, and if there's a vote, I'd like to be made aware of it. Serge keeps up with these votes better than I do, and I'm grateful to him for letting me know about them. I don't see why this should be viewed as misbehavior. john k 02:38, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Observation

I just stumbled across this discussion am amazed about the amount of energy and passion that this issue has raised. Why bother? There's a redirect, people have no problem finding the article now, and will have no problem finding it if it is renamed. There's a value to following convention, but conventions can also be ignored for good reason. Both sides have their points, but does it really matter? Energy would be much better spent improving articles than having repeated arguments about very minor details. I vote an emphatic I don't care. -- Samuel Wantman 18:33, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

All people care with different degrees about different issues. Some of us think the issue of how Wikipedia articles are named is important, others don't think it's very important at all. Reasonable people can disagree. It takes all kinds, and it's all good. --Serge 19:28, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Some miscellaneous comments

• One can make a convincing argument that the "most common name" for India's largest city is Bombay and not the official (English spelling of the) name Mumbai. This just means that the "most common name" standard isn't universal, not that it's inapplicable here.
• The "most common name" is clear from the context provided in the article itself. The article text uses the "most common name" (Los Angeles) and not the title of the article. This usage (along with the lead section) makes clear what is the most common name, regardless of the article's title. If the article always referred to Los Angeles as Los Angeles, California, readers might be mislead as to the "most common name." That's not how it's written.
• Should we also move Hollywood, Los Angeles, California to Hollywood? I have to concede that Hollywood, Los Angeles, California is cumbersome. At the same time, I doubt anyone hits their forehead and says "And all along I thought it was just called Hollywood!"
• The "most common meaning" of Los Angeles is Los Angeles County or maybe Greater Los Angeles but probably not the City of Los Angeles. Very few people know (or probably care) that Santa Monica, Burbank, and many other nearby communities are not part of Los Angeles proper.
• While Los Angeles is geographically smaller than most people realize, New York is geographically bigger than common perception, since it includes the "other" four boroughs. The New York case is easier from a disambiguation standpoint, since the article itself can clarify that additional places are included. As Blank Verse noted, the Los Angeles case is stickier, since the city article must disambiguate itself from the region article.

--ishu 18:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

For example, take a look at one section of the Los Angeles County coastline. First you have the relatively new city of Malibu (incorporated 1991—formerly unincorporated LA County). Then there is part of the city of Los Angeles with the communities Catellammare and Pacific Palisades. Next is the city of Santa Monica. After that there is the Los Angeles community of Venice. Finally the unincorporated Los Angeles County community of Marina Del Rey. If you asked the average person in Kansas City, Kansas, they would probably say that Malibu, Pacific Palisades, Santa Monica, Venice, and Marica Del Rey are all part of "Los Angeles".

The Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Los Angeles, California is the most accurate, and the most unambiguous title, and should be the location for the article on the CITY OF LOS ANGELES. ^BlankVerse 11:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

And more to the point, when people are searching Wikipedia for information on "Los Angeles" it's more likely they're looking for articles about the region (or parts of the region) rather than the specific City of Los Angeles. Even within Southern California, there is a tendency to group Los Angeles proper with "adjacent" areas--look at "the Westside" for example or even "the Valley." --ishu 15:07, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Looking at pages that link to Los Angeles, context is key. Let's review just the entries beginning with 'A'. Of the 13 articles, 7 clearly refer to the city, and 4 refer clearly to the region. The rest are ambiguous or unspecified.

• Ang Lee (region): In addition, "Brokeback" became a cultural phenomenon and a box office hit. "Brokeback" was nominated for a leading eight Oscars and was the frontrunner for Best Picture heading into the March 5th ceremony, but lost out to Crash, a story about race relations in Los Angeles
• Alfred Hitchcock (city): Alfred Hitchcock died from renal failure in his Bel-Air, Los Angeles home,
• ABBA (unknown): Greg Shaw wrote in the Los Angeles-based rock monthly Phonograph Record Magazine
• Afrika Islam (city/ambiguous): He left New York for Los Angeles
• A. E. van Vogt (region): Van Vogt operated a storefront, for the secular precursor to Hubbard's Scientology sect, in the Los Angeles area
• Animaniacs (ambiguous): They even made spoofs of various other disasters, such as the sinking of the Titanic and a full-length song about the 1994 Northridge Earthquake in where they proclaimed that "L.A. Town Is Falling Down!"
• American Civil Liberties Union (city): Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa speaking at an ACLU event.
• American Football League (city): Next, Hunt sought franchises in Los Angeles
• Abraham Joshua Heschel (unspecified; probably city): He married Sylvia Straus on 10 December 1946, in Los Angeles.
• Arcology (unspecified): In Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's collaboration Oath of Fealty, much of the action is set in and around Todos Santos, an arcology built in a burnt-out section of Los Angeles
• Auckland (region): However, the maritime local climate ensures that most pollution is eventually dispersed, and thus the smog levels never reach levels as seen, for example, in Los Angeles
• Albert Brooks (region 2, city/unspecified, 1): Brooks was born Albert Lawrence Einstein in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California... The role reflected Brooks's decision to move to Los Angeles.... Brooks resides in Los Angeles.
• Ahmed al-Nami (city/ambiguous): Al-Nami's Visa application has since been reviewed, and while he mentions that Mushabib will be travelling with him, he listed his occupation as student but failed to provide an address for his school, and listed his intended address in the United States merely as Los Angeles

