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The issue of place names is partly resolved following changes made to the Criteria for Inclusion in 2017 which added a policy on place names to CFI. The policy does not address every question that could arise.
Proper nouns/place names
I've been adding some capital cities lately, and I was wondering to what extent we're going with place names. We've got most countries and capitals now, and a couple of other cities and towns, but are all place names on Earth considered to be the part of the all words of all languages statement? I think they are, but I'm not certain everyone agrees on this.
If they are, then, how are we going about categorizing them? I now see that the Category:Capital cities may not have been an excellent choice, for I think it may involve politically loaded inclusions/exclusions and therefrom resulting discussions/edit wars etc. that are better left in Wikipedia. Any thoughts? — Vildricianus21:21, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm curious too, what would ideally go in such an entry? Just a short one-line listing, "a village / town / city in XXX country", with a "See also" pointing to Wikipedia? I think I'll go look at a couple Wiktionary entries and see if I can answer my own question. :) Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig21:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I see no good reason for deleting any place name that is entered, even ones as small as, say, Butetown or Denigomodu. Otherwise we'd have to draft some kind of policy saying "only towns with x number of people in are allowed for inclusion", and nobody likes making policies, do they ;). As far as adding them goes, it should be very low down on our "priority list". Category:Capital cities is a good enough category in my eyes. When, in 5 years or so down the line, we've run out of non-proper nouns to add, we'll end up creating them anyway, lol. --Dangherous21:36, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
We might want to consider (though not necessarily right away) whether we want a single all-inclusive Catgeory:Capital cities, or some kind of regional breakdown. I can think of several ways to do this, but then the category isn't overly large right now. --EncycloPetey05:45, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Etymologies and translations are two good reasons to have them, though I confess I still feel in two minds about it myself. Widsith07:05, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone have a sense for what criteria are used for determining inclusions in published geographical dictionaries like Webster's? --EncycloPetey09:18, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
My gut feeling is that they have an idea of how big the book should be, and what price they can sell it for (and to whom) and include places in reverse order of size and importance until the book is "full". They probably include smaller places in the USA than in China if that is where they plan on marketting it. But our Wiki can be as big as it likes, is free, and we market to the world! SemperBlotto10:14, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
These must be treated in a dual nature, just like given and family names. I really don't care which historical figures had the name David, and I don't really care which states in the U.S. have cities named Athens. The first is a common given name and the second is a place name. However, the Biblical figure and the city in Greece each deserve an entry. By what criteria though? The CFI currently says that names must be attributive. I've suggested before not including a place name (as a specific city or what have you) unless it has a common or non-literal translation on the other side of the world, which would indicate its importance. I'm sure "Big Lake" has a translation into Chinese, but would any Chinese person know anything about the city aside from the presumed big lake nearby? Taipei, on the other hand, isn't the most well received transliteration of the Chinese word, but it is the universally standard one. Davilla13:36, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
My view is that place names should only be included if:-
they have a different name in a diffrent language. We need the name in order to show the translation.
they are necessarily referenced from another entry :Athenian => Athens.
Though I worry about Leodensian => Leeds. But, i suppose if Leodensian was written in a novel I'd want to know what that meant.
Mostly that then limits us to having entries for significant places.
But WT:CFI already says something - A name should be included if it is used attributively, with a widely-understood meaning. . Perhaps it could do with a bit of updating to reflect the above though.
--Richardb03:28, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Discussion: A placename may be included in the English Wiktionary if its existence can be verified from a printed source, and one or more of the following criteria are met.
For each of the following enter "{{" then "subst:" then either "support}}" or "oppose}}" or "abstain}}" on next blank line, with no spaces.
Feel free to add further criteria that I may have forgotten.
Comment I oppose making this a \ allowing this as a criterion, in favour of the specific requirement, listed below, that three sources be required. -- Beobach97218:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Comment I oppose making this a \ allowing this as a criterion, in favour of the specific requirement, listed below, that three sources be required. -- Beobach97218:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
The placename is to be included if it is used attributively, e.g. Boston in Boston baked beans or Whitehall for the British Government, as demonstrated by its use in that manner in three durably archived sources (the same number of uses as is presently required of words). In this case, translations of the placename into other languages are not acceptable as Wiktionary entries unless they meet CFI in some other way on their own (eg they are used attributively in the language in question, etc).
The placename is to be included if it is sufficiently well-known to have a translation in at least one other language, e.g. London and Londra. The translation, eg Moscow (for Москва), must be used in at least three durably archived sources (the same number of ses as is presently required of words). Translations of the placename into other languages are acceptable Wiktionary entries.
If we're allowed to add proposed criteria, I would say that any place that is geographic region with boundaries set by a national government and containing smaller nationally or locally organized areas within, that should be sufficient. I have in mind the names things like U.S. and Mexican states, Canadian provinces, Australian territories, French departments, Chinese provinces, Japanese prefectures, etc. bd2412T19:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Comment: Will you require that the placename be used in three sources? (Is that automatically a requirement? My understanding as of now is that it is not.) Will you require that the sources be other than maps? -- Beobach97220:21, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Sure, but I can't imagine any organizational-level geographic area (or most any geographic location at all) that wouldn't easily meet that criteria. Even if maps are excluded, there are guidebooks, geography texts, etc. bd2412T05:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Overall Abstain
AbstainEncycloPetey 05:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC) This vote doesn't seem to have thoroughly discussed or planned before it began. Less than 48 hours after it began, this section is already an unreadable mess. --EncycloPetey05:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Are you suggesting the vote be restarted now, or after 4/11/2007, when we've seen plausible results of it? It correctly seems to have spurred extra discussion (which is good!) --Connel MacKenzie16:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
No, I think it was the wrong question. I would prefer to have a first round in which we decide if placenames should be treated the same or different from other nouns (or other proper nouns maybe). Then, if we decide they should be treated differently (not how I would vote) we can have a vote on how they should be treated. SemperBlotto16:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Abstain Agree, unmanagable. Move the ideas to a discussion space and hash them out before relisting here. DAVilla19:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Voting on: Whether names of certain types of places (states/provinces, cities, mountains, rivers, seas, peninsulas, national monuments, national landmarks) should be automatically deemed to meet the CFI.
Vote ends: Sunday, June 10, 2007July 1, 2007 July 15, 2007
Discussion: I propose that places generally be included in the dictionary. Obviously we're going to include names of planets, continents, and countries, so that's not an issue. I propose that we amend the CFI to state that an entry also meets the CFI, irrespective of attributive use, if it is the name of:
a top-level division of a country (a state in the U.S., a province in Canada, an oblast in Russia, a department in France, etc.)
a city (we can probably spend hours arguing over what constitutes a city as opposed to a town, but places like Cleveland, Calcutta, and Tianjin are clearly cities, so we can worry about borderline cases later; my personal inclination would be that any municipality with a population of more than 50,000 constitutes a city, as does any municipality which serves as the capital of a country or top-level division of a country)
a named geographic feature such as a mountain, valley, plateau, canyon, river, gulf, sea, bay, or peninsula
a national monument or landmark (and by "national" I mean one that the average person would likely think is owned or maintained by the national government of the country in which it is located, or which would come to mind if the average person were asked to name the monuments/landmarks of that country).
I propose this for all the obvious reasons, for translations and etymologies and pronunciations to be made available to the viewing public. Cheers! bd2412T03:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't see any mention of proposed templates to support these. You would create {{country}}, {{city}} and {{landmark}} for these, right? Would geographic features have just one, or separate ones for mountain, river, etc.? --Connel MacKenzie05:44, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Hadn't thought about templates at all. What do we do now? We certainly have all the countries, and many states and provinces, cities, landmarks, and geographical features. bd2412T17:44, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Between the numerous ambiguities raised, the commingling of so many different types of place names into one single vote and finally the introduction of "encyclopedic notability" (also known as the infinite debate) I now see this vote now as too far from what I thought was originally intended. --Connel MacKenzie00:39, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Support as noted by others, I think we will additionally need some kind of criteria for "major" or "notable" geographic features (I put both those terms in scare quotes because neither is quite right) we can certainly include a lot, but not everything. How about lunar craters? Should Olympus Mons be included, it is the highest mountain in the Solar System? (e.g. the highest us humans know of ;-) Robert Ullmann08:58, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Support Yes, absolutely. What some people may not realize is that it is sometimes not clear whether a word is a place name, a person's name or a regular noun. This is especially true for languages written in Chinese script, since Chinese script does not have an equivalent of capital letters. Chinese writing does not use spaces between words either. To Connel, an example of this is 成龍 (lit. "full-fledged dragon"), which is Jackie Chan's stage name. Another example is 貓王 (lit. "king of the cats"), which is the Mandarin translation for Elvis Presley. I therefore advocate including not only place names, but any attested proper noun as well. -- A-cai18:14, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
This vote is only for "place names" due to the strong controversy of the previous vote. By debating one type of proper noun at a time, the vote is more likely to address all parties' concerns adequately, while paving the way for the more controversial items in subsequent votes. So for now (assuming this vote passes) you will probably only want to enter definition lines for place names. Even though he is talking about entries passing WT:CFI, it might be reworded to specify senses or individual definitions (which usually are separate entries in English.) --Connel MacKenzie06:39, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Support, provided clear cut-off points are given for each of the above-mentioned types of place name in order to avoid contributors from Backofbeyondville (population: 3) insisting that the name of their home town should go in when it is not even considered worthy of an entry by Wikipedia. — Paul G16:34, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
The Wikipedia standard should be irrelevant here - most of our entries would not merit a Wikipedia entry. However, I am beginning to think the world atlas standard would be the ideal standard for all things. If a place is not named in any printed and published atlas of the world, it is likely so insignificant that it ought not be in the dictionary. But remember, this is not a vote to determine what should be kept out, but to determine what should automatically be let in. I think it's fair to say any city with more than 50,000 in population comes in, and any city with less then 50,000 should have to show that it meets some other clear-cut standard demonstrating significance. bd2412T17:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
One citation in any UN (including "subsidiaries" such as UNESCO) publication of World scope (such as List of World Heritage sites), should be sufficient. or 3 cites from other notablereference publications of "World" scope, such as World Atlas, World Tourist Guide, World History etc. (Also same for placenames on the Moon, Mars etc). An entry in Wikipedia could count as one cite. — This unsigned comment was added by Richardb (talk • contribs) at 12:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC).
SupportCynewulf16:21, 11 June 2007 (UTC) Making this sort of thing clear resolves my conflict over "of course we should have an entry for Oregon" vs. "I need to list this on RFD since I don't know of any attributive use"
SupportH. (talk) 14:10, 12 June 2007 (UTC) since ‘Wiktionary is not paper’ and valuable information would otherwise be lost.
OpposeDAVilla18:30, 3 June 2007 (UTC) Our primary motivation should be literary value. I don't disagree with the inclusion of these place names, but I disagree with the ideology. A consideration of the referent's type is tangential to the question of its merit for inclusion.
OpposeConnel MacKenzie 22:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC) Setting this as a one week vote is absurd. Two month or one month durations are plausible policy vote lengths, but one week is too ridiculous. --Connel MacKenzie22:50, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Hadn't noticed that; policy vote has to be 30 days/one month. Do you have any/see any objection to extending it? Seems reasonable to me? Robert Ullmann22:56, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Ok, extended. Perhaps we should close it and start over with proposals more refined in accordance with the discussion on this page. bd2412T22:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I think if everyone piles on and says that their vote still stands, the vote can proceed with the clarifications. If someone objects to the clarifications, then...ugh. It would be another restart. --Connel MacKenzie05:46, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Oppose, and strongly. "a city"? We could double the dictionary with that. At least. "a named geographic feature"? We could quadruple it. This is ridiculously overbroad and arbitrary, with no reasoning connected to the actual rationale for including such terms in a dictionary. They should be legitimately common places, or else attributive terms. For all else, a failed search for a placename takes you to a page pointing to its Wikipedia article, where you should have been to begin with. If we are going to insist on including excessive non-dictionary terms for the purpose of providing their translations, pronunciations, etymologies, etc., just create an appendix (or many) to do that in. Oh look, we have that already: Category:Place name appendices. Dmcdevit·t23:28, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Have you noticed that those appendices are almost empty, and have no etymological or translation information - rather, they just have lists of links to actual entries in the dictionary. In short the appendices demonstrate the need for the entries. Cheers! bd2412T01:52, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
That's because no one uses them. That's a non sequitur: the fact that no one uses the current appendices (in fact, there is ambiguity with where to put them, as you know, or we wouldn't be here) in no way demonstrates that placenames, and every named geographic feature, no less, are worthy for the main namespace of a dictionary. Look, I love Brushy Peak, Alameda Creek, Crocket Hills, Cull Canyon, , Pleasanton Ridge, but if anyone adds them or any of the dozens of other "named geographic feature" in the East Bay Regional Park District in one county (of the 58) in the one state (of the 50 + territories) of California (which has 456 incorporated cities, by the way), in one country, they should be deleted. This is proposal is incredibly overbroad and arbitrary. I am surprised this is the proposed solution. No reference to attributiveness or even widespread use at all? Aren't we a dictionary? Dmcdevit·t05:17, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
No reference? How many of the 456 incorporated cities of California have over 50,000 people? I'm sure the name of any such city is widespread among those 50,000 residents and their neighboring regions. And how many of those named geographic features do you suppose can be found in a printed atlas of the world? Those are, I think, sufficient reference requirements. bd2412T15:55, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
There's the rub. CFI should discuss such parameters to be a serious policy. This proposal has none. Several of the people above supporting want clarification to the geographical features category, and at least one wants "ALL" placenames included by default. If we aren't voting on your personal thoughts, just a bunch of vaguery, then this does nothing to alleviate the current ambiguity anyway. I already think 50,000 is too broad and arbitrary (as a crude example, your likelihood of coming across and wanting to know what "San Francisco" is is much higher than that of its much larger rival across the bay, San Jose. Population is in no way related to dictionary merit) and Semper, at least, already thinks they are too restrictive. If it's not the policy, then we go back to the same old stalemate. In fact, taking out your suggestions, the policy seems all-inclusive: it says just "a city." Indeed, in California, all "towns" are by law cities, either chartered or unchartered, though they may refer to themselves however they like (i.e. "Town of X" is legally a city) . We need a policy that tells us what fails CFI. And it needs to actually promote the inclusion of words based on dictionary standards, not, what this looks like, encyclopedic notability. Dmcdevit·t19:14, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
You are certainly free to propose such a policy, and if it sets forth a reasonable restriction I will certainly support it. Cheers! bd2412T20:56, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
OpposeJeffqyzt18:39, 19 June 2007 (UTC) I cannot support this without a clear, precise set of CFI criteria, or at least a pointer to a working draft being defined. Some limits, please! The 50,000 pop. guideline proposed for cities would be an example of such, but we need clear guidelines for each type of geographical item. Especially with regards to roads, rivers, mountains, etc. names are frequently highly localized. Also, this clearly overlaps with the Wikipedia mandate (except as regards translation, perhaps.)
