[Wikipedia-l] Call to vote on city disambiguation issue

[Jeroen Heijmans]

Hi,

I've started a vote on the issue of city name disambiguation at 
[[Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names)]] to finally resolve 
the ongoing debate (yes, I was one those that continued it...). Everyone 
with an opinion on the subject, please let your voice be heard.

Below I included the text from the page, for possible questions or 
discussions here on the list.

Jeroen Heijmans

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To decide upon a naming convention for city names, you can now express 
your support for the one other proposal.

The problem of disambiguation is especially tricky with city names, as 
there are more duplicate city names than for other subjects, especially 
with respect to cities in the USA. Two main solutions to deal with this 
problem have been proposed:

   1. Pre-emptive disambiguation - Because the number of duplicate city 
names is so large, disambiguate pre-emptively. This is done by naming 
the city articles as [City, Country] or [City, State] in the case 
disambiguation is necessary within a country (such as the USA or Canada).
   2. Normal disambiguation - Follow the disambiguation rules as 
currently described at wikipedia:disambiguation . That is a 
disambiguation page if a naming conflict occurs. The duplicate articles 
should then be given names using a natural disambiguator if possible, or 
else include the difference between two instances in parentheses.

Examples for both proposals:

   1. The city of Paramaribo would be placed at Paramaribo, Suriname. 
Since there are no other Paramaribos, the article Paramaribo can be a 
redirect to Paramaribo, Suriname. The city of Sydney in Australia would 
be placed at Sydney, Australia. Sydney would be a disambiguation page, 
with links to Sydney, Australia and to other Sydneys.
   2. The city of Paramaribo would be placed at Paramaribo. The city of 
Sydney in Australia would be placed at Sydney (Australia)? (or using a 
natural disambiguator) while Sydney would be a disambiguation page with 
links to Sydney (Australia)? and other Sydneys.

(...)

 In the case of the "normal disambiguation" proposal, the natural 
disambiguators may differ per country, but the most obvious examples use 
the [City, State] format. It could be decided to use that format for al 
disambiguation involving cities, using the smallest entity necessary, so 
Sydney, Australia in stead of Sydney (Australia)? . *IF* and *WHEN* the 
second proposal would be elected, would you support using the 
"comma-notation" as a natural disambiguator for all cities?