--ishu 04:12, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe you have misinterpreted several of the links. The Ang Lee article does in fact refer to the city and not the region. The events of Crash do in fact take place in the City of Los Angeles. Additionally, the A. E. van Vogt article actually refers to the city and not the region as you state. The article says Los Angeles area. The sentence is referring to the region, but the link is supposed to go to the article on the city (as it does now). The Auckland article is referring to the city as well. It is true that smog is an issue in the entire Los Angeles metropolitan area (and beyond), but the article clearly says Los Angeles as an example and any idea that the article means to actually talk about the entire metropolitan area is conjecture. Note also that the Auckland article also refers to Mexico City. Regarding the Albert Brooks article, I concede the article links to Los Angeles, California as a region in the context of Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California (although perhaps that should be removed anyway since Beverly Hills works fine by itself), but I don't see where the second region one comes from. The The role reflected Brooks's decision to move to Los Angeles is ambiguous (unless you know where in Los Angeles Brooks lives) and Los Angeles in Brooks resides in Los Angeles doesn't even link here. Note also that that first link wouldn't be resolved by a having a redirect to the Los Angeles (disambiguation) page since it specifically links to Los Angeles, California. -- tariqabjotu 20:09, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

At any rate, at best, that's an argument that Los Angeles should be at, or redirect to, the Los Angeles disambiguation page, which it currently does not. If it did, then, I, for one, would not be arguing that the city article should be at Los Angeles. However, given that Los Angeles redirects to the city article, the article name should simply be Los Angeles, since that is the name the city is most commonly referred by. --Serge 22:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think it's an excellent idea to have Los Angeles be a disambiguation page. There's no rule that a disambiguation page needs to be a simple list of alternative articles. Such a page could describe the reasons for the ambiguity, picking up some of the topics in this discussion. We could discuss the cultural, geographic, and historical reasons for the different uses of Los Angeles in reference to the city, county, and region.

One thing the disambiguation page would not do is solve the comma convention issue. But this discussion is big enough by itself. Support, anyone?--ishu 23:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Having an "ambiguous" "Los Angeles" article AND an article specifically about the city specifically would be messy. First it applies to some extent to most articles in Wikipedia, and probably every major city article. Few subjects have boundaries sufficiently well defined for them to not be ambiguous in some manner. Because cities have political borders, they are relatively well defined, but still, for the reasons you and others have noted, it's still not that cut and dried. But none of this is unique to Los Angeles. That's just the way it is.

I will say this, I think there is a difference between all the aspects of any given city and the political-government aspect (including the precise political borders) of that city. Whether a given city happens to have an incorporated political government is independent of the life, culture and soul of that defines the nature of that city. This is true despite the fact that all major cities happen to have governments. With that in mind, I think the subject of each city article should cover all aspects of the city and its image and nature, not just the political aspect. To that extent, I think the city, state naming format leans to much in the direction of the political-government aspect, perhaps inclining the editor and the reader to focus more than appropriate on that aspect over others. This is yet another reason I favor "stateless" city names, if you will, for city articles. --Serge 00:10, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd support Ishu's suggestion of making "Los Angeles" a disambiguation page. -Will Beback 01:40, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

But, like I said in my oppose !vote, Los Angeles is not unique in this regard. Nearly every major city suffers from this same issue (if you would even call it that) in that the whole metropolitan area (and often airports) are often referred by just the name of the majority city nearby. Case in point: if you were to ask every person on the planet what the most populous city in the world is, you'd get Tokyo from the vast majority of them (or perhaps I don't knows). In fact, the Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world; the most populous city proper is Mumbai, with Tokyo ranking a relatively distant tenth. Washington Dulles International Airport contains the name of Washington, D.C. even though it is quite distant from the city. The same goes for Washington Reagan National Airport (not in Washington), Baltimore-Washington International Airport (neither in Baltimore nor Washington, D.C.), Singapore Changi Airport (not in Singapore), and the list goes on. I honestly don't think making a disambiguation page is a good idea; I'm sure most of the articles (even as demonstrated by ishu's investigation) are supposed to link to this city article. Nearly all of the rest are close enough and would be far more useful going to this article (even via redirect) than to a disambiguation page. -- tariqabjotu 04:11, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.