I think we have (rather implicitly) agreed to the requirement that a place name must be found in an at least one atlas of the world to be includable. This proposal does not mention roads at all, which I would agree to be a stretch to include in a dictionary. However, with respect to overlap with "the Wikipedia mandate", that phrase is meaningless to me. Wikipedia has an articles on Indian Ocean, Jupiter, global warming, horse, pandeism, film, and polyadenylation; we have entries on Indian Ocean, Jupiter, global warming, horse, pandeism, film and polyadenylation. A dictionary entry, by dint of providing definitions, etymological information, and translations, simply does not overlap the encycopedia. Cheers! bd2412T19:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
It's more the implicit nature of the guidelines that I object to. I could perhaps support explicitly listed rules of inclusion (especially if they're separated, rather than taken in the aggregate), but this proposal, as stated, is too vague and open to individual interpretation for me. Personally, I've always found the inclusion of placenames to be somewhat disconcerting and arbitrary in print dictionaries, but as there is precedent, I don't necessarily object to their inclusion here (although I think this would be better suited to a separate wiki-atlas vs. inclusion in Wiktionary or Wikipedia.) I just want the rules to be defined prior to saying "yea" or "nay". If nothing else, I want guidelines so that when someone adds "Sparrow Bluff" (just pulled that out of the air), I can reference an explicit list of criteria for placename inclusion, rather than "it seemed obvious to this group of Wikt. voters at the time." --Jeffqyzt14:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
OpposeHalliburton Shill 23:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC) Strongly. If states/provinces, cities, national monuments, and national landmarks were removed, I'd vote yes. The signicant ones will get included per standard CFI. It's just more procedural wikilawyering that adds nothing but an additional loophole. Isn't this a dictionary? Is it a map book? A guide book? A tourism device? An encyclopedia?--Halliburton Shill23:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Well now, no one is proposing to include maps, directions to local restaurants, etc., so we're hardly turning Wiktionary into a guide book. The proposal is to include names of certain places as words - which they happen to be - and to provide the same information we would provide for any word, etymology (if there is one), translations, related terms (if there are any), and a brief definition. bd2412T23:58, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but this is certainly in the same category as turning Wiktionary into a guidebook. You are proposing to include entries on no basis other than encyclopedic notability (population, top-level divisions, atlas mentions, etc.). Why not everything of encyclopedic noteworthiness, then? Every fictional character, book, TV series, album, celebrity name, business name, product? This concept means that since the matter of how widespread the word is used is irrelevant, everything from "Idaho" and "Thuringia" to "Sunyani," (Ghana) and "Avondale," (Arizona, USA) are words, by virtue of their population or administrative status, in the lexicon of every language from English to Rejang. If I don't need to prove any use at all to successfully claim that Thuringia is a word in Rejang, just that it is a German state, then we've completely lost the aim of a dictionary. Not to give anyone any ideas, but saying that any city with a population of 50,000 meets CFI regardless of use in a language is as arbitrary as saying that an book with over a million sales, or a band with a national tour, or a company with an annual revenue of $X mil. might as well belong in a dictionary as well. Dmcdevit·t00:34, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
We define a word to mean "A distinct unit of language (sounds in speech or written letters) with a particular meaning, composed of one or more morphemes, and also of one or more phonemes that determine its sound pattern." I struggle mightily to see how Avondale ceases to be a "word" simply because it is used to identify a set of geographic boundaries, and how it can not be considered to be "used" when 50,000+ people use that name to identify the ground on which they walk. Or are we going to cede that ground to Oxford and Merriam Webster? bd2412T00:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Much like the guide book response, this is a straw man. Yes, it's a word. So is Portishead. It's a band that's had many album releases and toured internationally. Why no policy ammendment for unique band names that have far over 50,000 people saying their name? U2? Both meet your word defintion requirements. Company names. Exxon. Halliburton. Besides that, this little loophole in Wiktionary's new town & country supplement provides easier ways to add links to outside spam and search bombing (the link is to the restaurant where all the political meetings are held, so it must included). And even if there isn't a glossy photo or map provided, it gets to link via a pretty Wikipedia box to the Wikipedia article and any nice Wikimedia photos of monuments and landmarks, which of course proves that monuments and landmarks should also have an entry here. We really should support linking to map sites too so that directions and airline tickets can be had easily. Did I mention the usefulness of the etymology section to promote the importance of the creek that's technically a river because it exceeds official creek length parameters? How aout the hill that's technically a mountain? Now I'm against this more than ever. Change strongly to nuke.--Halliburton Shill01:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
That's exactly my point. This isn't an atlas or an encyclopedia, and you are introducing notions of encyclopedic notability that are completely arbitrary here. You are telling me that I am right to define the Rejang word Thuringia ("German state") citing only its administrative status, and not its actual use in that language, as evidence. I am doubtful that most of the millions of geographical features, cities, and administrative divisions that your guidelines (and note, we aren't voting on that; SemperBlotto would add millions more) would allow have much use in most of the languages of the world. I struggle mightily to see how Avondale ever was a word in most languages of the world, just because a settlement somewhere in the world passed the 50,000 mark, (making it qualify for the top 30 ranking in one of the medium-to-small states in one country... how noteworthy). Dmcdevit·t01:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
There are plenty of words in the dictionary that constitute localized slang in a corner of the U.S. or UK, but have no translations in any other language. I'd be curious to see the 10,000+ words the Oxford Geographical Dictionary claims to include. By the way, if there were exactly one million cities with 50,000 people, the planet would have 50 billion people. Since it doesn't, and since we know there are hundreds of millions of people bunched into a few hundred of the most poplated cities, and millions more scattered in small towns around the world with populations in the mere ten or twenty thousands, I'm guessing that there are in fact only a few tens of thousand of cities with over 50,000 people. bd2412T05:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
"a few"? That is what, 5? 50,000 placenames times 6,912 languages = approximately 346 MILLION automatic entries you are proposing adding to en.wiktionary.org, based on encyclopedic notability (instead of attribution.) I think you have just help me change my mind about about this proposal. --Connel MacKenzie14:31, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
That's crazy! First, that presumes that every single place-name has been translated into every single language, and into a different word in each language (a quick glance around the different Wikipedias for the well known city of Chicago shows that those which do not use a different script rather invariably call Chicago "Chicago"). More importantly, there are at least, what, 600,000 words in the English language? So, following your calculation above, this dictionary should end up with over 4.1 billion words (not counting those with no English equivalent)? As I've mentioned before in this discussion, this is not a mandate to hunt down and add these place names, this is to allow their addition. I certainly won't begrudge any author who undertakes the task, but what I would really like is to avoid extended deletion debates on whether Ohio or even Cleveland is used "attributively". bd2412T15:19, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the wording being so ambiguous is crazy. :-) But to return to the point at hand, we should be driving towards attribution not notability. --Connel MacKenzie00:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Oppose. I originally supported this, but the wording is too vague, a fact which I didn't originally fully appreciate. (The fact that we're still trying to figure out what's being voted on — does city X having a certain population automatically mean that we include language Y's name for it, even if said name doesn't meet the normal CFI for a word? — suggests that we need to take what we've learned from the discussion here and write a new vote for this topic.) —RuakhTALK00:49, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Comment: You propose to include the top-level domains of countries, correct? What if a country suddenly changes its to-level domains? Shall we be subject to the fluctuation of international politics? Shall we include all historical top-level domains? — Beobach97204:42, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
I think they would all be worthy of inclusion - off the top of my head I can't think of many example of where that has happened. I think, for example, we should definitely have the Estonian SSR even though the Soviet Union no longer exists (and the region is now simply Estonia). I wonder if the top level domains of Gaul, Prussia, the Holy Roman Empire, and Persia remained even as the countries themselves were renamed and redrawn? bd2412T17:16, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
There are still no more than a few dozen entries that would be added - I'm not campaigning for a great mandate that we immediately run out and track down these names to include them, just that we allow their inclusion. bd2412T21:23, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying; you veritably read my mind, the states of the Holy Roman Empire were exactly what I had in mind. I think you should revise your estimate that there are 'no more than a few dozen' historical provinces/states: between the UK re-organisation, the various incarnations of Germany, various countries that have been phased in and out of existence in Europe due to both World Wars, various Empires, the USSR...I'm sure there are hundreds of them. (I do agree with you that if we include Ohio we ought to allow Anhalt, it would make little sense otherwise.) — Beobach97203:29, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
The few dozen I was referring to was the UK alone, but I think many of those already have entries. All the former Soviet Republics are already here. As for the ancient empires, how many of them were in fact divided into nationally set or administered domains? I don't know, but I'm sure we would not allow an entry to be added without some evidence that the claimed name had actually been in use at some point. bd2412T04:08, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Um, I don't think he's started a vote before now. Why not just assume good faith and correct it for him? (I suppose I shall, now.) --Connel MacKenzie04:06, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I have started a vote before (the one on use of TM marks)... I just forgot, doing too many things at once here! Sorry. bd2412T05:08, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
...and would Goat Bluff qualify as "a named geographic feature" under #3? It's a feature I've stood upon overlooking the Little Red River in White County, Arkansas. It's just big enough for about eight people to stand on at once. --EncycloPetey04:00, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, look, there are some obvious cases - lakes for example such as Lake Michigan, Lake Okeechobee, Great Salt Lake. I'd like to avoid contests over the inclusion of such features. Suppose we say any geological feature that is demonstrably mentioned in any printed atlas of the world. World atlases can generally be found (and thus verified) in libraries, and contain the major mountains, rivers, lakes, etc. I very much doubt any world atlas contains Goat Bluff. Fair enough? bd2412T05:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Abstain. I guess I support this conceptually, but something more explicit would be nice. For one thing, what constitutes a "country"? Korea is often considered a single country that's divided into two states, so I guess those two states would be the top-level divisions? And it seems odd to put, say, the Vatican City on par with the United States; after all, the vast majority of U.S. counties are larger than the entirety of the Vatican City. (I haven't actually checked that, but I think it's a safe assumption.) Secondly, how do we decide what "the name" of a geographic feature is? Do "Arabic Gulf", "Persian-Arabic Gulf", "Persian/Arabic Gulf", etc. all warrant inclusion as names of the Persian Gulf? Thirdly, what about historical geography? Is "Songhai" out because that empire is defunct? Do we define "Mali" and "Ghana" only in reference to modern politics? (Ditto for mythical geography — is "Northwest Passage" out because we found out it wasn't real? That doesn't seem like a good approach for a dictionary; will we next remove "unicorn" and "vomitorium"?) These aren't intended as criticisms — I certainly couldn't have defined a comprehensive vote on this topic, and I applaud your effort — but as concerns, and since this vote is already underway, I'm not sure if it's too late for them to be addressed. —RuakhTALK07:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I think it's safe to say that the Vatican City belongs in the dictionary, irrespective of whether it is a "country". I would also support the inclusion of former countries (Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Persia, Prussia, Gaul). I'd draw the line at places like the Principality of Sealand, a barge off the British coast claiming an unrecognized "micronation" status. Where names are disputed (as in the East Sea/Sea of Japan) the dispute itself makes both names dictionary-worthy, with a usage note to explain which one the rest of the world recognizes. Cheers! bd2412T15:19, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Certainly the Vatican City warrants inclusion under such a policy, but I meant — do all of its top-level divisions, whatever those might be? (The Vatican's maybe a bad example because every square inch of it is famous, but how about the top-level divisions of some other tiny country?) —RuakhTALK17:54, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
Just for yucks: the smallest county is Falls Church, VA, at 2 sq miles. Vatican City is 108 acres, about 1/6 sq mile ;-) Robert Ullmann15:24, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I take part of my above statement back. Having thoroughly read that Wikipedia article, the Principality of Sealand probably should get entry here as well, as a landmark (of sorts). bd2412T15:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I'd like our criteria to say one way or the other, that Persian-Arabic Gulf is or is not allowed, unambiguously. The normal rules for citations would still apply for "alternate spellings" of each of these, right? (E.g. all spelling variants of Persian Gulf would need direct-reference citations, not figurative/attributive citations, right? If I've misread this, I may need to change my vote.) --Connel MacKenzie16:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
If there's a genuine controversy over the naming of a feature such as the Persian Gulf or the Sea of Japan, which would itself be significant enough to merit an entry irrespective of its name, then finding a CFI-worthy three sources using a particular name should suffice for inclusion, I think. bd2412T17:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Question. This isn't going to replace the normal CFI, right? Like, we're not going to make up an Aramaic word for "Illinois" and include it on this basis, right? A place-name that meets these criteria will still need three durably archived uses to be included, they just won't have to be attributive with a widely understood meaning? —RuakhTALK02:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, of course - after all, if I claim there's a city called Gorgosnookia with a 50k+ population (or a Gorgosnookia Oblast), I'd still have to prove that there really is such a place, and that my first reference is not an error or a lark. This is really about clarifying what constitutes "attributive with a widely understood meaning" - I say that place names are inherently attributive, and that certain kinds of place names inherently have a widely understood meaning. Cheers! bd2412T03:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Clarify "use/mention" for me - if I find a source that says "Joe is from Sacramento" or "the conference was held in Sacramento" do you consider those "use" of Sacramento? It is hard to conceive of a city of more than 50k people that is not referenced in this way at least in some newspaper articles. bd2412T04:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Those are uses, yes; but appearance in an atlas would be a mention. My point is that while the name of any Anglophone city of >50k people will have uses in English-language newspapers, the name of a fairly small city in the Central African Republic might never appear in Western Apache contexts, except in Western Apache translations of English world atlases. I think it would be nonsense to claim that such translations meet CFI just because they're a language's word for a notable place, even if the language doesn't actually use that word (by our normal standards). You see what I'm saying? —RuakhTALK04:35, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
That missed the question though. "Illinois" does exist as "a top-level division of a country." Accordingly, if I took the Aramaic word "Illinois" to RFV, it would pass just like any top-level division of, say, Russia, is apparently an English word. You don't need a reference to any uses in the language to prove that these things are true. Any government website can confirm that Illinois is a top-level American division just as any government website can confirm that Arkhangelsk is a top-level Russian division, and that is all that appears necessary... Dmcdevit·t04:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
We've previously been through this question on Chinese/Japanese phoneticizations of English place names in RfV. There are existing transliterations of, for example, Illinois (イリノイ, Иллинойс, and I just added 伊利诺州). For a state or city for which no transliteration exists, we can't make up one. As I've said before, anyone can claim there's a province of Canada named Berkenstocken, but you have to at least prove that is, in fact, the name of a province in Canada for it to be included. Someone could claim that the German word for Illinois is Ziekstören, but we would still need to prove that is the correct translation of the word. bd2412T04:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
But such a "proof" could consist of only mentions (e.g., atlases, maps, geographical dictionaries, encyclopedias). So I'm just looking for reassurance that this doesn't affect the CFI's standard three-durably-archived-uses-spanning-a-year criterion. —RuakhTALK05:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
The proposal is specifically that we "amend the CFI to state that an entry also meets the CFI, irrespective of attributive use" if it is one of the types of place names involved. Now, I'll say this with the caveat that we have had plenty of discussions over whether a use is attributive, but is the inclusion of a name in the context of a map really merely a "mention" in the same sense as its presence in a list of place names? The purpose of this proposal is to avoid the "New York pizza" type of argument which suggests that a place name is not in "use" unless some product or characteristic is associated with the place other than it being a place. bd2412T13:06, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Re: " is the inclusion of a name in the context of a map really merely a 'mention' in the same sense as its presence in a list of place names?": Yes, definitely. Do you disagree? —RuakhTALK16:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm not denigrating atlases at all, any more than I denigrate dictionaries of seventeenth-century nautical slang when I explain that their inclusion of a term doesn't constitute use of it. Indeed, an atlas is worth much more, for many purposes, than a list of place names with coordinates; but it's not worth more when it comes to "show the word actually used to convey meaning" (to use our CFI's words). —RuakhTALK19:20, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I have no doubt that there will be copious references in prose and literature attesting to the existence of the types of places this vote references. There may not be references to an Akron sandwich shop (or a Tamanghasset sandwich shop), but there will be references to Akron and Tamanghasset. bd2412T22:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
As nominator of that particular term, I'd like to see some discrete guideline for us to follow, one way or the other. Of course, I had no idea that "Greater" was part of the official name of that place (what will they think up next?) On the other hand, I can see now that a population of 50,000 is far too low for decent consideration. We have had a very long custom of allowing countries, states, capitals and attributively used place names. I had thought this was (in essence) a clarification of that, but I see now, it crosses the line of "encyclopedic notability" vs. "attribution." Knowing (and agreeing with the sentiment) that "encyclopedic notability" is a four-letter word around here, I do not see how I can allow my original "support" vote to stand. --Connel MacKenzie00:31, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
With all of the discussion above, I can see that my proposal needs to be reworked. Perhaps I should split it into smaller discrete parts, and refine the inclusion criteria a bit? If I do so, would anyone object to a somewhat swifter vote on the individual bits (say, two weeks), in light of the considerable amount of debate under our belts already? bd2412T02:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for understanding. After all your effort and patience, I feel bad that it ends with your just writing a new set of votes. As for the swifter votes: I think if after two weeks there are some votes that seem very clearly to have gone one way or the other, it makes sense to count them as resolved so we can focus on figuring out the more contentious votes. (Maybe something like a "tentative ending date" after two weeks and a "firm ending date" after one month?) —RuakhTALK03:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Nothing to feel bad about - the goal is to get the process in place that makes the most useful dictionary. bd2412T04:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
I am also sorry this couldn't be worked out, on-the-fly. Well, if the point is to give it greater credence and to reiterate that it really has been beaten to death, a two week vote (viewed a year or three from now) might look pathetic. I think a series of one-month votes would still work out better than giving the impression that corners are being cut. Also, please use the new {{premature}} template, so we can nail down what Dmcdevit meant by "clearly identifying what doesn't meet the criteria." --Connel MacKenzie07:03, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
AbstainAtelaes22:13, 7 July 2007 (UTC) I am so torn on this issue......The simple fact is, these words are indeed a part of language. The difficulty is that, many are quite regional, to varying degrees which cannot be easily separated. I imagine the vast majority of the people, the world over, know the word (or have their own word for) the United States. Most Americans (and many others) are familiar with Minnesota, as well as Minneapolis. However, it's rather hit or miss when it comes to Lauderdale (even with Minneapolis residents), a small town bordering Minneapolis. Problematically, there is no qualitative difference between these. Thus, a vote against is forbidding a number of genuine, in use words from our fine dictionary. A vote for is a vote for opening a huge can of worms which will continue to plague us with difficulties.
Decision
This proposal has been withdrawn by its author in favor of an effort to craft a clearer and more narrowly drawn set of criteria. Cheers! bd2412T03:09, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
In order to clarify the uncertainties raised in our ongoing discussion on the inclusion of place names, I am initiating a series of votes on smaller and more clearly defined elements of that policy.
This is the first of these, and hopefully will be completely noncontroversial. Strictly speaking, continents, seas, and countries do not necessarily meet the CFI. For example, a Botswana delicatessen or a Belize pizza brings nothing to mind. However, I have yet to see a dictionary that does not include at least these. Therefore, this proposal will be simple:
The following will be conclusively presumed to meet the CFI:
Reference to the name of a subject country in a document produced by the government of another country shall be sufficient evidence of the name of the subject country in the language in which the document is written.
This misses the point of the opposition to the earlier proposal, I think. Yes, you've picked some non-controversial placenames. But this is still striving towards encyclopedic notability, and not word usage. It's obvious that the Sun, and the Pacific Ocean, and Morocco merit inclusion, but the question is not which places are notable enough for "automatic" inclusion, but how we should decide whether a particular word merits inclusion like these do. It seems like this suggests that the answer is to have a series of votes on sets of placenames, which is a bad idea.
To simplify the issue, while I agree that the Sun merits inclusion, that doesn't help me decide which word actually denotes the sun in another language. This is not a crazy idea, even for this seemingly uncontroversial group of proposed placenames. Are "Middle East" and "Central America" (your examples) common to all languages? Is there a word in Comorian, Abkhaz, Comanche, Old English, for them? What about the US "Midwest" the "Great Plains" or the "West Coast"? Some of these are exclusive to a set of languages, surely? This proposal doesn't clarify that: in fact, it seems to imply that any Comorian word for "Great Plains" automatically passes CFI even if I can't show that that word has any real usage in the language. And it would pass CFI then, because the concept it represents is notable, regardless of the word's actual use. If we are going to replace the current placename policy, it needs to be with something that has relevance in a dictionary, not encyclopedic notability of the word's referent.
The idea is that some placenames go in a dictionary because they are so common that, for example, I can mention Central America, or the Sun, as I did, and I can make myself understood without context in this language. We need to come up with a gauge for that: how to tell that a certain placename has a common enough usage in a certain language that it merits inclusion in a dictionary. Dmcdevit·t16:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Really my entire thinking in this is to get rid of the "New York delicatessan"-type "attributive" reference requirement for place names that really ought to be included - nations, states, and provinces, major cities, important geographic features. Whatever formula most cleanly accomplishes that, I'll be happy with! bd2412T17:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
First of all, sorry for bringing this to your talk-page, but the discussion page you linked to is a red-link, and I'm not sure if you actually meant for discussion to go there.
There are a few things I'd like clarified about Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2007-06/Placenames 2-A before it is begun. I've put them all below, and individually signed, so you can intersperse replies if you like.
By "planet" do you mean "classical planet", or does Pluto (which was formerly considered a planet, but is now recognized not to be) count? (For a dictionary's purposes, I think Pluto is as worth including as any classical planet, but this won't actually affect my vote.) —RuakhTALK16:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Do "continents", "countries", etc. include historical and prehistoric such (continents: Pangaea, Gondwanaland, etc.; countries: Songhai, Persia, Cornwall, etc.; regions: Nubia, etc.)? (I think it should, but again, this won't actually affect my vote.) Also, does it include ancient city-states (Greek, Sumerian, etc.) that were independent, but aren't commonly called "countries"? (I have no opinion on this, but think it worth clarifying.) —RuakhTALK16:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Does the "name" of a country refer to its long, formal name ("Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma" ← historical, "Russian Federation", etc.), or to its normal name (Burma ← historical/disputed, Russia, etc.)? (I think the latter, and only the latter, is worth including, except in cases where the long, formal name is actually used sometimes in normal writing — "People's Republic of China" or "PRC", "Democratic Republic of the Congo", etc. — in which case both should be included. Even so, I don't think this will actually affect my vote.) —RuakhTALK16:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Does "Reference to the name of a subject country in a document produced by the government of another country shall be sufficient evidence of the name of the subject country in the language in which the document is written" mean that only one citation is needed? So, if the IRS makes a typo and accidentally refers to "Republic of Botzwana", we include "Republic of Botzwana" as an English word? Further, does it allow mentions: "The State of the Vatican City hereby recognizes the rightful independence of the ruling government of Taiwan, and its right to refer to itself as the Republic of China"? (This one might well affect my vote — I think the "used attributively, with a widely understood meaning" criterion is silly, but I don't see why we'd throw out the normal CFI for words — though it's more likely that I'd just vote in support despite this reservation. Even if I do, I see this one as potentially turning this vote needlessly contentious. If you really think that the normal CFI for words shouldn't apply in this case, I'd prefer that that be a separate part of this vote, so we can vote "yes" on everything else without voting for this.) —RuakhTALK16:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Do micronations count? (w:List of countries doesn't mention them, so I assume they don't, but I thought it worth asking. And don't worry: I really don't know whether they should, and that wouldn't affect my vote; I'm just wondering.) —RuakhTALK16:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
Also, if we include a term by one of these criteria, but it has a more common use that doesn't pass, then do we exclude the more common definition? (For example, Naples used to be its own country, the Kingdom of Naples, but today the term more commonly refers to the city of Naples and the informally-defined region surrounding it.) —RuakhTALK16:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
"Widely recognized"
I thought the idea was to eliminate ambiguous wording. #4 therefore should be removed, if this is to be a non-controversial round. Also, #1 implies that Pluto would no longer be an acceptable Wiktionary entry (and we've certainly beat that horse to death, back to life, back to death, enough.) --Connel MacKenzie08:53, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Cities
Why were capitals not mentioned? I'd think that any State's two largest cities (if larger than the Capital) would also be shoo-ins. Note that by "State" I mean either a country, or a State of the USA. --Connel MacKenzie08:56, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Why? Being capitals, or large, should not make them inherently worthy of inclusion despite their actual usage in the language. What we need are criteria that address the actual usages of the terms. Something like "placenames that are used without context in 3 peer-reviewed journals intended for the general reader (i.e.: the readership is not confined to any particular geographical audience, or any academic audience of a particular geographical specialty)." In English, this would exclude such non-English words like "Melekeok" (the capital of Palau) which is, in all the references on JSTOR, never introduced without a parenthetical explanation (Melekeok, the capital of Palau) unless Palau is already being discussed, and would include references to "San Francisco," "Versailles," and even miniscule, population-wise, places like "Jamestown" (not one of the two largest in the state, or a capital). I think this is (at least adequately) well demonstrated in the quote below.
