The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: (non-admin closure) Not moved. Participation is minimal enough I hesitate to say there is "consensus" from the discussion. But the discussion has been open three weeks, and a majority of participants oppose the move; consensus will not develop for the move requested. This close is agnostic on whether a more WP:CONCISE parenthetical disambiguation could find consensus. Walt Yoder (talk) 21:40, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Punjab, India → Punjab (Indian state)
• Punjab, Pakistan → Punjab (Pakistani province)
• Balochistan, Pakistan → Balochistan (Pakistani province)

– The last time any discussion was held on the title of any of these pages was in 2010, but our practice of disambiguating first-level administrative subdivisions has changed from then to use the parenthetical in many cases (for example, this is how subdivisions in the United States and Australia are disambiguated). Using a parenthetical makes more sense, as comma disambiguation is usually used for settlements or more local subdivisions. These on the other hand are usually considered geographical features, so parenthetical disambiguation is appropriate. While these titles are slightly longer, they make it far more clear to readers that the articles are referring to administrative subdivisions rather than settlements/cities.

I am bundling these together as it does not make sense for the disambiguation style of Punjab in India and Pakistan to be different, and it would not make sense for Pakistan's subdivisions to have differing disambiguation styles either. Elli (talk | contribs) 17:52, 2 October 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. ❯❯❯ Raydann^(Talk) 17:50, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose per WP:NATURALDISAMBIGUATION. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:41, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't see how that applies here? Using commas isn't particularly natural by that definition -- it's not an alternative name these regions happen to be called. The general trend for this sort of articles is to use parentheses. Elli (talk | contribs) 21:02, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Weak support - As far as I know (which isn't all that far sometimes) "Place, Country/Region/etc" generally refers to a city or locality, not a state or province. For Balochistan I would rather it be Balochistan (province) as that is unambiguous. Even better, the Indian Punjab could also be Punjab (state) and the Pakistani Punjab Punjab (province) (the latter is already a redirect), though I could see how those could be argued as confusing due to the state/province differentiation. estar8806 (talk) ★ 22:48, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be fine with using that disambiguation as well for all of these. Elli (talk | contribs) 23:03, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Leaning support per noms. Aslo, I completely agree with @Estar8806 – 𝙰𝚔𝚜𝚑𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚟™ 🗿 16:06, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per WP:NATURALDISAMBIGUATION and WP:CONCISE, "Punjab, India" and "Punjab, Pakistan" provide all the context that a reader needs, "(Indian state)" and "(Pakistani province)" seem like over-disambigation to me. The proposed change also assumes that the reader is coming to the page with the prior knowledge of India being divided in states and of Punjab being an Indian state. The article begins with Punjab is a state in northern India, because a reader who knows nothing about Indian Punjab has to be first provided with information of what Punjab is--a state in northern India. That is the job of the article body, not the title. A change from "Punjab, India" to "Punjab (Indian state)" makes the very introductory sentence of the article obsolete. The current titles are concise, precise and unambiguous, thus no need to move. UnpetitproleX (talk) 21:43, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  The current titles are not unambiguous as they are not in line with what readers would expect a "Name, Country" title to be. Also, you seem to be arguing that disambiguation should not provide information? That doesn't make sense; someone looking for "Punjab, the Indian state" is more likely to clearly understand that "Punjab (Indian state)" is what they're looking for compared to "Punjab, India". Disambiguating by what the thing is makes perfect sense. Elli (talk | contribs) 22:39, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose per WP:CONCISE "The goal of concision is to balance brevity with sufficient information to identify the topic to a person familiar with the general subject area." The existing titles all achieve this, whereas the proposed titles merely add unnecessary complexity to simple, readily understandable, links. - Arjayay (talk) 22:01, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per above arguments. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:31, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per UnpetitproleX, WP:OVERPRECISION and per WP:PLACEDAB, which says:

The following general principles apply to such tags:
Places are often disambiguated by the country in which they lie.[emphasis added] If using the country name would still lead to ambiguity, use the name of a smaller administrative division (such as a state or province) instead.

— MaterialWorks 21:29, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

PLACEDAB also says With the names of cities, towns, villages and other settlements, the tag is normally preceded by a comma, as in Hel, Poland. This is often applied to low-level administrative units as well (Polk County, Tennessee), but less so for larger subdivisions or historical regions (Galicia (Spain); Nord (French department)). Any specific national convention takes precedence though. which is more relevant to this situation. I do not see how my move would be introducing too much precision; it's simply to move these pages to be in-line with how other similar articles are disambiguated. Elli (talk | contribs) 21:35, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The other articles are named differently because they are unambiguous. You are adding too much precision—there is no need to state whether it is a province or state, because the country is enough to disambiguate it. — MaterialWorks 21:42, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is not true! "Georgia, United States" or "Victoria, Australia" would be just as clear -- but we prefer parenthetical disambiguation over comma disambiguation. And as already discussed, I'd be fine with just including province/state and removing the country name as well. Elli (talk | contribs) 22:10, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

These are not good examples. Georgia (U.S. state) uses parenthesis because Georgia (country) can't have a natural disambiguator. Victoria (state) is not the only place named Victoria in Australia that has a Wikipedia article, though you could make a case for it being the ptopic.

Also, no, parenthetical disambiguation is not the preferred method, at least for place names. It's usually whatever is most natural, then comma, THEN parenthesis. See: Adding a disambiguating term in parentheses after the ambiguous name is Wikipedia's standard disambiguation technique when none of the other solutions lead to an optimal article title, from Wikipedia:Article titles § Natural disambiguation. — MaterialWorks 22:25, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Again you are just wrong about this. Parenthetical is preferred for first-level administrative subdivisions; that's what the part of WP:PLACEDAB I quoted says. Comma is preferred for settlements and lower-level subdivisions. Elli (talk | contribs) 22:38, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Vital articles has been notified of this discussion. ❯❯❯ Raydann^(Talk) 17:49, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject India has been notified of this discussion. ❯❯❯ Raydann^(Talk) 17:49, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Punjab has been notified of this discussion. ❯❯❯ Raydann^(Talk) 17:49, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject South Asia has been notified of this discussion. ❯❯❯ Raydann^(Talk) 17:49, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support per WP:PLACEDAB and per precedent; the portion on the use of commas makes it clear parentheses are preferred for "larger subdivisions". The specific examples given are Galicia, an autonomous community of Spain, and Nord, a department of France; autonomous communities are first-level subdivisions, like Indian states and Pakistani provinces, and departments are second-level subdivisions. The only autonomous communities of Spain that aren't WP:PRIMARYTOPIC are Basque Country and Galicia, both of which have parentheticals in their article titles. I won't check every French department because there's 101 of them but a brief glance seems to confirm the same pattern of parentheticals being used whenever something isn't the primary topic for its name. The Indian and Pakistani Punjabs being distinguished via commas is an outlier. Apcynan (talk) 14:23, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Galicia (Spain) could be used to reason for supporting Punjab (India) and Punjab (Pakistan), not the move proposal of this RM. The inclusion of 'state' and 'province' serves no real purpose. UnpetitproleX (talk) 22:39, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Making those moves would still be better than the status quo, though. I'd prefer just using "state" and "province" compared to using "India" and "Pakistan", but my primary goal with this RM is to move away from comma-based disambiguation, and Galicia (Spain) supports doing that. Elli (talk | contribs) 19:59, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose Per WP:PLACEDAB, the current versions already uniquely identify the place. I am not sure the additional context helps or is needed. The disambiguation tag provides context to the reader, and helps uniquely identify places when multiple places share the same name. Schwinnspeed (talk) 14:25, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]