Palau does not legally restrict its villages by class as does Yap ... A family in Angaur, for example, is deemed socially inferior to one in Melekeok, and the difference has the same significance here as the difference between a mining family in Kentucky and a Brahmin family in Boston. A chief from Angaur has as much chance of attaining headship of Palau's larger confederation as a governor from Wyoming has of becoming President of the Unites States, whereas the chiefs of Melekeok or Koreor have chances similar to governors of New York or Ohio. "Human Resources of Micronesia," Far Eastern Survey, pg. 4
Angaur, Melekeok, and Koreor are out, but this quote would help to attest Boston, Kentucky, Wyoming, New York, and Ohio, which are all used out of context, in the Far Eastern Survey, of all places. I also notice the author's decision to use "Kentucky," the average state, in analogy with "Boston", the well-known, historically significant city. These authorial decisions are important, and are based on the frequency of use and recognition of a placename in a language. We lose that if we create arbitrary guidelines that equate "Lexington" (Kentucky) and "Boston," or Paris and Melekeok. The policy needs to be based on actual usage, and therefore meaning, in the language. (Note that the guideline above is not necessarily a formal proposal, but a direction to go. It makes sense to me for English—though I didn't test out too many to see how places would stand—possibly less so for other languages.) Dmcdevit·t10:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
This proposal is actually not geared towards cities at all - thought I'd knock out placenames in order of importance. Planets and continents and countries first. Cheers! bd2412T15:57, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
You are completely missing the point. Going by order of importance is arbitrary and makes no sense. Please read what I wrote. Dmcdevit·t20:00, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Capital cities, at least in their normal spoken form, should all be included. Large and significant cities - over a million are also most likely to be searched by users. --Anatoli03:56, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
The current proposal doesn't go far enough. Exclusion of significant place names caused a lot of frustration in the past and we really need to think of compromises. Writing out a new vote or putting out a new proposal is very time consuming. If someone has the time and knows how, please expand this proposal. There were suggestions as to what kind of compromises we could have for the inclusion of real place names (excluding fictional):
All capital cities, no matter, how small or old.
Large cities - 0.5/1 mln, as a population limit. The size of the cities itself will make them significant and easy to find on maps and finding confirmation of existence.
Cities older than 150 years old and some historical or cultural significance, references would be required. E.g. Bonn is not so big but very significant, former capital, an old University city, etc.
Attributive usage should not be the main criterion, especially for place names from non-English speaking countries.
Major rivers, mountains/mountain ranges, territories, seas, lakes could be included - please define the criteria.
What I don't understand is why can't the criteria for including placenames be the same as those for regular words? "Usage in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year" always worked for everything else, what's the whole problem? --Yair rand05:40, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
Yes, these criteria don't depend on the meaning at all. The problem is that many dictionaries exclude proper nouns (even when they are words), and that many users are used to this habit. Another reason is that most dictionaries including proper nouns are encyclopedic, and we are not encyclopedic. But it's possible to deal with proper nouns (when they can be considered as words) linguistically. Lmaltier06:38, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to bypass some recent IMHO-overly-specific language and propose that the following text be added to the CFI:
Place-names in clearly widespread use should be included. This includes, for example, the ordinary English names of many or most or all of the world's countries; the ordinary English names of a number of major bodies in our Solar System (as well as the widely recognized names of some not-so-major bodies, such as Halley's comet); the names of major natural features on Earth, such as the Himalayas and the Amazon; the ordinary English names of a number of major world cities (especially major Anglophone cities); and so on. It also includes many historical and fictional place-names. It also includes many foreign-language terms, with foreign-language terms being considered separately from their English counterparts. Borderline cases should be discussed, with accepted names being recorded at Wiktionary:Accepted place-names and rejected names being recorded at Wiktionary:Rejected place-names (to help us keep our standards consistent from one discussion to the next).
Before I do so, I'd like to make sure firstly that no one would be offended by my doing so, secondly that other editors agree with me that it's better for the CFI to consist of this sort of general criterion than for them to be filled with details and minutiae, and thirdly that this seems like a good general criterion.
Could we specify "place names in clearly widespread non-localized use"? Even the name of the smallest of towns is probably in widespread use in that town, and its neighbors. bd2412T19:55, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh, strange. To me "widespread" implies "used over a large area". I'm O.K. with making it more explicit, though; how does "Place-names should be included if they are clearly in widespread use over a large area" sound? (And, thanks for your input.) —RuakhTALK22:44, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
Cross out "a number of" x2 since major implies inclusion. "Most or all" countries rather than "many.
While the goal, ideally, is to have objective criteria that we don't have to argue over, it's better to have in place, while we hammer out those criteria, some informative wording that reflects the decisions that are being made. Do we all agree that place names should have "literary use" or something, without specifying what that means, exactly? DAVilla21:24, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
O.K., I've made some changes, some of them based on your input; please take a look. I don't feel comfortable with the term "literary use" without some sort of explanation of what that might mean. Which of the following (in any) would you say constitute literary use? :
Use in a news story to indicate where an event took place.
Use in a news story to give an impression of a person by describing where they live or have lived.
Rhyming use in a poem, where seemingly any rhyming place-name might have done as well.
Use in a fiction work to indicate the setting.
Use in a fiction work to provide information about a character.
Use in a non-fiction narrative memoir to give flavor to an anecdote.
I would actually be inclined to combine this with A-Cai's proposal above to include place names mentioned in a classic work of fiction (sort of a 'single famous use is enough' standard) for places like Verona as used in "Two Gentlemen of Verona" or Norwood in "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder", although I would not extend it to fictional places. bd2412T01:35, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure "countries" is the best term to use, but don't have an alternative. Please take a look at our definitions #1 & 2 for that word, and see if that's what you intended. On the one hand, it permits Sparta and other ancient city-states, but on the other hand it permits all the little splinter city-states of Medieval Europe. That may be either a good or bad thing, but I'd like to know up front how people understand this phrasing. I would also like to see language explicitly allowing for major natural features: such as mountains, forests, deserts, rivers and bodies of water (those likely to appear on a globe). However, that means that some features (such as the Thames and Mount Sinai) would be excluded as they are too small to appear on a globe. Can someone suggest better language? I discarded the idea of "likelty to appear on a national map" because that covers a very wide range of scales between Russia and Vatican City. --EncycloPetey20:10, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
The point of this proposal is specifically not to get into fine details — those can be hashed out organically over time — but rather to convey the general essence of our criteria. (I'm not opposed to there being a finely-worked-out parallel proposal, but don't expect one to get consensus.) And yes, I did mean pretty much what it says at country, which is why I originally said "many or most countries"; that's since been changed to "most or all countries", but I think both "most or all" and "country" are vague enough to prevent wikilawyering and force people to recognize the essence of the proposal (which would probably admit of Sparta, but not of Galicia, though I'm not sure). —RuakhTALK21:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm envisioning a double set of criteria - one standard for place names for which there is clearly widespread use, including prominent use in a famous work of fiction; and another more exacting set of standards for various types of place names based on verifiable use out of context. bd2412T21:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
Why was this section restarted again? The question in the above section was, is this ready to be voted on? Wording changes can be suggested there. Restarting the conversation for the 50th time really isn't helpful, particularly when again commingling separate issues (each which have their own discussion points.) The numerous attempts at combining the various types die when the pros and cons of each specific type overwhelm the discussion, again killing the entire initiative off. --Connel MacKenzie04:28, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I think I made my reasons quite clear, but if you'd like me to repeat them: This is a single, fairly simple proposal to outline our general criterion for including place-names; my intent is to bypass all the detailed discussions, which can make changes simultaneously or subsequently. I'm not "commingling separate issues"; I'm cutting to (what I think is) the heart of the topic, which is a single issue that applies differently to different kinds of place-names, making previous discussions overly complex and unable to gain consensus. Now, there are some differences of opinion even over the general criterion, but I think (?) that most editors have roughly the same view of it, the one I've described above, and I'm hoping that the editors on either side of that stance (those who want much stricter criteria, believing that only the most major place-names warrant inclusion, if even that, and those who want much laxer criteria, believing that place-names can have linguistic or literary importance without being in clearly widespread use) can at least accept this is a working compromise. (Personally, I'm actually O.K. with pretty much anything on the continuum — I don't think it's essential to our purpose that we include place-names, but I also don't think it's detrimental to our purpose if we include even the names of fairly unimportant towns, provided that names shared among many places don't get a separate sense for each one — but I'm not O.K. with the current CFI, as attributive use is a poorly-thought-out and ultimately unworkable criterion, and I'm also not O.K. with having a detailed specification without specifying the overarching thought process. This proposal, in other words, is for an overarching thought process that reflects what most editors seem to me to be thinking — and you'll note that while there have been some changes to the description of the criterion, the criterion itself, "Place-names in clearly widespread use should be included" has not seen any criticism (yet), though a few users have expressed desires for additional alternative criteria as well.) —RuakhTALK15:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't see the utility of rewording the general (not-so-bad, working-version) CFI while the finer points are actively being hammered out. It can only stymie the detail effort by giving misleading generalizations, while actually avoiding none of the sub-topics, many of which haven't been mentioned here yet. --Connel MacKenzie21:20, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Would anyone object if I move both sections to a separate subpage dedicated to this topic? I think it's going to grow to be quite a discussion. bd2412T04:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I think that moving these discussions about place names to separate subpages, one per type of place name being discussed, will make things a lot easier to manage. Thryduulf07:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I think any place-name that presents a problem for translators should be okay to include. For foreign place-names, I would only make it a requirement that the article exist also (or in many cases, only) in the script and spelling used locally for that place. For example, anyone translating an article about Whalen would never guess how to write it in Russian, not even a native Russian-speaker. (It’s in Russia.) —Stephen12:37, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, BD2412, I agree the discussions are becoming absurdly fragmented. While I dislike subpage discussions for genuine beer parlour conversations, I can't see this becoming comprehensible without some significant consolidation. Perhaps Wiktionary:Beer parlour/Proper nouns & Wiktionary talk:Beer parlour/Proper nouns, with softlinks from each section here? That would allow for "sensible" refactoring on the subpage by section, (perhaps with a summarized ====Pros==== and ====Cons==== for each) while retaining the conversations intact on the talk page? --Connel MacKenzie14:04, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Retained intact on this talk page? Or on the one to be created? I think I get what you mean, I just want to be sure. Cheers! bd2412T14:41, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Sadly, due to the size of this page, retained only as section soft-links here. I hate that method, but this has spiraled out of control. --Connel MacKenzie05:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
SupportThryduulf 21:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC) Connel's suggestion. I was going to suggest almost exactly this (same sub-page name; but hadn't thought of the Pros/Cons). Thryduulf21:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, so I'm sorting out the March 2007 RFDs, and I come to this pocket of place name articles. These are reasonably well-formatted entries which have gotten a lot of attention from various editors; it would be a shame to delete them outright. On the other hand, the current wording of WT:CFI unambiguously bars the vast majority of place names, and the only acknowledged exceptions to that wording involve "too-prominent-to-exclude" cases like France. Support for loosening these criteria is far from unanimous, and no actual revision to the CFI is currently in prospect. To complicate the situation, Appendix:Place names is quixotically structured to simply link to entries in the mainspace, meaning that it will always be either perversely incomplete or perversely filled with redlinks to entries that can never be created.
For today, I've been moving the entries in question to Appendix:Gazetteer, because of the structural incompatibility, but I think there is a better solution: Restructure Appendix:Place names and sub-appendices to point to subpages of Appendix:Place names as a matter of course. When an otherwise adequate placename entry is found to fail CFI, move it to Appendix:Place names/Foo and link appropriately. (So for example the entry for Abakan would be at Appendix:Place names/Abakan and linked from Appendix:Place names in Russia.) For placenames which currently meet CFI, create Appendix:Place names/Foo as a redirect. (That way, editors can be sure that if a place name has an entry somewhere, it can be reached through the appendix).
Basically, I'm not proposing any changes in what we currently exclude and include, just grasping for a solution that all parties can live with. -- Visviva06:36, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
No objection from me. I've said before that appendices are a fine place for placenames , and others have argued for that as well. We can make them searchable, and prominently link them, and so on. The problem with that solution at the moment though, is that while it is already perfectly within policy and acceptable, the ambiguity caused by people that support no restrictions on placenames, or something similar, means that such within-policy actions like moving a placename to an appendix is bound to be controversial; as RfD nominations simply following our CFI have been in the past. Of course, I might be wrong, and if so, I'll be the first to help with the appendicizing of appropriate articles. Dmcdevit·t07:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree 110% with Dmcdevit's comment. I do not, however, agree with the proposal that "For placenames which currently meet CFI, create Appendix:Place names/Foo as a redirect"; for Appendix:Place names/Foo to be useful, it would need to be able to include non-CFI-meeting senses of CFI-meeting placenames. —RuakhTALK12:17, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
That's a good point... I guess a soft redirect of some kind would be the best solution (not sure exactly how to format it, though). -- Visviva12:53, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Sure. I think all that was meant by that comment was that we wouldn't omit CFI-meeting placenames from the Appendix articles, since then it might lead to them actually becoming less visible due to inconsistency in finding them. If redirects are conflicting with the non-CFI placenames, then we'd simply replace the redirect int he Appendix namespace with an article with all placenames. But if there are only CFI-meeting placenames, then the redirect might be the simple solution, or we could duplicate the content. But that's probably not the most crucial part of the proposal. Dmcdevit·t12:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I've tried to summarize various proposed criteria for toponym inclusion at Wiktionary:Place names. I believe each of those has been proposed by at least one editor at some point. Please edit and expand, as appropriate; please also feel free to go into content issues such as definitions and translations, which I didn't feel quite up to dealing with on the first pass. Incidentally, looking at the list, I find that I personally would be happy with all of the three "strong" criteria, even in combination -- inclusion in a dictionary or primary division of a country or used metaphorically -- but the moderate and weak options give me serious qualms. -- Visviva06:46, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles routinely contain pronunciation and etymological info? Well, this information is absent for most place names (especially small ones), and belongs to Wiktionary more than to Wikipedia (it's about words). How do you find it for very local place names, not always deserving a Wikipedia article, but which are words nonetheless? About translations: how to you find the translation of India into Bavarian, if it is not here (note that you can find it in the Inde page, on fr.wiktionary)? How do you find all translations when several translations are possible (e.g. for Serbian cyrillic and latin alphabets)? But my main argument is that (most) place names are words, and that we should include all words. In my opinion, encyclopedic criteria, such as primary division of a country, are relevant to WIkipedia, but not here. Lmaltier08:18, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, yes, many WP articles don't have that information (just as many Wiktionary entries don't), but the information is welcome there and its addition encouraged. So we would only be providing unique value, in this respect, if we choose to be more inclusive of place names than Wikipedia. This would be a sensible resolution of the problem, but it is more or less the opposite of current policy; the entire section of CFI would need to be stricken (which might not be a bad thing).
In terms of Wiktionary:Place names, am I correct in thinking that you would accept nothing stricter than a combination of the three weak criteria (attested + verifiable + present in an official list of toponyms)? This would position us to add unique value, so I would be hard-pressed to oppose it if it comes to a vote; but I have to admit that the thought of an entry for something like Indian Hills Mobile Home Park (which meets all three criteria, probably for more than one location) is somewhat disturbing. -- Visviva09:24, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Of course, I don't propose to include Indian Hills Mobile Home Park, because it's not a word! When something is a word, it should be included. When it's difficult to consider it a word, but we think that we can bring linguistic value nonetheless, then it might be accepted too (but clear CFI would be needed). Actually, current CFIs might be appropriate, provided that, in addition, any name which is clearly a word is also includable, including smallest villages... Information about the place, but not about the word, such as country flags, population, etc. should be strictly forbidden (the only information about the place should be the definition and a location map, to be able to understand the word). Lmaltier10:36, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
I consider North Carolina, New York, Le Havre or past perfect as words. But not Phoenix, AZ, nor ''Indian Hills Mobile Home Park. The difference seems rather clear to me, but clarifying it might help. I'm sure you can see it. For maps, I was meaning a map showing where the place is located, because it may be useful to understand the word, not a map with London streets, of course. Lmaltier17:10, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
It makes sense to me that "Phoenix, AZ" is sum of parts, while "North Carolina" isn't. On the other hand, "Indian Hills Mobile Home Park" isn't really sum of parts -- at least, none of the places by this name that I looked at were part of any larger "Indian Hills" community; it seems that the respective developers just chose this name from The Big Book of Trailer Park Names (or wherever). So is it rather the qualifier "Mobile Home Park" that makes this not a word? I guess that makes sense; similarly we wouldn't want "State of North Carolina" or "City of Chicago". Would this also apply to more conventional geographic labels, such as "River" or "Lake" or "Island"? Given that many of these are often referred to without their label (e.g. "the Chicago flows slowly"), that also makes a good deal of sense. This would argue for deletion in the case of WT:RFV#Aleutian Islands, if I understand correctly. (Do I?) -- Visviva07:18, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, you understand me well. For rivers (e.g. Seine), the important word is Seine, and one page may be sufficient (except when this name is always followed by River, which may make River a part of the word, just as in Mexico City). For Aleutian Islands, I would keep Aleutian (I assume it's an adjective), but I would also keep Aleutian Islands, because it's the normal name for the place, and it is as much a word as Ireland, I think). Lmaltier14:20, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Your criterion as applied to river names bothers me. When one says Miami River, "River" is a part of the name. It is not truly a separate word, but part of a compound proper noun. Yes, one could say "the Miami", but it wouldn't be clear whether you meant the river or the Native American people by the name (or actually meant the city of Miami and simply made an error in speech). This is a regular problem in US English, where both a river and/or another geographic entity were both named after the same Native American tribe. "Mississippi" is both a US state and a major US river, so the river is often called Mississippi River as a set phrase name to distinguish it from the state. The same applies to Missouri, which is a river, a state, a culture, and even a historical territory. It is more often called the Missouri River to clarify meaning. So, a criterion that says it's always followed by "River" doesn't work for river names. The issue is fuzzier than that. --EncycloPetey15:23, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
You must be right, about rivers. In French, it's rather unusual to add fleuve before a river name, but the English usage is different.
Another thing to be pondered: odonyms. Some of them could be accepted, when they are actual words (e.g. interesting linguistic information can be provided for Canebière or Champs-Élysées) but obviously not all of them. This restriction can be justified by the fact that almost all street names can be analysed as the sum of two (or 3...) words rather than a single word and, therefore, their presence would not bring linguistic value. This is different from city names, which are single words in most cases, which justifies the inclusion of names such as New York. But in languages such as German, does this analysis also apply or not (e.g. in Seestrasse)? Lmaltier17:39, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Some compound street names in English are probably worth entries as well, especially those in New York and London. Consider High Street (which is idiomatic) versus Fleet Street (which isn't, but carries connotations). Never having lived in London, but often comming across names of London streets in television and reading, I am often bewildered trying to understand what connotations may (or may not) be implied in the mention of a particular London street. For the US, Pennsylvania Avenue is worth an entry, certainly. --EncycloPetey17:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, they are includable for a different reason (Fleet Street has a special meaning, too, I think = London newspapers). Lmaltier18:53, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
The Thames, the Thames River and River Thames are just alternate forms of the same noun. Presumably the first would be listed as an abbreviated form, and the last chosen as the main entry (is it technically a “lemma?”). It's not just indigenous American names which suffer from multiple meanings. I live close to the Red River, which locals often refer to as the Red. It flows from the US into Canada. Usonians call it the Red River of the North, to differentiate it from the bigger one in Texas. This is just a matter of context and usage. —MichaelZ. 2009-03-15 20:02 z
How about prohibiting the addition of toponym entries merely for the sake of inclusion, and requiring some lexicographical function? Toponyms could be required to have at least one of an etymology, a non-obvious pronunciation, a usage note, or a list of derived non-toponyms.
And what do you think of the specialized subheading “Toponym”, to denote a particular type of proper noun? —MichaelZ. 2009-03-15 20:02 z
No pronunciation is obvious. And a definition is something lexicographically useful, too. Also note that different places with the same name may have different etymologies and/or different pronunciations and/or different demonyms, etc. Therefore, each place should get its own definition. Lmaltier18:01, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, different places with same spelling may have different pronunciations, even when one is derived from the other. Cairo and Vienna in Georgia (US) are pronounced very differently from their source cities in Egypt and Austria. Carolina wren18:45, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
The pronunciation of Red + River is obvious from its components to anyone who reads English – for this reason many dictionaries omit pronunciation of such compounds. The geographic description “a river flowing north through North Dakota, Minnesota, and Manitoba, into Lake Winnipeg” is not a lexicographical definition. An entry with only this information is purely encyclopedic, and doesn't belong in the dictionary.
On the other hand, if you add an etymology explaining that Red comes from Ojibwe, or a label about the regional usage of Red River and Red River of the North, then it would have lexicographical value. Whatever guideline we come up with should reflect this. —MichaelZ. 2009-03-19 20:07 z
I prefer lexical criteria, and not the weak lexical criterion which almost matches the moderate factual criterion. Factual information would be wonderful, but it diverts our attention in a very noticeable way, primarily that the context information (such as US/UK) would be confused with factual information of where that place is located. For instance, "Fredericksburg" is understood very differently in Central Texas, which would warrant a more local context, {Texas}. Something similar could be said of a number of cities named Jacksonville. However, Jacksonville in Florida does not warrant a local context because it is understood across the country to be the city in Florida. The problem is that the temptation to label the Jacksonville in Florida as {Florida} is just too great.
If we are both to indicate regional context labels and to include obscure place names in definitions, our focus should be on a lexical criterion, since only lexical critera focus our attention on how the term is used, rather than if it is correct. Information on other places would have to be left to Wikipedia. And yes, that's regardless of whether the pronunciation is unusual or the term has etymological information. The strongest reason to include place names is for translations purposes, but we have never included any term on the sole basis that it has non-trivial translations, and that even applies to terms like older brother where the grooves run deep and long. The only on-goal method is lexical, and the primary means citation. Any secondary means are going to need to be much more indirect than addressed, such as differing pronunciation depending on location, e.g. Houston, or being the etymology of another term like New York strip, but not just on the basis of having pronunciation or etymology sections.
My proposal above to use genericization or metaphor is along the lines of a strong-medium lexical criterion, being more inclusive by allowing citation but also addressing the problem of identifying legitimate quotations without the entire out-of-context hassle. At the same time it is not so weak that citation gathering amounts to fact checking, although a stricter clause could be based on that, or on authority, used to avoid having to cite so many place names and to eliminate some of the holes that make results seem arbitrary. 63.95.64.25402:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
I disagree with Mzajac about the fact that a geographical description is purely encyclopedic: the definition must be present to explain what the word means, and understanding where a place is located is necessary to understand what the place name means. But adding the population, or the length of a river, would be purely encyclopedic. Why do you consider that mentioning that Miami is the name of a town in Florida is more encyclopedic that mentioning that cat is the name of an animal? It's normal that a Wikipedia page and a Wiktionary page have something in common: the definition. Lmaltier20:10, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
Of course the object of an included place name must be identified. But I don't think identifying a place qualifies its name for inclusion in the dictionary, any more than “An actor (1915–85) who played the lead in Citizen Kane” qualifies Orson Welles for inclusion.
Dictionary entries represent terms, that is, words and, in some cases, names (while encyclopedia articles represent things, including people, and places). It should be some quality or aspect of the name which qualifies it for inclusion, not merely the existence of a corresponding place. —MichaelZ. 2009-03-20 22:11 z
I don't think anyone objects to defining some terms as just place names, much as we define family names and male and female given names. If you think that's the most that should be defined then that's a legitimate viewpoint, though not one with general agreement. This entire argument is centered around the question of whether to define specific entities, such as Lincoln which in nearly any context refers to the former president, or Athens which in nearly any context refers to a city in Greece. While there is willingness to include some of these entries, there is also opposition to including every place name (although opposite to your views some would just as well do so). The question is where to draw the line.63.95.64.25401:25, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, misread your response. To say that the name itself must qualify the entry, rather than an understanding of its meaning (e.g. Berlin to stand for the seat of the German government) is a fairly strict lexical criterion. 63.95.64.25401:36, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
"Encyclopedic" can refer to a couple of things: the length or content of the article, or the entry title or topic. What is considered encyclopedic in either case is an open question. Although other ideas have been floated, in my opinion there should always be a definition line. At the same time, I have had reservation with including e.g. the exact weight of deuterium or a measurement of the length of a year in place of the existing definitions. The definition is the fundamental explanation in those cases. For people and place names, the definition should answer the question of why the term is worth including. We don't need the history any more than the scientific details. If they're well-known, what are they known for? 63.95.64.25401:25, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
By encyclopedic, I mean information about the thing, like a city's population, etc., as opposed to information about the name of the thing. No, a definition does not need to explain why a term is included. Wikipedia has notability guidelines and usually explains the significance of the things in an introductory paragraph. Wiktionary has attestation requirements, which may or may not be documented by quotations.
We haven't really established how to “define” a place name. If you ask me, London is well defined as “The capital city of the United Kingdom and of England.” Arguably, most places will have to be geographically identified by something like “situated near the mouth of the River Thames in southeast England”. But “with a metropolitan population of more than 12,000,000” is strictly encyclopedic, and is out of place in the dictionary – a better alternative would be a specific Wikipedia link at the end of the definition line, where you can learn a thousand such facts about London if you choose to. —MichaelZ. 2009-03-21 20:55 z
There is also the issue of commonly used place names like Springfield and Boone County - if a place name is used in multiple places, it is worth an entry stating that this is a place name used in multiple places. In the case of London, Paris, etc., there should be one definition line for the primary use, and one indicating that there are multiple other places named for the primary. bd2412T02:41, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
If being the capital is the reason for inclusion, then name it as the capital. If one would be expected to know that it's situated near the Thames, then say so. If the population qualifies it, then list the population. And frankly I don't think something as fickle as the population is a good criterion. In some cases we might have to say "once had a population of..." because once qualified as a term, always qualified. DAVilla08:48, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
This is a list of all types of place names separated by country. Please explain all the place names that a country use (city, town, county, province, state, prefecture, etc. when applicable).
Some suggestions to enrich the descriptions for placenames of each country:
Official status:
Mention if a type of place is official status in the country or not. (e.g., in some countries, "city" is an official, government-sanctioned status, in others it's just arbitrary usage of the word)
Say if there's an official term prefered instead of "city" or "town". (like "municipality")
Say if an English speaker would usually use terms like "town"/"city" regardless of the words that the native speakers use.
Usage/sources
Feel free to provide external links and/or links to Wikipedia as sources.
Link to current categories that Wiktionary uses.
Link to categories that Wikipedia uses.
Languages:
Mention both the placename in English and the official language of the country (as in city/ciudad).
Comprehensiveness:
Mention all types of placename, down to the smallest ones such as "village" or "borough".
Mention any obscure types of placenames like "region" or "macroregion" (which could maybe be a group of cities, a group of states, etc., depending on the country).
Mention former types of placenames, i.e. that a country does not have anymore.
Explain the capitals that the country has, such as capitals of states/provinces and say if the capital of the country is the capital of the state too.
Appeal/illustration:
Add some map or image if you'd like!
This list can be used when deciding names of categories and formatting definitions.
Note: See #Brazil for example. Once more countries are created here, remove this line.
See also Template:place, the template used to generate definitions of place names.
departments are further divided into municipalities (municipios)
Armenia
Australia
6 states, 3 federal territories, 7 external territories
547 local government areas (LGAs), which can either be cities, boroughs shires, or unorganised areas. These are subdivided into localities (rural) and suburbs (urban).
The municipalities with an urban area are commonly called cities (non-official). Small municipalities are called towns in English sometimes. (non-official)
Often, a state is divided into multiple levels of "regions", including "mesoregions" and "microregions", each comprised of multiple municipalities. Wikipedia article List of municipalities in Bahia illustrates those divisions in the state of Bahia. There are arbitrary regions such as Chapada Diamantina and Greater São Paulo that don't qualify as "mesoregion" or "microregion".
Each municipality is further divided into neighborhoods (bairros).
Brasília is an administrative region (i.e., not a municipality) in the Federal District. Brasília is the capital of the Federal District and also the capital of the country.
Divided into 10 provinces and 3 territories. Further subdivisions vary depending on the province or territory.
Alberta: 74 municipal districts, 19 cities, 105 towns, 80 villages, and 51 summer villages
British Columbia: 28 regional districts, subdivided into 52 cities, 50 district municipalities, 1 Indian government district, 1 island municipality, 1 mountain resort municipality, 1 resort municipality, 14 towns, 42 villages and 312 Indian reserves
6 districts (מְחוֹזוֹתm pl(m'khozot) each having around a million people and one area (אֵזוֹרm sg(ezór). CBS example
Which are further divided into fifteen sub-districts (נָפוֹתf pl(nafót)), although two of these include the same area as the district and such are not usually listed.
3 metropolitan areas, a separate distinction from districts. CBS example
City or municipal councils (עִירִיּוֹתf pl(ʿiriyót)) – an authority with the status of a city.
Local councils (מוֹעְצוֹת מְקוֹמִיּוֹתf pl(mo'atsót mekomiyót)) – an authority that is not large enough to have the status of a city.
Regional councils (מוֹעְצוֹת אֵזוֹרִיּוֹתf pl(mo'atsót ezoriyót)) – an authority of several settlements, usually rural. The most common form of communities are kibbutzim and moshavim.
However most of these divisions are mainly used for administrative purposes and colloquially (in addresses for example) only the local types are used and sometimes their divisions (e.g. kibbutzim and moshavim).
Cities are sometimes divided into neighbourhoods (שְׁכוּנוֹתf pl(sh'khunót)) or older ones into quarters (רובעים / רֹבָעִיםf pl(rova'ím)), but these are usually descriptive (e.g. לב העיר(lev ha'ir, literally “heart of the city”), הרובע היהודי(harova' hay'hudí, literally “the Jewish quarter”)) and might be considered SOP.
47 prefectures (都道府県 (todōfuken), including Tokyo, Hokkaido, and the urban prefectures (府 (fu)) of Kyoto and Osaka)
792 cities (市 (shi), including Tokyo's special wards (特別区 (tokubetsu-ku)), 743 towns (町 (machi)) and 143 villages (村 (mura))
Other subdivisions are:
354 districts (郡 (gun)). These are non-governing divisions below prefectures, but are used in addresses and maps. These are usually divided into towns and villages (see above)
158 subprefectures (支庁 (shichō)): the main subdivision of Hokkaido. Some prefectures also have subprefectures (Kagoshima, Miyazaki, Tokyo, Shimane and Yamagata).
Note: Korean terms listed here are romanized according to the McCune-Reischauer system; the Revised Romanization (RR) is provided after the MR romanization. In case the MR and RR are the same, only one romanization is provided
The first-level divisions are 9 provinces (도 (道, MR: to, RR: do)) and 4 special cities (특별시 (特別市, MR: t'ŭkpyŏlsi, RR: teukbyeolsi): Pyongyang, Kaesong, Nampo and Rason)
The 9 provinces are divided into 27 cities (시 (市, si), excluding the 4 special cities above) and 82 counties (군 (郡, MR: kun, RR: gun))
The 27 cities (including the 4 special cities) are subdivided into neighborhoods 동 (洞, MR: tong, RR: dong))
Counties are further subdivided into towns (읍 (邑, ŭp, eup)), and villages (리 (里, ri). Some counties may also have workers' districts (로동자구 (勞動者區, rodongjagu)).
The 9 provinces are divided into 75 cities (시 (市, si), excluding the 8 special cities above) and 82 counties (군 (郡, gun))
The 83 cities (including the 8 special cities) as well as Jeju and Seogwipo are divided into 104 districts (구 (區, gu))
Busan, Incheon, Daegu and Ulsan are also subdivided into counties in addition to districts.
Counties are further subdivided into towns (읍 (邑, eup)), townships (면 (面, myeon)) and villages (리 (里, ri), and districts and cities without districts are further subdivided into neighborhoods (동 (洞, dong)
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
17 provinces (ແຂວງ(khǣung)), divided into 148 districts (ເມືອງ(mư̄ang))
Latvia
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Madagascar
There were formerly 6 administrative provinces subdivided into 22 regions
The provinces were dissolved, now the 22 regions are the highest subdivision
Provinces subdivided into municipalities (gemeente), which are mostly administrative in nature.
Municipalities are subdivided into places (woonplaats), which represent individual settlements. A municipality may have only one place in it, or it may have many individual places spread across a wider area.
No legal distinction is made between places of different sizes or statuses. woonplaats covers anything from a tiny hamlet to a big city. A woonplaats may not even have anyone living in it (Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is one).
16 governorates (مُحَافَظَة(muḥāfaẓa): 11 in the West Bank and 5 in the Gaza Strip), including areas under Israeli control. These are subdivided into cities, towns, villages, refugee camps and neighborhoods.
Other cities such as Quezon City or Caloocan have districts, but their boundaries are not defined in law, nonetheless these are commonly used in addressing. Those districts are usually former barangays that have been split into smaller ones.
Each federal subject, except the federal cities, are subdivided into:
districts (район(rajon)), 1873 are administrative districts and 1823 are municipal districts, include those in territories internationally recognized as part of Ukraine.
2 regions (вилоят(viloyat)), 1 autonomous region (Gorno-Badakhstan) and districts under Republican subordination (including Dushanbe), divided into districts (ноҳия(nohiya)) and cities (шаҳр(šahr)).
Tanzania
Thailand
76 provinces (จังหวัด(jang-wàt)), including the special administrative region of Bangkok
The provinces excluding Bangkok are subdivided into 878 districts or amphoe (อำเภอ(am-pəə)).
Bangkok is subdivided into 50 districts (เขต(kèet)), which are then subdivided into 180 subdistricts (แขวง(kwɛ̌ɛng)).
The districts are further subdivided into 7,255 subdistricts or tambons (ตำบล(dtam-bon))
50 states, some called commonwealths in their formal names.
Also the District of Columbia, territories, the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and other entities.
Most states divided into counties, but Louisiana into parishes, Alaska into boroughs, and the New England states into towns, though counties exist, often used for judicial districts.
States have varying local-government nomenclature and relationships among the state (or equivalent), the counties (or equivalents), and the local governments
Native peoples are in a curious position, the tribes being principally in a treaty relationship with the federal government, sometimes having reservations. The native peoples can vote is US and state (?) elections.
Lmatier, I don't think we should use a criteria such as "I have heard of <towns/countries/etc> referred to as a words" as a basis for inclusion ("New York" yes, but "Socrates" no?). For one, your understanding of this bit of "common knowledge" doesn't seem to equate with mine or some others', and I'd find it hard to believe a consensus could be reached with this approach. It is not a very solid foundation for our mission of all words in all languages. Whatever the approach is, it should be more well defined (possibly along the lines DCDuring mentioned). I still hope that something akin to the recent vote could be reworked to garner more support. --Bequw → ¢ • τ00:25, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Can we define the rule a significance of a place, rather than how many parts it consists of? I don't deny New York the right to be included, if there is a space in it. neither should be Rostov-na-Donu/Rostov-on-Don. It's a million-city, a large administrative centre and an important historical and cultural city in Russia, mentioned far too often in the Russian literature and translated into other languages. It's also a major part of East Slavic culture, History of Don cossacks and has a popular slang name - Rostov-papa (Ростов-папа), due to its criminal history.
No need to include small villages and squares, nor anyone is trying to do so. Let's talk about how big and important is enough to be included, it would be more constructive. By any criteria discussed earlier in previous discussions, Rostov-na-Donu and Rostov-on-Don should be restored.
I would also leave people's names out of this discussion, let's have another if anyone is interested.
If Wiktionary only allows cities originating in English speaking countries, that's arrogant and not helpful. Who wins if we remove an important place name from the dictionary? A bit more complicated names like Rostov-na-Donu/Rostov-on-Don also deserve to be included, simply because their translations are not so straightforward in most languages, it's not a simple transliteration based on the sound and I find information on how this is done in a particular language interesting and useful.
Most good dictionaries include major proper geographical names, why should we be different. Let's just talk about what is significant to be included. Anatoli01:31, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
No. As I've explained repeatedly, I'm opposed to including any term based on the encyclopedic notability of its referent. The dictionary is only about words, not about the things they represent. “Encyclopedic” dictionaries throw in gazetteer entries, often completely devoid of lexicographical information, purely for marketing reasons. Since our partner encyclopedia is free and only a link away, there is no reason to water down the dictionary with lame excerpts from it.
OED's practices look like a good start, and maybe we can derive a few guidelines from them. They define Moscow strictly as an analogy: as the government and ideology of the USSR, or of Russia; also as used in combination for Moscow centre and Moscow mule. Not defined as a city at all. Its inclusion in the OED is strictly based on its use as a word, and has nothing to do with how many people live there or what they speak. There's a lot more to be gleaned from the OED's definitions—they include Churchillian and Churchilliana, but not Churchill (we already go beyond the OED by including surnames for their own sake). They include Ford for its figurative use, London and New York for attributive use and for many combinations such as London blue and New York slice (the OED includes such entries as a home for the run-in combination words—since we have combinations as independent entries, the root entries may not be required).
Energy is better expended coming up with some lexicographical or onomastic basis for inclusion of terms, and not repeating population statistics which belong in Wikipedia. Quite frankly, a straight transliteration like Rostov-na-donu, or a direct translation like Rostov-on-Don may not warrant inclusion in any case. —MichaelZ. 2009-07-28 02:34 z
Ростов-папа probably belongs in the dictionary, but I'm skeptical that Rostov-papa is anything but a transliteration of the Russian.—MichaelZ. 2009-07-28 02:40 z
I am not requesting this addition (Ростов-папа), simply stating that the city name is important in many aspects. If you don't like the encyclopaedic statistics, see how often word Rostov-on-Don is used on the web and in the dictionaries and it is a word. That's enough warrant for me to include - there are 325,000 English pages for "Rostov-on-Don" and 607,000 English pages for "Rostov-na-Donu" on the web. I understand your opinion very well but I don't agree, no need to give more details to explain your point. I think we should vote for a change in the CFI. I wasn't the one who restarted this discussion. I am not going to propose to include the encyclopedic or statistical information but: meaning (city and location), etymology, spelling, pronunciation, gender or other grammar info (if applicable) and translations. Anatoli03:22, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Is there an English dictionary which includes serious lexicographical information about Rostov, Rostov-on-Don or Rostov-na-donu? (like etymology, year of attestation, etc.) I can't find anything but encyclopedic entries, with location, date of foundation, population. —MichaelZ. 2009-07-28 05:19 z
You are right, language dictionaries about proper nouns are very rare. But there are some books dealing with the etymology of place names (I own a dictionary for world place name etymologies, and another book on this subject, limited to France (not a dictionary)). There are dictionaries dealing with the etymology of surnames, or first names, etc. But the fact that proper nouns dictionaries are almost always encyclopedic (unlike wiktionaries) makes the inclusion of these words here still more useful. The fact that a name is the same as the name in the original language, or just a transcription, is not a reason to omit it: it's just like interjection (from French) or kimono (from Japanese). It's important to include them, especially for pronunciation. Lmaltier05:45, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
A few quick links from online dictionaries: , , , , (need to enter in the search box), , , . I skipped some which looked more encyclopaedic. Of course, I also have bilingual dictionaries, which have place names sections or contain place names in the main body. The first indication that these are word entries is the word "noun" or "n.". Anatoli05:54, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Proper noun dictionaries are indeed rare, but those that exist are extermely valuable. I have a copy of Ekwall's Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names, 4th ed., and it's an incredibly valuable book for dated citations, historical spelling variation, and etymology. All these things and pronunciation are well within the scope of what a dictionary should include. — This unsigned comment was added by EncycloPetey (talk • contribs) at 15:38, July 28, 2009.
Browsing on Amazon I see a bunch of dictionaries with titles such as A Dictionary of Iowa Place-Names, Colorado: Place Names, Indian Place Names in Alabama... there is even one "Toposaurus". The biggest Croatian one-volume dictionary Hrvatski enciklopedijski rječnik has out of 175k headwords some 45k which are onomastics, with details such as pronunciations (especially in local idiom), etymology, distribution and derived terms (demonyms and relative/possessive adjectives - often very counter-intuitive formations). There is no reason why Wiktionary cannot do the same. I for once would like to know how do you properly say "citizen of Rostov-na-Donu" and non-attributively "of or pertaining to Rostov-na-Donu" in English :) --Ivan Štambuk15:30, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
In some languages, like Chinese, treatment of foreign names is now very serious. Just having a correct correspondence of names in different scripts with a minimum information of what the actual names is, can only be achieved with a dictionary. This is a picture of a Chinese dictionary of foreign names (世界人民翻译大辞典): . I bet Rostov-on-Don is there among much smaller place names. Sometimes Wikipedia can be used to get this information but it's not designed for it, doesn't have enough info (pronunciation, grammar, etymology) and article names don't have to match. Anatoli06:02, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Lmaltier, you're right. My interest is in Asian languages and transliteration of foreign names is not a simple sound substitution in Chinese. You must KNOW what a city is called in Chinese. There is more flexibility with people's names but most place names are standardised and are stored in a dictionary. Anatoli06:13, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
So I'll ask again: does a single English dictionary have an etymology of Rostov? Or any dictionary? The dictionaries linked by Anatoli are exactly the kind of gazetteer entries I'm talking about—bad examples for us. I am interested in the kind of content Lmaltier's place-name dictionary has—can you quote an entry?
No, we're not making much headway. That's why we should vote to allow what is de facto in Wiktionary - place name entries exist, even if they don't have attributive usage. We have expressed out points but you keep using references to house, club or shop names, although I explained clearly we are talking of significant place names, leaving the discussion about significance open. You yourself, Michael boasted the Ukrainian major administrative cities in Wiktionary in your user page, which is good, good effort! Why do you have to discriminate against entries not from your background? I don't understand why you have to twist my words when I say let's include large cities, you give these funny examples again (Schwartz's Deli). If McDonald's should be included, it's irrelevant to this discussion - we are talking about city names. If you insist on calling these gazetteer entries, let it be so. I don't see any damage in having them, if they are correct. Rostov's etymology is not proven and has too many theories, so no need to add this particular etymology, only need to add if it's known, suffice to say that it's from Russian into English. Please don't give more "McLeod YMCA" type of examples. Anatoli14:24, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
We have already had one topic change. The subject at hand is not "city names"; it is not "Rostov-na-Donu"; it is "place names".
A dictionary is not an encyclopedia and isn't necessarily a gazetteer.
If you are confident that you can draft a proposal that will win a Vote on whether Wiktionary should be a gazetteer, either:
do so or
consider that more effort might be needed to make sure there is some consensus.
Merely ratifying the status quo is not what a Vote is for. If the lack of conformity to stated policy offends you, by all means, insert RfD or RfV tags on any or all the existing entries that have not already survived a challenge. Policy and guidelines are supposed to provide a direction in which Wiktionary will be going and require some thought beyond individual entries. If you are solely interested in an entry for Rostov-on-Don, such a conversation might not be very interesting to you.
I, for one, am looking forward to a coherent and comprehensive proposal about toponymic entries. I can see that there is a great deal of enthusiasm for transcribing and translating place names as well as the expected hometown boosterism. This might be a great way to broaden participation in en.wikt worldwide. We could do worse than simply allowing every WP entry to be an en.wikt entry, but with a one-line definition, hypernyms, see also link to WP, no external links(?), and, especially, etymology and translations. DCDuringTALK15:01, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
If the lack of conformity to stated policy offends you, by all means, insert RfD or RfV tags on any or all the existing entries that have not already survived a challenge. - this would be destructive and unreasonable course of action from his perspective. I'm sure that none of those who think that the current CFI policy for place-names is too strict (if not simply broken) is intent on waste time chasing entries which somehow managed to escape RfV process, and which obviously do not satisfy "widely-understood attributive usage" criterion, as a form of "compensation" for their own entries being deleted, or simply being unable to add new place-name entries in the first place. --Ivan Štambuk15:17, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
My concern was that I was hearing many aspects of the issue being framed solely in terms of their consequences for inclusion of Rostov-na-Donu, Rostov-on-the-Don, and Cyrillic equivalents, as opposed to some thought about Wiktionary as a whole. This single focus had already diverted the topic of conversation once and was threatening to do so again. DCDuringTALK16:48, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I reply to Michael Z. The dictionary I mention is a Robert dictionary, published in 1994: Dictionnaire des noms de lieux (Louis Deroy, Marianne Mulon). It includes an entry for Rostov-sur-le-Don and this entry discusses its etymology. Toponymy is an important branch of linguistics (see w:Toponymy for more information). Lmaltier15:41, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Replies to several comments above:
Rostov-on-Don serves as an example or stand-in for pure toponyms: place names which are not part of the English language in the same way as New York has given meaning to New York slice, New York deli, etc. The dictionary is a technical document—I won't agree to sweeping policy changes based on anything de facto, and based the way we've been running the show lately I don't think the consensus would either. I created entries for major Ukrainian and Canadian place names before I became familiar or concerned with these encyclopedic vs lexicographical issues and did some significant reading about them. The current policy requiring attributive attestation is if not ideal, adequately inclusive for place names from a lexicographical standpoint, and not much different from the OED's. To conform, there are many place names which could be RFV'd and RFD'd, including entries I added, and I'll be glad to help with that effort once we decide what to do (or not to do). Even if we don't remove them, we should remove all encyclopedic information, like population, date of founding, significance, etc.
Where the policy is lacking is from the point of view of toponymy and its parent discipline, onomastics, in allowing a broader overview of names to be included. I believe we specifically allow given names and surnames, so why not toponyms? We need a proposal. Does the Dictionnaire des noms de lieux have an introduction explaining what was included and why? I've also seen some Ukrainian etymological dictionaries which include place names. How do we justify the inclusion of specific place names but not other specific entities?
Remember this is about the words, not the things. I don't care how big or important a thing is, that doesn't make its name belong in the dictionary, even if some popular dictionaries do include it for that reason. It's only important how important its name is. —MichaelZ. 2009-07-28 20:03 z
The issue is not about Rostov-on-Don/Rostov-na-Donu, these are the entries that were deleted and it's not my home town. Yes, I feel sorry about wasted time on adding translations and transliterations. I have created entries in Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and some other speaking countries, added translations for many others. Toponyms is not my main activity but I think they are important for Wiktionary. I honestly believe that Wiktionary should have toponyms - so that users could look up them in native and other scripts, find out about the pronunciation and other linguistic information, such as etymology, gender, declension, etc. I don't have a full confidence that the vote will succeed, neither have the experience in putting the proposal. When I find out more, I may do so. Agree that encyclopaedic information can be removed. Anatoli20:12, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Reply to Mzajac: There has been a selection in the dictionary I mention, of course: it's impossible to cover all place names of the world in a single book. The criteria were 1. covering the whole world (trying not to favour European toponyms) and 2. giving priority to place names most likely to be searched: place names of French-speaking countries (the dictionary is in French), most notable places, and places with strange names (readers may be interested in them), e.g. Titicaca. But we are not a paper dictionary, we are not limited by space.
Some names are words, some names are not words, but combinations of words. I'm surprised that somebody feels that Paris is not a word... So, what's a word? Lmaltier20:42, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
The slogan "all words in all languages" has been put into policy as WT:CFI. "All words in all languages" are fine words, in the nature of "give me liberty or give me death" or "liberty, equality, fraternity". "Liberty" turns out to be quite circumscribed by constitution, law, regulation, and social expectations. Similarly with our slogan. When it gets down to specifics we get to decide what we include. We decide based on reasons like benefit to users non-contributing, or interest of occasional and major contributors. If we think it is a good idea, then we should devote technical resources to getting some basic starter entries bot-loaded from Wikipedia to here in some form so we can rapidly present adequate coverage of what we want to cover. DCDuringTALK21:15, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I think that we are restricted to words (+ characters, suffixes...). But I consider that table cloth is a word, in the linguistic (not typographic) sense of word. Lmaltier19:02, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
I recently added Kashgar / Kashi, since they were in the news (because of the riots in Xinjiang) and are likely to be searched by users. Both names are used for the same place name, the latter is often preferred by Chinese media in English and some tourist agencies. Anatoli20:34, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
DCDuring, specifically, I suggest to include:
all countries (already there) in the shortest form (France, not the French Republic, Transnistria / Pridnestrovie, not "Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic", other languages may require the prefix - in Japanese it's always "沿ドニエストル共和国" with the word Republic, not used without it)
country capitals in their full but shortest acceptable form - Mexico City is OK along with Mexico (city), Santiago de Chile is a word, not the same meaning as Santiago.
City names, administrative centres (provinces, prefectures, states, oblasts, not necessarily counties or districts, unless they meet other criteria for inclusion). Say, e.g. major cities - 0.5 mln and over population or historically/culturally/politically significant place, e.g. Ramalla may be very small but it's always in the news. It doesn't mean that all HAVE to be created but I don't see issue in allowing this. Do we have space issues? Maintenance is not a problem, since large city names can be verified easily. 0.5 mln and over is an example only, no need to quote me on this. Please suggest other criteria if you want.
All based on common sense, no need to twist or exaggerate. Hong Kong's capital district doesn't count as a capital city but Taiwan's Jhongsing (village) is (中興新村 / 中兴新村 Zhōngxīng Xīncūn). Anatoli22:44, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Also to DCDuring: all words, all languages is not only a slogan, it's a principle. Trying to stick to this principle, in a systematic way, would not save space, of source, but would save much (very, very much) time in RfV, RfD, Beer parlour, etc. discussions, and it would be much easier to understand and to accept (by editors and by readers) than making exceptions here and there (there will always be people disagreeing with exceptions). Lmaltier17:24, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Since we don't have to worry about space and can choose not to worry about maintenance, I suppose that the time consideration could govern.
I guess then the slogan principle of "all word in all languages" applies not just to "words", but also to "languages". Or are both of these in fact terms circumscribed by those who assert the authority to do so?
Michael, because these rules are created by the people and for the people and we can decide the significance of the entries here as we go along or right now. I don't see any issue with having these entries. Also, as I said, let's leave people's names and street addresses out of these discussions. The toponyms from fiction, not sure about these and I think it's not so relevant to this discussion either. Of course, the final rule may stipulate whether they need to be included. I don't think the number of real cities over 0.5 million is huge and can't be handled, even if we talk about other languages and different spellings. They are not going to appear from nowhere. I already stated my point of view that the criteria are not encyclopedic, except, perhaps the location and the fact that it's a capital or an administrative centre but it belongs to the meaning of the word, e.g. Ottawa means nothing if you don't say that it's the capital of Canada. I explained the criteria for the inclusion, not the entries themselves. The entries may stay linguistic as they are now. See Belgorod and please say what's wrong with the entry. This is the city I lived in the last few years before leaving Russia (not my home town) but there's no boosterism I was accused of - only dry dictionary info and the link to Wikipedia. Anatoli05:20, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Mzajac. Criteria you propose are encyclopedic. In a paper dictionary (even a pure language dictionary), such criteria are required, because space is limited. Here, they are not needed. The origin of the name of a small village may be much more interesting than the etymology of a capital. Yes, very few readers will be interested. But not fewer, probably, than for some obscure obsolete nouns or verbs. Lmaltier05:54, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
None. Accepting all toponyms when they can be understood as words, which is the case for most toponyms (but not for odonyms, which should be accepted only when they are words, e.g. Champs-Élysées or Canebière). But I think that place names which are not really considered as words (e.g. Excelsior Hotel, World Trade Center, etc.) should not be accepted, except when including their definition would be useful for good linguistic reasons (I don't like the "attributive use" criterion, because it seems to me to be specific to English, but criteria of this kind could be used in such cases). Lmaltier07:09, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
That was my idea as well and I certainly wouldn't oppose it but I am trying to find a middle ground or a compromise, since the number of large and known places, therefore more likely to be sought is smaller than small villages, exceptions, like Jhongsing village (seat of Taiwan't parliament) I mentioned above, could be made for small places, which have an important political, historical or cultural value, again if people agree. Michael disagrees with me for a different reason, you want to increase the criteria, he doesn't want proper names allowed without attributive usage. Anatoli03:09, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
That is not what I don't want. —MichaelZ. 2009-07-31 05:40 z
I may have missed something but to put it simply, you don't want to allow place names to be included if they don't meet the current CFI, that is attributive usage, not used in English expressions, right? Or this rule only applies to place names, which are made of more than one word, or rather have spaces/dashes between them? Didn't you say you don't want Wiktionary to become a gazetteer? Or was it that the information in the entries that you were worried about. If you don't mind, please explain your position again on place names in simple terms. Please restrict to real place names. Anatoli06:19, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
A assumed that until we decided to change the CFI, then we are trying to conform to the CFI. What I want is a different issue. I want to include more place names, once we've figured out an acceptable way to do that and agreed to update the CFI. —MichaelZ. 2009-07-31 16:10 z
“Please restrict to real place names”—sorry, but I won't. We're talking about the definitions of real words here. I assume Wikipedia already categorizes real places separately from fictional or mythical places, and it's pointless for us to go down the same road. This discussion may be more productive if you stop couching your arguments in encyclopedic terms, and insisting that others do the same. —MichaelZ. 2009-07-31 16:26 z
You win, I lose. I am leaving the discussion and wiktionary. If my suggestions sounded imposing, I apologise. Anatoli04:41, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
Place names —AEL
Well, I'm coming rather late to this discussion, and must admit I haven't read the entirety off the discussion above. But would something like Wiktionary:Votes/2007-08/Brand names of products 2 (=Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion/Brand names) work for place names? In fact, though, I like to think of two possible types of definition lines for place names. The one is "A place name". This, I think, is good for any non-SoP place name (so not, e.g., New York) and is useful for the etymology, pronunciation, and other info. The other is the one that identifies a particular place, and that's the one that we need good CFI for (and that I suggested something similar to our brand-name criteria for). Do others disagree?—msh210℠20:28, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
A town and a different town with the same name, that makes two different senses. The definitions have to be different. And the general case is that there is at least some other information specific to the sense, even when the etymology is the same, e.g. the demonym, or a translation. See fr:Beaulieu for a typical (but rather extreme) example. Lmaltier20:37, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I have a problem with that. In terms of inclusion, I'm starting to think that “every village” might work, just like “every surname” hasn't presented us with any problems.
But in terms of defining, I have a problem with each list of senses becoming a geographical catalogue, with items differentiated by nothing but their location. Imagine how many towns, villages, suburbs, and developers' tracts would be listed under Lakeview, Elmwood, Bridgeport, St. Paul, or Garden City. (These entries would become needless duplicates of Wikipedia's respective disambiguation pages: w:Lakeview, w:Elmwood, w:Bridgeport (disambiguation), w:Saint Paul (disambiguation), or w:Garden City) Perhaps hundreds in some cases, adding zero lexicographical value. —MichaelZ. 2009-07-31 16:10 z
I have proposed before, and will again, that any name in common use as a geographic identifier (e.g. Springfield) should be defined as pretty much exactly that: "a common name" for whatever type of thing it's a common name for. And put a link to the Wikipedia disambig page in case anyone wants to see all the specific instances. bd2412T20:22, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
To Ruakh: From the definition in w:Word, it's clear that Paris and Confucius are words. This page also states In English orthography, words may contain spaces if they are compounds or proper nouns such as ice cream or air raid shelter.. According to this sentences, ice cream and air raid shelter are words, and words may be proper nouns including spaces (my example: w:Le Mans). This pages provides criteria from different authors for defining what a word is, but also insists on the fact that the definition of word is very elusive. Nonetheless, I propose to use this page as a basis for improving CFI. Lmaltier08:29, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
I note as well that the definition of "word" in Wikipedia also makes no reference to attestation. Clearly we have blundered. Our policy violates our slogan or principle or whatever it is. DCDuringTALK17:40, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
But you seem to be writing as if outside sources have some implications for our choices. We clearly make our decision on what we include within the broad definitions of "word". In the broadest sense, almost anything used in an intelligible sentence is a word. Fine.
Beyond that, I think we, as an entity with limited resources, especially technical ones, we need to couch the discussion in terms of costs and benefits to types of users for including specific classes of "words". For example: "We should have entries for all place names which are of encyclopedic import at any Wikipedia in any language (subject to some test of the adequacy of their inclusion criteria?) because they need to be translated for the benefit of those projects their wiktionaries and others." "We should include all proper nouns that are used to define terms in en.wikt or in etymologies so that we can give users a quick link (using popups) instead of making them wait for a WP page download. "We should have our own encyclopedic criteria because it would be a way of involving new users in educational discussion with senior Wiktionarians on why those criteria are justified in excluding their neighborhood, village, or favorite natural wonder."
I don't know whether I agree with any of the statements above, but I could imagine having a discussion about such matters that seemed relevant to Wiktionary. DCDuringTALK19:27, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
What we are considering here goes beyond “every word” in the conventional dictionary sense. We are considering going beyond non-encyclopedic entries in normal dictionaries, and beyond the OED. We are considering moving beyond lexicography into onomastics by adding names. I don't have a problem with this, but let's please understand the slogan for what it really means without exaggerating. —MichaelZ. 2009-08-01 03:48 z
Toponymy belongs to lexicography: toponyms belong to the vocabulary of a language. Onomastics too, but it's normal to exclude full names such as Winston Churchill' from a language dictionary, because they are considered as two words rather than a single word. They are included only in encyclopedic dictionaries, because the only interesting data to be provided are encyclopedic, not linguistic. Lmaltier06:24, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
Practically no non-specialized dictionary has toponymic entries about place names at all, but many, especially American ones, have encyclopedic entries about places added, for marketing purposes. Although they throw in the pronunciation, they almost universally include specific references and statistics like population, history, etc., while ignoring etymology. This is not lexicography or onomastics, this is pure encyclopedic supplement.
The OED is an exception, it only includes place-name entries for three reasons, as far as I can tell. 1—if a place name has become a word on its own, e.g., Moscow, which the OED doesn't define as a city at all (although of course this is mentioned in the etymology and an etymological note). 2—if a place name is widely used attributively, with a meaning beyond designating location, e.g., New York's meaning restricted specifically as “Only in attr. use Designating things originating in, characteristic of, or associated with the city ” with the example New York dressed (of poultry). 3.—since, as in most print dictionaries, the OED includes compound words as run-in entries under a main headword, it includes place names in main headings as a place to house collocations, for example London: “the name of the capital of England, used attrib. in various special collocations:” followed by about two-dozen collocations including London broil, London fog, London paste. This is a purely lexicographical approach, omitting encyclopedic and onomastic information as much as possible.
We aren't an encyclopedic dictionary—or at least we shouldn't be diluting our work with a half-assed copy of Wikipedia material.
Sorry I'm repeating this like a broken record. The distinction of encyclopedic material seems to be unclear to some editors. There are lots of explanations in lexicography books, e.g. Oxford Guide, p 186–89, Manual of Lexicograpy, p 198–99. —MichaelZ. 2009-08-01 16:13 z
I agree on your analysis of what paper dictionaries usually do. Yes, OED, and Webster's, and almost all other paper language dictionaries include toponyms only in some specific cases, because they choose not to include proper nouns, and toponyms are proper nouns. It's easy to find dictionaries which include proper nouns but, as a rule, they are encyclopedic dictionaries: only specialized paper dictionaries provide linguistic info about toponyms. But this is a good reason to try to study all toponyms, with an exclusively linguistic point of view: if somebody wants to find the pronunciation or the etymology of the name of a small Albanian town, he won't be able to find it anywhere, but here. Lmaltier16:29, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm starting to come around to your view. I can't think of a valid reason to disqualify any village at all, if we decide to allow place names. I don't see major problems with the place name entries already present.
But how would we discourage the growth of encyclopedic entries? I'd like to limit the definitions of place names to the bare minimum information required to identify them. Certainly I'd ban statistics like population figures, areas, geographic coördinates, and so on. I'd also like to discourage statements of notability, like “biggest city in Ohio,” unless the quality contributes to the meaning or connotation of the name.
And how do we check the proliferation of lists of places? Everyone will want to add their home town.
Finally, how would we address prescriptivism? Many countries have official lists of place names and their spellings. Obviously we would include anything that is attributed by our rules, but should we also note such official status? —MichaelZ. 2009-08-03 02:25 z
Geographic coordinates should be included for cities and smaller population centers. They are the one aspect of a place that does not change. The name and its spelling change; the population and relative size change; even the parent country can change as national borders move. However, it is very rare for the geographic coordinates of a city, town, or village to change. The coordinates therefore become the most reliable and consistent means of identifying a particular population center. --EncycloPetey15:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm skeptical. Geographical centres wander, cities grow, boundaries change both organically and by decree, districts are annexed and merged. The boundaries and even meanings of various bodies of water, regions, and neighbourhoods are undefined, or variously defined. And as we know, names and their meanings change.
And in practical terms, we're talking about eventually cataloguing a (theoretically) measurable property about tens of thousands of things (not terms). Sounds encyclopedic to me, and duplicates Wikipedia. —MichaelZ. 2009-08-04 17:22 z
I agree. Some amount of encyclopedic information may be inevitable — I think it would be perverse to include Atlantis, for example, without mentioning that it's presumed mythical, or Xanadu without mentioning that it's historical — but geographic coordinates seems a bit extreme. (And "presumed mythical"– and "historical"-type things might best be covered by sense labels, anyway, rather than going into the definitions proper.) —RuakhTALK17:59, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
I feel that a map showing where the place is located is clearer, and more appropriate in a language dictionary than precise geographic coordinates, which are appropriate in an encyclopedia. As for encyclopedic information, it should be limited to the definition, i.e. what is necessary to understand the word. This is true for all words, including common nouns (e.g. cat cannot be defined as Animal. or square as Polygon.). Actually, the definition is the only part which should be present both in an ancyclopedia and a language dictionary (and might be common to both in most cases). Lmaltier18:39, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
A map is still specific to a place, not to a word or name. If we start adding geolocations or maps, then someone will make it their weekend hobby to take a definition like Alexandria (2. “A number of cities bearing the same name, including Alexandria, Virginia, USA”), and turn it into an array of map graphics. This does not serve lexicography.
All we should do is link to Wikipedia, and let it be dealt with over there (which already is, with a link to w:Alexandria (disambiguation) listing 49 places. Forty-nine!). —MichaelZ. 2009-08-05 06:42 z
I don't think size / population of a place / fame should be the key criteria for inclusion of a place. We include very rarely narrowly used words an specialized words. Paper dictionaries don't have many place names in but I think that is partly because they have to be printed and this limits total content. We need not observe the limitations of printed dictionaries.
Voting on: Amending Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion as follows: After the existing section "Given and family names", before the existing section "What Wiktionary is not with respect to names", and on a level with them, add a section entitled "Common place names", with the following text:
Place names (such as York and Thames) are words, considered attested if there are three different places of the same type (e.g., region, city, river) with the same name in the same language. Idiomaticity tests are as above (in the section "Idiomaticity"): New York, North Dakota, Stratford-on-Avon, Corello Street, and River Thames, for example, are not considered idiomatic, whereas York, Dakota, Stratford, Avon, Corello, and Thames are considered idiomatic. An example definition for such a word is "A common name for rivers.".
This does not preclude possible definitions corresponding to specific places (and entries for such definitions), which are discussed in the section, below, titled "Names of specific entities", and which may, per that section, be included even if they do not meet the criteria in the preceding paragraph.
Note that this addition does not preclude the subsequent modification of the section titled "Names of specific entities", which is under current discussion. Moreover, note that this addition is intended to add to, not reduce, the number of valid entries/senses.
Support. I have some major reservations about this proposal:
It uses the phrase "places with the same name", but like previous proposals, it doesn't explain what relationship the name must have to the place. What does it mean to say that a place has a name? Does C-town count? (Possibly a bad example, since you can argue it's not idiomatic, but you see what I'm getting at. It's not the official name of any place, but I'm pretty sure it's attestable in reference to at least three.)
It uses the phrase "there are places". Does this imply that we only accept names of real places that currently exist? If so, why?
It seems seriously misleading to describe a name as "common" on the basis of just three places using it.
The whole concept is kind of weird, and perversely unhelpful: we'll only include a place-name if there are enough examples of it that we can get away with not saying anything useful about any of them?
But I don't think it will result in adding entries we don't want, and it may be a first step toward adding entries we do want, so I'm all for implementing this change, and seeing where it takes us. —RuakhTALK03:24, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
oppose since this policy is way too biased in favor of the USA and attestation is practically impossible to be fulfilled for European countries. -- Prince Kassad00:03, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
OpposeǷidsiþ 09:34, 11 August 2009 (UTC) as being too strict. Of course New York should have an entry. All words should be here, including placenames, including names of tiny places. What is the detriment to the project of having them? Ƿidsiþ09:34, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
But this is a proposal to allow a new class of words, without banning any existing ones. (For example, New York would still be allowed, under the "attributive use" criterion.) I agree that we should allow many place-names that this proposal doesn't cover; but isn't this at least an improvement over the status quo? —RuakhTALK15:06, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Huh, I didn't realise we HAD any current guidelines about placenames, but I see that they come under the "Names of specific entities" spiel. In which case.... Ƿidsiþ15:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Abstain
I haven't participated in the discussion since I just found out about this, so I am just putting this comment down without a vote yet. But this seems like another variation on the impulse to apply some notability standard (rather than attestation) to anything involving proper nouns. It doesn't matter how many physical things or places are named something; instead, word attestation is based on how well used and documented a word is in the language.
Just as it is conceivable that a term that is used three times as a placename would not actually be understood as having entered the language, it is likely that there are many placenames that have entered the language on the basis of just one well-known place ("New York," mentioned above as not idiomatic(?) springs to mind). Attempting to determine wordiness based on the commonness of the thing the term refers to, instead of the commonness of the term itself in the language's literature, is the wrong way to do attestation. Dominic·t00:35, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
AbstainMglovesfun (talk) 22:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC), The French Wiktionary allows any place names as CFI doesn't (not yet?) forbid this. I don't think they really add anything, but they don't take anything away either. We have a lot of place names here anyway, I sort of think that is vote will "make it official" rather than leading editors in any direction. As for etymologies, I've never really understood why putting (deprecated template usage)London + (deprecated template usage)-er is so much better than putting London + (deprecated template usage)-er. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:06, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
Straw poll: Would you support an addition to WT:CFI along the lines of:
Place names
A place name should be included if it is attested with three durably archived citations spanning at least 150 years. Listings on maps, in gazetteers, or in geographic dictionaries may not count toward the required three citations, although such listings may be used to provide additional information.
I'm interested in providing some sort of place name criterion, and a longer span for supporting quotations seems a suitable way to do this objectively. I hesitate to extend the date span further, since there are major modern cities and nations that have been in existence for only a century or two. Nairobi was founded in 1899, for example. --EncycloPetey16:24, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Many editors here complain about the inclusion of "small" or "unimportant" places, but we have repeatedly rejected "importance" criteria as encyclopedic. So, I figure that 150 years of citations establishes the durability of the word, which is more a lexical criterion. The choice of number is a bit arbitrary, but covers well more than a single century. It is also designed to push the upper limit of what might be usable, in order to (hopefully) appease the crowd that normally opposes the inclusion of place names. Note that the criterion only states what is to be allowed; an entry failing this criterion is not necessarily therefore excluded. Other considerations may permit its inclusion even when this criterion does not permit it. I would, for example, argue (in some other thread) that capital cities of nations should always be included. However, that is beyond the scope of this proposal. The goal of this proposal is not to exclude new cities, but to find an acceptable criterion for objectively including at least some of the place names we continually wrangle over. We can always debate additional place name criteria at a later date. --EncycloPetey16:55, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
I’m for including all place names without additional preconditions, but if 150 years is the only way to appease placename-haters, I would vote for such a proposal. --Vahagn Petrosyan19:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
I am of the same opinion. Good place names entries have linguistically interesting and important information. Can we, at least include large place names, no matter how old they are and famous place names (often used in news, literature, etc.)? Those are more likely to be sought by users. The "statistical" information about the size and the presence of universities, job opportunities, etc. matters here as these places are more likely to be used in the written form, therefore users will only welcome them. Anatoli01:23, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
I agree. I think it would be absurd not to have London and Chicago, if only for the etymological value, and to note translations. bd2412T01:58, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Proving the existence of a word should be the only criterion. I already object to the "3 years" mentioned in CFI: paper dictionaries have good reasons for such criteria, but not a wiki. Words may really exist and really be used a few days after their creation. Why not really adopting, once and for all, the principle "all words, all languages" and focusing only on "what's a word?", "what's a language?", "when does a word begin to exist in a language?" Lmaltier17:54, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
I fail to see why the "three independent durably archived citations" rule cannot apply to cities as well. That rule just by itself filters out all small villages which will never be mentioned in any books. -- Prince Kassad19:05, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Support, but just as long as we keep in mind that this is a dictionary, which serves to explain words and their origins and usage, not the concepts themselvse. As long as we're just describing the name of any place and where it came from and what it describes (and not providing any information that really belongs in Wikipedia), then this is fine. And it really shouldn't matter whether the name is 150 years old or not, 'cuz of course, like Lmaltier said above, a word can gain usage really quickly. So if the name is widespread and has sufficient citations . . . sure, we can have 'em . . . :) L☺g☺maniacchat?19:32, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
I support this, as I definitely want to see more placenames here, but mirror the concerns of Logomaniac, and still think we need to better define how we define placenames. I think we're still confusing different referents with different definitions. Truth be told, I still don't have a strong mental grasp on it myself. This is still a problem with other types of proper nouns. If two guys are named John, the word "John" does not have different meanings for the two of them. Likewise, there are multiple Bloomingtons, and yet I think the word "Bloomington" does not have a different sense for the different cities, simply different referents. Again, this is all pretty hazy in my own mind, but I think we need to sit down and have a good discussion about what defining a proper noun really means. If we figure this out, I think it will help us avoid the encyclopedic info problem we've got. -Atelaesλάλει ἐμοί23:39, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
If you don't mind, Atelaes (and everyone else), I could do a little explaining right now, at least of my take on the situation. There's a difference between "word" and "concept" - a concept is any tangible (or intangible) thing, while a word is just a term used to refer to that concept. That's also some of the difference between a dictionary and an encyclopedia - a dictionary explains the origins etc. of words themselves and defines which concepts they refer to, while an encyclopedia defines the concepts and lists the different words used to refer to that concept. So in your example, two guys named John, the two different guys are two different concepts but they are both referred to with the same word. Ditto with "Bloomington" - the different cities are different concepts but they are both referred to with the same word. As long as we as a dictionary stick to describing the words it'll be good. So with St. Cloud, an entry I created semi-recently, even though the word generally refers to the city in central Minnesota (a concept), there are other cities referred to with that word so I had to let the definition somewhere like "any of several cities in the U.S.". I think one of the problems we get into sometimes is that we tend to drift toward explaining the concepts themselves and not just the words. That's where it gets tricky. But for placenames, as long as we just explain the words themselves (and point people to Wikipedia), it should be fine. Wow that got long . . . But anyway, you now know my opinion on the subject :) L☺g☺maniacchat?00:20, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
I think the important criterion, besides proven to exist, is that a place name in a non-Engish land should first be given in the original spelling in the language of that place. I don’t think it is useful to have an English transcription of an Oriya village when we don’t have the name in Oriya. In patroling the language-cleanup category, probably the most common entry I encounter is that of an obscure village somewhere in India, written only in English and no hint of the native spelling or even the language of the village. I delete them out of hand if I can’t get the native name first. —Stephen00:37, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
IMO we definitely should not list every use of a city name. (To take London as an example, there are tons of them with nothing in common beyond the name.) That's about as bad as listing under Smith all of the millions of individual people who happen to have that name. OTOH, saying that something is a place name, and giving its ety, might be okay (though to be honest I don't like the sound of it, because there are simply so many, including the tiniest of villages, and it seems like clutter). Equinox◑00:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Exactly. That is definitely not what we as a dictionary are supposed to do. Listing every use of a city name (or listing every person with the surname Smith) is purely and wholly encyclopedic, and will never belong in a dictionary. It just shouldn't happen here. So yes, we definitely should not do that. And we wouldn't have reasons to include the names of the tiniest of villages, because such would probably not have 3 independent durably archived citations and would therefore not meet CFI (o whatever EP is proposing to set up.), as Prince Kassad noted above. L☺g☺maniacchat?01:00, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
@Atelaes: I think that there is, for each person named John, a separate sense of the proper noun John. (However, all of them are covered by a single sense of the common noun John(“a person named John”), found in sentences like “There seem to be a lot of Johns in this town.”) We certainly don't want to include each such sense — instead, we give a non-gloss definition for a sort of meta-sense that covers them all — but the reasons for that don't necessarily apply to all place-names. If a name is only used for a tiny number of places, I don't see much need for that sort of artificially-vague meta-sense (except perhaps to avoid a "slippery slope"?). —RuakhTALK02:56, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
Yes, there are infinitely different senses of the one proper noun, but a dictionary would never think of adding a list of such senses - i.e. 1) my brother's best friend, 2) my brother's other friend, 3) my uncle, etc... But they are all covered by a broader sense, still of the proper noun, referring to the name itself and then a common noun referring to anyone under this name. But even if a term (like a placename) is only used to refer to a small number of specific concepts (like towns/cities), we still shouldn't be listing those places as that is encyclopedic. We are just supposed to say that, hey, it is a placename (no matter how many cities it refers to) and point the user to Wikipedia if they want to find the specific places. Remember, this is a dictionary! (I like to say that) and a dictionary just gives the meaning of the word, not the different specific concepts that word refers to. It is almost as absurd as listing all the different types of televisions under the entry television. It just doesn't happen in a dictionary. L☺g☺maniacchat?19:12, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
The meaning of John in John Smith and John Kennedy is the same, the meaning of Kennedy in John Kennedy and Edward Kennedy is the same. But the meaning of Paris (in France) and Paris (in Texas) is not the same, and this fact has linguistic consequences (e.g. possibly, pronunciation, etymology, or gentilic words). All senses should be listed, whether the word is a toponym or not. Lmaltier20:27, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
You mean we're supposed to add a sense for every single city named "Rochester"?! Or "Paris"?! There are like, 10 different Rochesters in the U.S. and probably a lot elsewhere. Even if there's only 3 or 4 occurrences of a name, I would still prefer if we left it to "A placename common in the <insert region here>". Of course if everyone else decides other wise, well, I guess I could just stay out of it. L☺g☺maniacchat?21:02, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Yes, I mean exactly that. If you don't think it's necessary, have a look at fr:Beaulieu. You'll see that this page doesn't mention any encyclopedic info such as population, but it mentions linguistic information specific to each sense. Lmaltier21:09, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
But the Paris in Texas (and presumably almost every other Paris) is named for the one in France; so we have only two senses - the first for the original in France, and a second for "any of a number of other cities and towns named after the city in France". bd2412T21:23, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
There may be only two different etymologies, but not only two senses. Are inhabitants of Paris (Texas) called Parisians? Maybe, but I'm not sure at all... This information should be mentioned, it's linguistic information. Lmaltier21:37, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
Don't oppose. I would really prefer that we stuck to the policy that proper names in mainspace have to be used to indicate something other than the literal referent. On the other hand, we should have a policy that people will actually follow consistently. This seems like such a policy. Also, an advantage to the 150-year (or similar) criterion is that it rules out ephemeral region names (metropolitan statistical areas, forest districts, etc.) These are completely encyclopedic, and would be a serious concern if had only the 1-year criterion. (If a particular sewage district has been around for 150 years, I suppose it's earned some kind of distinction.) There are going to be some new and messy corner cases, but I guess we'll deal with them when they arise.
It would be ideal if these were consistently tagged in some way, so that any future reuser who might want to use Wiktionary as a dictionary could filter this junkbright shiny loveliness -- oh, I'll just stick with "junk" -- out. -- Visviva04:31, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
mymyself imstilnot sur'bout the engl name4ppl fromthe south ofbelgium--itsNEVA i/thoseOFENSIVLY B-A-D PRINT DICT uguyz solikeUSERS'NEEDS!!!!!
A problem with 150 years is demonstrated by that the name of Brasília wouldn't qualify for inclusion under this guideline.
Should prescriptive government documents be added to the list of maps & references? On the other hand, we already accept many technical terms with prescribed definitions, and typically put a restrictive label on them like chemistry, medicine, etc. (Or don't label them: look at the for-physicists-only definition of metre!). —MichaelZ. 2009-09-08 16:19 z
I can't think of a good way to objectively define a "prescriptive government document". Do treaties and constitutions count as such? Why or why not? --EncycloPetey05:09, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm just thinking of official lists of place names and their spellings, electoral districts, etc., whose names may not be in general use, or may change or be renamed periodically as governments re-stack the voters' lists. We should go by attested use instead. —MichaelZ. 2009-09-09 05:28 z
The proposal doesn't say what it means by "citations". Any use at all? I suspect half the tiny hamlets in Great Britain will meet that criterion (and many elsewhere, such as Colonie (w:)), not that that's necessarily a bad thing.—msh210℠17:29, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
One linguistic criterion in a multilingual dictionary such as ours might be that the place name has attestably a different name in at least two languages, or alternatively in at least one language that is not widely used by nationals of that place. This would automatically exclude "hamlets" as they are most likely known in only one language (and pretty unknown in that one, too!), but include important places like London (see Lontoo, Londres, Lundúnir). A foreign spelling is typically something that one would want to look up in a dictionary. This might be combined with other criteria such as "national capital cities always included". --Hekaheka21:13, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
We don't have such criteria for any other kinds of words. This would just favour place names in colonies and along popular invasion routes. —MichaelZ. 2009-09-10 02:00 z
How do we handle the fact that the identity (which is close to being the definition) of the referent changes. In the first instance, let's ignore formal names of the sovereign states and just focus on an area place name, say, Germany. Writings in different periods would necessarily be referring to the Germany as then or previously constituted. A translation of a Latin work that translated "Germania" as "Germany" is referring to something different from later definitions of Germany. Many of the referents do correspond to specific borders, but many don't. Are all the Germanies in the set of entities called Germany 1866-1870, 1871-1914, 1918-1938, 1945-reunification, and post unification the same? Note that even this omits the fluidity of the concept during wars and in the years before Bismarck. The referent, that is, seems to be very fluid, which fluidity is usually reflected in the history of the place or the ethnic or national identity involved. Our existing entry for Germany has three definitions and omits many periods. Inevitably, someone will attempt to insert a complete set of definitions of Germany and attempt to cite each one. Because we emphasize attestation from the written record and historians write copiously I don't doubt that many senses will turn out to be citable. DCDuringTALK00:44, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
We're talking about criteria for the inclusion of words here, not of the places they represent, and not even of their definitions or senses, so don't steer this conversation too far into the realm of defining.
But to address your concerns, the word Germany refers to the land of the Germans, and not to a particular set of surveyor's measurements or constitutional documents. —MichaelZ. 2009-09-10 02:00 z
Maybe not. Germans in this sense are members of an ethnic group, with a shared language. They originally came from elsewhere, but the region they settled in is named after them. Germans in the civic sense, in turn, are people with certain legal rights in Germany.
But I admit, some dictionaries define these differently. The OED arguably cops out by not defining Germany, even though it says of German (adj) “The precise signification depends on the varying extension given to the name Germany”. —MichaelZ. 2009-09-10 02:28 z
Well, it seems circular, but they are basically the same because they have the same name. (Contrast a country that changes its name without changing any geographical borders.) Otherwise couldn't we argue for (deprecated template usage)prime minister having a different, separate referent each time a new one was elected, or (deprecated template usage)cat when a new cross-breed was created? Equinox◑01:10, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Then, which two of the three current definitions of Germany do we strike or how do we rewrite the definition? Do we forbid other definitions?
I would really like to see examples of some model entries for
a current place that corresponds to a sovereign jurisdiction, say, Germany
a current place that corresponds to a non-sovereign jurisdiction, say, Nice
other named geographic features (if they are to be included)
An ocean
A marsh
A valley
A glacier
A plains
Are there any features of these entries as they are that would be excluded? How many senses are to be permitted? How attested? What about maps? Pictures? External links (Official websites, Tourist Bureau, Chamber of Commerce)? Hypernyms; hyponyms; coordinate terms? DCDuringTALK01:38, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
This proposal is about inclusion of terms, and not about styles of defining (although we could certainly use some of the latter). —MichaelZ. 2009-09-10 02:00 z
Oppose. If I cannot know the consequences, then it is a pig in a poke. To the extent that I can foresee the consequences, it appears likely to lead to further dilution of effort to improve quality of existing entries of other types. DCDuringTALK14:47, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Must-reads, for those who want to bring in proper names:
Salikoko S. Mufwene (1988) “Dictionaries and Proper Names”
Laurence Urdang (1996) “The Uncommon Use of Proper Names”
Both argue that there is no logical reason to omit proper names, but the former also says “since proper names function prototypically as referential indices, denotative descriptions beyond, e.g., 'personal name' or 'name of a city in GL' (where GL stands for geographic location) should be omitted.” —MichaelZ. 2009-09-24 05:06 z
Another place name has been deleted - Chiayi - a city in Taiwan, an administrative centre. It was rfv'ed, not rfd'ed. What has been achieved? How does it improve the Wiktionary? Does anybody care? I do and I am very upset. Anatoli02:53, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
I am confused. This entry was RFV'd and no one was able to provide citations for it which means the city must not exist, right? --Yair rand03:05, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
I am confused about the request for citation - why an what. Chiayi (Jiayi) 嘉義/嘉义 does exist, of course, not just in the reality but in the dictionaries, Wikipedia, etc. The RFV serves as a signal to delete for some, which is a big worry. --Anatoli03:16, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure what drives place name haters here. Will the citations be satisfactory? Will the sources be considered "reliable"? Are these the real reason for the deletion? As if a city will stop exist, if there are no satisfactory English citations. In my opinion, it's a misuse of authorities given. The place names from the English speaking world are also welcome, not from other places. I feel sorry for my time spent on the entry - finding translations and transliterations in other languages. The English only entry itself has little value and would not take a long time to recreate. --Anatoli03:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
Wow, straw man much? We've had this argument enough times, I'd think you'd at least have a vague notion of what people have been telling you. Are you intentionally misrepresenting them, or were you just ignoring their explanations to begin with? —RuakhTALK03:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
Not quite. According to our criteria for inclusion (CFI), the question isn't whether the city exists, but whether the English name Chiayi is used attributively, with a widely understood meaning. (One can argue that the CFI allow it to be listed just as a name, like we do with given names and surnames; but first of all, I'm not clear on exactly how that would work, and secondly, that wouldn't satisfy Anatoli.) Personally, I don't RFV real place-names, given that the "attributive use" criterion doesn't really seem to have consensus, but if someone lists them at RFV, and no one provides citations, I'm not sure what Anatoli wants me to do. We've had many discussions and votes towards addressing the issue, and none of them has accomplished anything. —RuakhTALK03:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
Where was the vote to change CFI? I am not ignoring what I am being told, I disagree with what they say - I can only remember maximum about 5 users who would agree with you. People with this opinion (CFI based on attributive usage) are not in majority here but are the administrators with the right to delete. Yes, there were a lot of discussions and I could tell that the majority was for the increase of CFI, not for the decrease. The rule to base CFI on attributive usage is not followed, will only allow place names known to English speakers. If you want to be nice and don't know what to do when someone RFV's, place "missing citations" or other flags, add to discussion but why delete? Deletion is not productive, it's destructive, in any case. Do you personally doubt that the place exists and will have entries in dictionaries and pretending to be innocent? Anatoli03:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
The simple logic is that it is not necessary that any place names be in a dictionary. It had been decided before I arrived here that they were to be excluded, except for those names that meant something beyond their literal meaning. "Golden Gate Bridge" is meaningful because its use as a jumping point for suicides appears in publications in ways beyond simple reporting of the fact of a suicide. This kind of usage is not very common, but some famous places have that kind of associated meaning. There have been various proposals to allow some kinds of places. The proposals always end up with some kind of non-lexicographic criteria that amount to to notability.
But, frankly, there seems to be no one willing to assume responsibility for making an intelligent proposal, let alone implementing it. Until there are at least two or three people who seem willing to put in the work required and start to do so, I doubt that a vote to change policy will succeed. Right now, if people are even unwilling to take the trouble to find out what geography entries might be included under current and proposed standards and do the work to cite a few entries, I think there is no basis for expecting anyone to do the sustained work required. At this point many of the geographic entries that have been made do not even meet our formatting standards. If they do not, they show up on cleanup lists. When they do, I often tag them if they do not seem likely to meet our current standards.
There seem to be quite a few people here who are already favorably disposed to place-name entries. It probably would only take a core group to make a good effort to understand the issues and make a proposal to get things changed. Perhaps someone could take a stab at something at Wiktionary:Editable CFI. DCDuringTALK04:06, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
Well suppose it doesn't? Suppose someone, as a joke, makes up a realistic sounding place name - let's say, Fjeurnsalooften, and claims it is a town in Norway. How can we protect the integrity of the dictionary from false entries without requesting proof? bd2412T04:09, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
So you don't think that atlases, Google, and Google Earth constitute "proof", but do think that we should base our CFI on them? Sorry, but I don't think that makes sense. (And anyway, decent atlases don't include such place-names as Valhalla, which surely merits an entry more than Chiayi does.) —RuakhTALK15:50, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
WTH? I never said I didn't think atlases etc. constituted proof. o.O Where are you getting that from?? As for Valhalla, while it is a "place name", whether it merits inclusion or should, IMO, be judged along with the likes of entries for Greek, Norse, etc. gods. 50 Xylophone Playerstalk23:41, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
The place names situation is very similar to the given names and surnames, which also don't have an official policy. What we need here is for someone to start up a proposed policy page on place names, given names, and surnames, for everyone to work on, so we can have a vote and finally settle matters. --Yair rand04:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
We also had this vote, Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-05/Names of specific entities, which I still believe to be the most sensible answer. Maybe it didn't pass as an overall solution to the proper names issue, yet it could pass in a narrower scope. I've never heard and would hardly believe analogy such as "the Chiayi of..." so I'm fairly confident the term in question wouldn't pass in English. In Chinese it's probably a different story though. And if not for Chiayi, maybe for the Chinese spelling of Taoyuan. And if not for Taoyuan, then for a bigger city like Taichung. And if not for Taichung, then most certainly for Kaoshung, depending on how inclusive or exclusive the criteria. Apart from where the line is drawn for any single language, the question becomes, would we allow translations of place names that can be cited only in a different language? If we use citation to back entries, inevitably there will be some that are highly recognized abroad and all but unknown to English speakers.
I personally think that a vote on expansion of exclusions to include "Wiktionary is not a gazetteer" (in the sense of a geographic dictionary) could culminate in a decision to or not to include placenames that are only placenames and do not have additional meanings. That might be too simplistic an idea, though. --Ceyockey05:08, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
I think a suitable enough criterion is whether a translations section is possible, i.e. whether knowledge of the place name is well-known enough for translations to have developed. --Yair rand05:43, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
"Wiktionary is not a gazetteer" would not be an absolute blockade on inclusion of standalone placenames, just as "Wiktionary is not an encyclopedia" does not dictate definition content. Rather, it would set a high bar for inclusion, albeit a bar which would be open to interpretation (for better or for worse). --Ceyockey11:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
The most important sentence in our CFI is the first one "As an international dictionary, Wiktionary is intended to include “all words in all languages”". Perhaps some people would like to change that to "most words in most languages" - but I would prefer it to stay as it is. SemperBlotto11:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Is not the entire purpose of the CFI to qualify the aspiration of "all words in all languages"? --Ceyockey 23:25, 8 December 2009 (UTC}
Indeed. Not a single constituent of our slogan is without qualification, including "in". Much of it is necessary so we have the time to upgrade the quality of our content so it approaches that of our competitors. In the long run, we may have enough contributors to be able to successfully include more. DCDuringTALK23:49, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Well, what is a word? Is a place name a word if it's proven to be in use? Is it a word if it's part of one language, meaning that other languages have their own versions? Is it a word if it has been mentioned in published works, or if has been displayed in a map or an atlas? Are all place names assumed to be words, or just those that are integrated into a language as much as any regular word? --Yair rand00:01, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
To try and get some structure going here, let's assume we want "all words in all languages" and we have workable definitions for "all", "in", "language", just wishing to clarify "word" as it relates to placenames. After a few days/replies/when this whole structure disintegrates, hopefully we'll be able to see why we have disagreement; then we could try to solve it. Does anyone have short(ish) answers to the following questions, you don't have to answer them all, but try to avoid replying to answers (at least initially) any comments can probably go positively under the opposite section. Conrad.Irwin00:37, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Generally, word is phonetically or orthographically separable sequence of sounds (in most languages, in some due to extreme sandhi or agglutination only grammatically separable). Whether something is a placename or not has to do only with semantics. All placenames in all languages are words on their own. The whole "problem" of placenames as "non-words" was raised only to somehow degrade their status, as if they have nothing to do in a dictionary, which is in fact wrong as all modern dictionaries of all languages include at least some placenames. --Ivan Štambuk01:31, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
re "because it's a placename": this is an empty reason, isn't it? It does not state any property of placenames from which their wordness or non-wordness could be inferred. --Dan Polansky09:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
A placename, like a personal name, may be arbitrary and of no practical use to a dictionary. It seems obvious that if I decide to name my house Beedeevaynia, that would not merit an entry here (even though it is clearly a word that I have coined. On the other hand, it seems equally obvious (to me, at least, and to most of us, I think) that we ought to have entries for Chicago, Connecticut, Andorra, Gulf of Mexico, Mount Everest, and Ganymede, for example. The trick is explaining why we want the latter and pinning down the dividing line, a function I find to be fairly well served by the existing CFI. bd2412T04:16, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
A placename, like a personal name, may be arbitrary - Excuse me, but what exactly is this suppose to mean? How are toponyms "arbitrary" ?
...and of no practical use to a dictionary. How can you say something like that after everything what was written in this discussion. Entries or toponyms are exactly like the "normal" entries minus the definition lines. They have their own pronunciations (often extremely unpredictable), etymologies, translations, obsolete spellings, archaic varieties, slang synonyms, their own derived forms (demonyms, relative adjectives, even verbs in some cases). They are also extremely important source of etymological information (because they're usually attested before most of the languages were ever written. There are even some languages entirely reconstructed from toponyms). --Ivan Štambuk13:16, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
If a placename is not a word, should Wiktionary include it anyway?
An entry without at least translations may be of little value but translations can't be added if the entry doesn't exist. A purpose of any dictionary for a place names is to look up its name in another language in a convenient way. The (previously) deleted Chiayi entry contained this useful information. An example, how do you find out how to pronounce 嘉義 in Russian or Korean? What do the characters 嘉 and 義 mean?--Anatoli02:39, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Contributors can also contribute to the wikipedia w:Chiayi page. We aren't the only place people can add info to. And those pages probably have easier formatting details (though you'd have to write a few more words to make stub entries for those not already created). --Bequw → ¢ • τ15:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
You cannot add translations to foreign languages to that page. In fact, you cannot add foreign-language entry info at all to Wikipedia because it's monolingual project and not multilingual like Wiktionary. We also have languages many of which don't even have an associated Wikipedia project. The type of content we're primarily interested in as a dictionary is of little or no value to encyclopedia and vice versa. The most logical conclusion is that they should complement each other. --Ivan Štambuk15:35, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Translations are done via the iwikis (works only for languages that have a wikipedia project). This does raise the bar for editing since to add a new a translation someone has to create at a least a stub article in the foreign language wikipedia before adding the iwiki. Admittedly, no perfect. --Bequw → ¢ • τ19:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Interwikis function very poorly as translations:
For once, they're not translations at all. They're articles on FL wikipedias on the same topic or related topic. An article on English Wikipedia on some English village might interiwiki to an article on FL wikipedia on the entire county. An article on a certain mountain peak on English Wikipedia might intrwiki to an article on FL wikipedia on the mountain itself.
Often interwikied articles are not in lemma forms. We deal with this all the time because users copy/paste interwikis from Wikipedia translations that happen to be in plural, in definite form, or similarly grammatically marked "title" form.
Interwikis are bound to only one script, which is a major drawback in languages written in several scripts (like Mandarin - the most spoken language in the word). They also don't provide other additional information that our translations do: transliteration, gender and alternative display (with marked accents - often of utmost importance for proper pronunciation).
In general Wikipedia interwiki serves as a very bad source for the translations of toponyms. We could include all that I listed above plus more: historical and regional forms that will never have their own Wikipedia articles. Interwikies are opaque and decoding them requires intuition and lots of unnecessary assumption. Reading checked Wiktionary translations OTOH provides information user can firmly rely on. --Ivan Štambuk20:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
gets pronounced, written, typed, sometimes contains no spaces, is a proper noun and proper nouns are words; in other words, looks like a word or a multi-word term, is non-SOP (the location of "New York" cannot be determined from the location of "York" and the meaning of the common noun "new"). --Dan Polansky09:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Agree, but not all proper nouns are words (e.g. Winston Churchill is not a word, but two words). But most placenames are words, including New York. Lmaltier22:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but where do you get these rules from? You've provided no evidence that the "wordness" of one is different than the other. I think it's far more "fuzzy" than you assert what a word is. --Bequw → ¢ • τ23:52, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
If a placename is a word, why should Wiktionary not include it?
dog is in Wikipedia, too. But information included is not the same. Here, it should be linguistic info, just like all paper language dictionaries dedicated to placenames (they mainly deal with etymologies). Lmaltier22:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
My question was hardly "vacuous". You gave a serious answer - that apparently inclusion of toponyms somehow "degrades" long-term goals of Wiktionary, as if we're effectively competing with commercial dictionaries. That is hardly the case. Wiktionary and all of the other Wikimedia projects are based on free, volunteering effort, and even tho certain goals may be more "desirable" from someone's perspective than some others based on the utility for the end-users (e.g. coverage of "big" and "important" languages as opposed to smaller and "less significant" ones), forcing contributors not to contribute valuable content is principally against Wiki principles of collaboration and self-managed creation of content. --Ivan Štambuk14:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
It is gratifying to see you lay out this set of principles. My and your attempts to persuade are part of the "managed" part of self-managed creation of content. Collaboration among ourselves to compete with others is something I hardly can object to. I can think of at least a small number of "smallish" languages whose contributors I have tried to encourage. To prevent further OT divergence from I have opened a heading for #Competition. DCDuringTALK15:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
In the sense that we aim to provide useful information to users and there are other sites that offer similar content, yes we are competing. If we don't try and address the needs of the user, and DCDuring thinks there are more important way we can do this than working on toponyms, then all of this is intellectual masturbation. --Bequw → ¢ • τ14:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
This a volunteering project, no one is getting paid to do anything, and contributors are free to contribute in any domains then like to. It's preposterous to think of us "competing" with somebody. In this tempo Wiktionary won't reach the quality and coverage level of comprehensive English dictionaries in at least 5 years. I'm sure that DCDuring would like it to be sooner, but this kind of exclusivity fascism will not "force" anyone to contribute in the direction they don't feel like contributing, and DCDuring and his English-focused friends would. Toponyms are hardly an "intellectual masturbation" - their study is a well-established discipline in lexicography and historical linguistics. There is absolutely no reason why Wiktionary couldn't function as a dictionary of toponyms. --Ivan Štambuk14:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Let me get this straight: You're basically saying:
If we allow toponyms as entries we'd enter "a new arena of competition" that would somehow degrade the quality of "normal" (non-toponymic) entries?
It is desirable to explicitly forbid creation of certain type of content if that measure would "force" contributors to focus on domains that are from someone's perspective more "important" as long-term goals ? --Ivan Štambuk15:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Instead of achieving pre-eminence in one field, which is very possible, we will remain the fifth best free online English dictionary. DCDuringTALK15:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
And I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. We'll get to the quality of commercial dictionaries sooner or later (much sooner than Wikipedia will reach the quality of commercial encyclopedias). This is a free dictionary and explicitly forbidding certain type of content is against the tenets of free knowledge that the Wikimedia Foundations cherishes. It's all about choice. --Ivan Štambuk16:02, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
their definitions are quite difficult to nail down with much accuracy without resorting to inclusion of encyclopedic content --Ceyockey01:15, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
How do you say "of or pertaining to Moscow" in Russian? Or "woman citizen of Moscow" ? How do you pronounce it? What is the etymology of that word? How does it inflect? What is the translation of that word in languages that don't have Wikipedia articles on Moscow (or worse, don't even have Wikipedias at all)? Countless lexicographically relevant information can and should be be included. The problem is not whether allow toponyms or not, but to set the lowest bar of criteria for their inclusion. --Ivan Štambuk01:03, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Wiktionary cannot do justice the special needs of placenames: special data structures, special data, maps, photos, without doing great violence to its existing content and seriously challenging its technical resources. DCDuringTALK02:23, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Not a good excuse, DCDuring, Wikipedia can do these things much better. Place names dictionaries don't have to do this. The linguistic information is all that's required - meaning (minimal info), spelling, grammar (gender, declensions, etc), pronunciation, etymology, translations, alternative names/spellings if I haven't missed anything. Anatoli02:29, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
What special data structures? Photos would be nice (at most 1), maps are of no use (though linking to google maps or similar external resources in ====External links==== should be allowed). Absolutely everything else would simply follow the normal layout of WT:ELE. --Ivan Štambuk02:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Coordinates, borders, overlapping borders, changing borders. Without some geographic information this is of minimal value, especially to users in the host language. With geographic information, it will start and remain far behind WP, Google Earth, etc. DCDuringTALK12:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Coordinates can be trivially linked to in ====External links==== (they're static). Borders and order geographic information that you mention are completely irrelevant for our cause: this is a dictionary and we only focus on lexicographically relevant content. Users who want to find out how do you pronounce, inflect, translate X, what is the demonym or relative adjective of X, or the etymology of it, would look it up in a dictionary. If they're interested in X's climate, population and industry - they'd look it up in encyclopedia. You're really exaggerating when you claim that this is "of minimal value" - this type of information we could provide Wikipedia normally does not provide at all, and neither to Google Earth and others. We are not interested in providing the type of content they provide at all. --Ivan Štambuk15:16, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, and in my opinion, Google Maps could be used to confirm the existence of the toponym. I don't see any difference in checking out the existence of place names from other words. Like with any word human errors are possible but a simple check is easy for people worrying about the integrity of entries. Real and significant names are easy to check, especially in English. Anatoli02:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Services such as Google Maps aren't "published" in the traditional sense. They can and do change the info in their mapping database. How then could we properly cite & reference this changing medium? --Bequw → ¢ • τ14:51, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Coordinates are static aren't they? We could possibly embed them in some kind of template that will generate link to several online Maps services (Google Maps, Bing Maps etc.) This is really something completely optional. --Ivan Štambuk15:22, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Clarifying placename issues —AEL
(a) they are traditionally excluded from dictionaries; only few place names are included by them if any;
(b) there are overwhelmingly many place names; (bi) they overflood the random-page function, and (bii) they overflood the next-page and previous-page functions, analogous to browsing a printed dictionary page by page;
(c) place names are not really a part of the vocabulary of a language; their knowledge is not needed for understanding of texts. I am not sure how valid these reasons are, though. --Dan Polansky09:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Though there are many advocates-in-principle of WikiGazetteer entries there seem to be no advocates-in-action. IOW, lots of talk, no work. If no one can be found to even put forth a proposal that anticipates and answers practical objections, why should we expect this project to be anything other than a waste of time on a scale vastly larger than these tedious discussions? DCDuringTALK12:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I'm shocked by this comment DCDuring. This whole discussion started after one of our editors did actual work, and complained after the entry was mercilessly deleted by one of the admins strictly abiding by the defective policy that basically prohibits 99.999% of world's toponyms. It's important to settle down disputed points (which apparently range from "placenames are not words" to "placenames are worthless from lexicographical viewpoint) first before making any kind of formal proposal. The purpose of policy pages is not to settle objections but to codify established consensus. --Ivan Štambuk15:30, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
We have a never-ending stream of vandals who do that kind of "work": adding entries or other material that doesn't meet CFI. The true work that has to be done is to make a proposal that defines the change to be made and anticipates and addresses the issues that will be faced once CFI is relaxed to include the entries that ought to be in a Wikigazetteer project. What you define as "work" seems to be whatever someone wants to enter as long as it is properly formatted, without regard to any policy, guidelines or practices concerning inclusion. The intent of the existing rules is to exclude most toponyms. It is not accidental.
The resort to pejorative labels makes this discussion more like some kind of public demonstration rather than something practical. DCDuringTALK16:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
I've said more than once that I'd personally lock this project to registered users only. 99% of IP-generated content is either vandalism or so badly-formatted that it needs someone's attention to the point that the entry was better created from scratch. And the vandalism argument is not particularly strong IMHO: very rarely are the IP-generated entries toponyms. It is highly unlikely that there is a stream of some vandals out there that is eager to create thousands of low-quality toponym entries that would cause havoc on RfV. It's is much more likely that it would stay confined to a group of dedicated regulars who are primarily interested in that type of content. Like we have Makaokalani and Alasdair for personal names.
Anyway, as I said, the only thing that I see that needs to be done, judging from this discussion, is raising the bar a bit higher, so that we evade mass creation of stubbish entries. --Ivan Štambuk17:08, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
As we have no intention at present of locking the project to non-registered users, I suppose that the WikiGazetteer proposal could wait until that time.
It is specious to use the behavior of users now to suggest their behavior in the future in such a way. If users find that we have place names, they will be more likely to look up their own favorite places and, finding them missing, add them. These are just the kind of entries and users that we need, I suppose, to successfully achieve high coverage of place names.
I eagerly await the arrival of the users interested in that kind of content. Do we have three from existing active contributors? Are they willing to do the real work of making a credible proposal that anticipates and addresses problems and objections. Or is there just going to be more whining, blathering, and fencing. Fencing can be a fun diversion, but it doesn't accomplish much. Why doesn't someone who wants this start a project page and get this show on the road? DCDuringTALK18:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
It is specious to use the behavior of users now to suggest their behavior in the future in such a way - no, it's prefectly reasonable and common-sense. My prediction is based on the observation of empirical data, yours on some irrational apocalyptic scenario that has no foundation in the actual history of IP edits.
As I said below, we could explicitly request that all toponym entries be created with citations or some kind of additional value. That would significantly throttle "creation only for the purpose of creation". No we're not interested in coverage of world's toponyms at all - we're interested in the coverage of lexicographically relevant data. Entry such as ==English== ===Noun==={{en-proper-noun}} # City in Southern Arizona is basically worthless. But, if it includes some kind of information that a dictionary is interested in - that's entirely different thing. Once again, we are not interested in defining toponyms (as you cannot "define" onomastics): we're interested in including absolutely everything else.
We already have at least 1 user that happens to be quite interested in placenames: Anatoli who initiated this discussion in the first place. How many are there is irrelevant to this discussion. Feedback is still being actively gathered and discussed. There is absolutely no hurry as we have 117 billion years ahead of us (that's how long universe is going to last). --Ivan Štambuk20:01, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
It seems (and I hope I'm not over simplifying too much) that those for toponyms are arguing that the only real criteria that should be used for inclusion is whether or not it (a toponym in this case) is a word. Taking that argument ad absurdum, would they be for the inclusion of any person's name (eg Ben Affleck) as well? People's anmes seem to share all the same dictionary needs as toponyms: they have translations (some are transliterated, some go to the nearest cognate, and some are reproduced exactly in the original script), etymologies ("we named him after ..."), inflections (in some languages), they are proper nouns, and there are mononymous and polynymous members. I'm definitely against including non-attributive senses of people's names, so I'm suspicious of the "for toponym" arguments. If some people are for toponyms but against individual names, how then should the criteria for inclusion be expanded beyond the the simple "is it an (unidiomatic & attested) word/term" test? --Bequw → ¢ • τ14:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Translations, pronunciations and inflections of personal names are almost always equal to translations, pronunciations and inflections of individual component parts combined, which we do allow as entries. I wouldn't really consider a factoid after whom sb was named that name's "etymology" - it's a result of non-linguistic, external sources that are not the topic of a dictionary. Except if that is somehow connected with the word's meaning (which usually is not in case of personal names, except in nicknames). Our inclusion criteria for toponoyms (and all of onomastics in general) should be expanded to allow all toponyms in all languages, every village, hill, river, lake, mountain peak on Earth and elsewhere: every Martian canyon and Moon valley, asteroid or galaxy. We only need to agree what is the lower limit of quality for their creation, in order to only have quality content and not thousands of bot-generated stubs that are worthless (like Wikipedia does). Something like "at least one translation, link to Wikipedia, and coordinates linked to in Google Maps". --Ivan Štambuk15:10, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
While this has its ground, Ivan, please take into account the demand for 3 durably archived quotations, which the entry should provide, if demanded. If I create entries for hills and rocks in the vicinity of the village of my grandparents, e. g. Голо бърдо (not that from the western part of the Macedonia region) or Черната скала, they most certainly would fail such a procedure, even under Bulgarian headers (not to speak about English). In my opinion, it would be accepatable to allow such entries, if they are attestable by three quotations (though I am not favourable of them being prædicative), thus making no præcedent in current policies. Why not set a limit of, say, 10 000 inhabitants? Or even 10 inhabitants, if you will, some threshold is indispensable. There is no use in accepting defunct small settlements (I am not talking about Pompeii, but about El'ginski for example). I personally like your point of view, I myself am an ardent supporter of Aut Caesar, aut nihl, but let this comply with the extant policies. The uſerhight Bogormconverſation16:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Mandatory requirement of 3 citations when creating an entry could also serve as a reasonable alternative to prevent automatic creation of stubbish entries with little or no lexicographical value. Population as a parameter is a very bad choice, because there are some villages that are depopulated or barely populated today but have centuries or even millennia old history. In what external way (e.g. population, economy, historical significance etc.) is a certain toponym "important" shouldn't be a argument: that's the prominence type of inclusion criteria used for an encyclopedia. We don't care of the properties of real-word objects that the toponyms refer to, simply because we're not interesting in defining them at all (it is arguable whether onomastics terms can be defined at all, in the sense of normal gloss-definitions that we usually provide). In that respect, all toponyms are equally important. The more "important" and "less important" toponyms could have equally thorough entries and equally minimal definitions. The "important" toponyms are likely to get more attention and eventually rise in quality, and we should simply allow that process to occur spontaneously. --Ivan Štambuk16:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
But Ivan, you're reasoning just separates multi-word proper nouns from single-word proper nouns. You're comment amounts to saying that usually peoples name are polynymous, and the constituent words are usually already in the dictionary. But, by applying that rule to places as well, you'd include "Moscow" one word, but not "New York". I don't think that's the inclusion criterion you're looking for. Why should toponyms as a class of words be treated differently that people's names?--Bequw → ¢ • τ19:22, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
No, it's impossible to e.g. translate "New York" to FL by translating "New" + "York". In most languages it's actually some kind of counter-intuitive phonetically adapted form that regularly needs to be learned. Or perhaps it is some kind of a calque, or possible even some completely indigenous term (although that it very unlikely in case of New York. Perhaps in some Indian language or sth). In case of "John Doe" translation would literary amount to "John" + "Doe".
Also, I don't really see the point of drawing comparisons with polynymous personal names. We are not discussing their inclusion at all (and nobody wants them included anyway). Place names are special and distinct category and we should focus only on them. --Ivan Štambuk20:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
OK, so say I'm reading a historical fiction book and come across a placename, say Ouagadougou. I get interested in the name and want to find information on a) how to say it, b) where it derived from, c) what it is, anyway, and d) how to say it in Spanish, the language that I'm learning at the moment. I don't want the Wikipedia article about the city itself, I want a dictionary entry which includes etymology, pronunciation, definition, translations, perhaps a map and a link to Wikipedia for information on the city itself. I look it up in Webster's Third, which gives pronunciation but really no other helpful information. Then I turn to Wiktionary, and find Ouagadougou with pronunciation, a definition and translations. Not perfect, but it does contain the information I was looking for and not much extra.
OK so that didn't really happen, but it could, and that would be why we would include such information. Right? Or did I misunderstand this whole discussion? L☺g☺maniac☃16:34, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Comment. For translations to be useful, it's not enough to include place-names; we have to include actual places, indexed by name, like a Wikipedia disambiguation page. For example, consider the place-name Paris. I imagine that most modern languages have a name for the capital of France; but do they all use that name when referring to Paris, Texas? Now, there's no intrinsic reason that we can't include places — that's what Anatoli has been pushing for — but before we make that leap, I think we should pause to consider whether we really want to do that. That's a lot further than we go with given names and surnames. (At least, it's further than we're supposed to go, according to the CFI. In practice, we do currently include a lot of specific people, just as we do currently include a lot of specific places.) —RuakhTALK17:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Sure. (And don't forget Paris, Missouri! And probably a boatload of others) Maybe then the definition would read "A placename used most commonly to refer to the capital city of France but also to several places in the US and elsewhere" and, if the languages have different words for different places, use maybe two trans-tables: one for Paris, France and one for others with explanations in the table as to which city each term refers to? L☺g☺maniac☃18:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Different toponyms that happen to have the same form in English must be separated. In FL they might have different forms: e.g. French Paris being borrowed from French and American from English. Some languages might have some "native" term, others might not and use some international that happens to coincide with some other placename. There are countless possibilities. To me the best would seem not to separate them in the definition lines, but in different subsections altogether. --Ivan Štambuk19:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Who said anything about "different toponyms that happen to have the same form in English"? Plenty of American cities are named after European cities — same toponym, no "happen"-ing at all. —RuakhTALK20:25, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Yes, toponyms may have several senses, derived from each other, just like other words. And linguistic info about these senses (pronunciation, demonyms, etc.) may be the same or different. Lmaltier22:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
That's a good point, Ruakh, that including placenames as names are including placenames as referring to specific places are two wholly different things. That was the idea behind the vote I proposed in August: I thought that names as names, at least, could be agreed on. (I was wrong, apparently, as the vote stalled due to opposition.) But the difference between names as bare names and names as referring to specific places is one that's not always made, leading to discussion at cross purposes. Specifically, I don't think everyone taking part in this discussion is talking about the same thing.—msh210℠23:34, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Comment. Just to qualify an "afore-made" comment, whereby someone said at least 1 person (Anatoli) was interested in this matter. There are at least two others, making for a total of three.
Allow me to explain separately:
First, there is myself; last year I created entries for two toponyms (each specifying a place in a different country) : (deprecated template usage)Tarica and (deprecated template usage)Nkinora. Sure, I did create them for the Christmas Competition, but there was also the underlying, ulterior motive of actually making a nice, little, new entry to add to Wiktionary's "menagerie". ;-) Sadly though, they were later obliterated after allegedly failing RFV, no doubt due to certain (IMO) half-assed parts of the deformed chimera that is CFI... N.B. these in anyone's eyes were surely not the worst thing to emerge in the name of someone who wanted to win the competition. I remember the undesirable and waaay too uncommon relatives of (deprecated template usage)T. rex and (deprecated template usage)E. coli all too well ;P
Secondly, there is SB. I cannot cite any specific place but I know that in the discussion of votes on matters like this and whatnot, he has called himself an inclusionist and thus pushed (if only slightly) for the inclusion of stuff like this. 50 Xylophone Playerstalk22:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Comment The "attributive use" condition strikes me as possibly causing some somewhat strange effects: say that "Venice" is verified as being used attributively, so that the page may exist (rather: the 'city' sense of that entry). But may we then add translations of that word (in particular the city definition) without first checking that the translation verifies the attribution test? Or should translations to language A (which never use its word for "Venice" in an attributive manner) be unlinked? Or perpetually red?
Also, I can't say I ever understood the why attributive use would be relevant as a condition. CFI mentions "New York", and that it's included because of the existence of terms such as "New York delicatessen". Okay, I can see why that could motivate us to include the adjective. But why would the adjective motivate the proper noun? Why an all-or-nothing situation? Why either both adjective and proper noun, or none? Sorry, but I simply don't understand why the presence of an adjective is relevant to the presence of a proper noun. \Mike23:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Many dictionaries have similar restrictions on entries for people and places. The OED for instance on includes them if they are used attributively, possessively (eg Foucault's pendulum), figuratively, or allusively(to meet one's Waterloo). It's general practice to note the geographic/biographic referent and then explain the meanings that extend beyond that referent. --Bequw → ¢ • τ00:00, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
This is because the EOD does not want to include all words, its option is the traditional one in language dictionaries: excluding proper nouns (except when there is a specific reason to include them). But other language dictionaries are specialized in first names, other ones in surnames, other ones in toponym etymologies. We have no reason to specifically exclude placenames (no space limit). Including all words including toponyms might seem an issue for the random page feature, but this feature is not for those looking for information. Lmaltier07:10, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
Lmaltier is correct: comparisons with traditional monolingual dictionaries are pointless and misleading. We are multilingual multi-purpose dictionary, and there is no reason why we couldn't also function as a dictionary of onomastics (personal names, toponyms, *nyms of all kind). These themselves already have their own specialized dictionaries, and there is plethora od lexicographically relevant data that we can build on and integrate into "normal" entries. --Ivan Štambuk13:07, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
On self-management and self-allocation of contributors as resources: Like some other editors and contributors above, I think each contributor should manage himself as a human resource rather than being managed by the collective of editors. If a person wants to allocate his scarce resources including attention and time to contributing toponyms, he should have the option. The only question should be whether that person's lexicographical toponym-documentation activity should be channeled to Wiktionary or to a dedicated Wikigazetteer project. Either way, the person is going to be spending part of their time and attention outside of English definitions. --Dan Polansky11:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
To me the question is not simply about the time and enthusiasm of those who want toponyms, it is also with the loss of focus of the project as a whole. What technical resources we have will be spread yet thinner. Those who have the knowledge and experience to integrate a new class of entries into Wiktionary will find more and more demands on their time. There are likely to be a steady stream of compromises and confusions about the policies, guidelines and practices applicable to various classes of entries, as should already be evident in the discussion of attestation.
I think Wiktionary could play a role as an incubator for a portion of the content of Wikigazetteer. But for Wikigazetteer to be in any way limited by the structure, policies, guidelines, practices, habits, reputation, and volunteer base of Wiktionary or Wikipedia seems silly for an enterprise of such promise. Wiktionary is having difficulty in getting even Wikisaurus, a subproject close to the core of the function of project, to a level of coverage and use approaching that of the main dictionary. DCDuringTALK11:56, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
To me the question is not simply about the time and enthusiasm of those who want toponyms - the question should be only about that. Absolutely everything else is irrelevant.
it is also with the loss of focus of the project as a whole - Again, there is no such thing as "project focus" that you speak about. People are free to contribute whatever interest them, whenever they want. There is no pan-project management and strategy. Common interest groups ("wikiprojects") and "could you help me with this"-type of wiki-friendships arise completely spontaneously.
Those who have the knowledge and experience to integrate a new class of entries into Wiktionary will find more and more demands on their time. - that is their problem not yours. We already happen to have people creating valuable toponymic information that is being deleted under the absurd CFI policy. That is much more relevant problem than any of your could-be scenarios, which I personally find very far-fetched. Who are we to forbid them to contribute what they like in their free time?
There are likely to be a steady stream of compromises and confusions about the policies, guidelines and practices applicable to various classes of entries, as should already be evident in the discussion of attestation. - Nothing more problematic than what has be done with "normal" non-onomastics entries. Again you're making ominous predictions without empirical data to substantiate it.
Wiktionary is having difficulty in getting even Wikisaurus, a subproject close to the core of the function of project, to a level of coverage and use approaching that of the main dictionary. - Wikisaurus receives as much attention as is statistical interest in it among Wiktionary contributors. Like every other part of this project. All of them are "having difficulties" as being undermanned and missing a bulk of essential information. But that is of absolutely no concern to the problem of forbidding toponymic entries on Wiktionary and I would be grateful if you finally stopped insinuating causal relationships between the two. --Ivan Štambuk13:02, 10 December 2009 (UTC)
"Yet Another Place Name (Proper Noun) Proposal". I believe that many previous discussions on this topic have lead nowhere because the only mechanism debated was inclusion via the CFI. Borrowing a play from our more compromising view of constructed languages, I'd like to propose that place name entries be allowed in Wiktionary under an alternative namespace (possibly Placename:*). This project(?) would serve several purposes.
It would separate the debate about what to include from the debate about whether to include. Decisions could, for example, be made to include all toponymns, only common ones, or only linguistically interesting ones.
Free from the ELE, alternative formats could be explored.
It would ensure that we can keep to the current CFI without deleting linguistic information (non-attributive place names would just be moved).
It would allow place name entries to mature so that editors could get a better understanding of their utility and quality if discussions about their inclusion in the main namespace arise in the future.
Some issues to think about are linking and searching. Is this "compromise" agreeable enough to set up a vote? Should all proper nouns be include or just place names? --Bequw → τ01:10, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Seems like a good start. I don't see why all the proper nouns should be included when it's just the place names that are disputable. Moving all the proper nouns in all languages to a separate namespace would be a major effort, and oftentimes, in languages written in non-Latins script where there is no orthographical difference between proper and "normal" nouns (i.e. no uppercase/lowercase distinction), proper nouns are often treated within the usual ===Noun=== section. --Ivan Štambuk23:11, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
I do not like this idea. Place names are words, they should be treated like words. If the standards need to be bent then we can modify ELE/CFI specifically regarding place names. Including them in a separate namespace makes them basically useless. --Yair rand23:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
Some of the already proposed amendments to CFI to handle placenames have failed gloriously, and the perennial discussions on the issue didn't seem to have yielded any constructive consensus, so this might be a good way to simply start adding entries at the moment. Some folks are adamantly opposed to adding placenames in the main namespace, whilst others are frustrated that their industrious work keeps getting deleted under the excuse of not passing CFI. If you think that you can make the difference in the right direction, feel free to start a vote/discussion...
I don't see how having them in the separate namespace makes them "useless" ? In case you're referring to the discoverability issue: we could leave redirects in the main namespace (or some kind of a top-page info when they collide with already-existing entries, or simply add them to {{also}}). --Ivan Štambuk23:32, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
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Placename namespace
Voting on: Adding a separate Placename: namespace for place names. As this would be a new pilot program, the layout and inclusion policies of this namespace would not be locked down as WT:CFI is. Draft policies could be drawn up at WT:Place names or WT:Toponyms.
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Namespace
Initially this proposal could be implemented with a pseudo-namespaces (just titling entries with the "Placename:" prefix) but a bug should be filed to add the namespace officially so that it is properly supported by the search features. --Bequw → τ14:11, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
Presumably entities with actual use that allows them to be in the main namespace will need to be in both places? What information will be in which entry? Conrad.Irwin13:12, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
I see two possible differences:
The main namespace should list the qualities needed to understand the attributive use (we don't currently do this well but probably should) where as Placename: would just refer to places.
Depending on the TBDed inclusion criteria of this new namespace, it could be that New York only talks about New York, NY whereas Placename:New York could list all places named "New York".
Hopefully not "just" as the point is to include linguistic data (alternative spellings, translations, etymologies, etc.) which could differ different places with the same name. As was mentioned below the inclusion criteria for this new namespace could be such that something of linguistic value must be entered for it be allowed. --Bequw → τ19:07, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Scope
What's to be included? Nile, Half Dome, Tropic of Cancer, and continental divide are geographic names that don't represent places, as such. Is this for proper names only, or proper nouns (not exactly the same thing, I'm told), or common nouns too? A more general namespace name might be toponym(s) or geonym(s). —MichaelZ. 2010-03-10 04:02 z
The point is not to pin the details of inclusion and layout down in this vote (is the main page unclear on that?). The intent is to begin a namespace for place names so that the community can decide further details later. Since it would be free from the CFI these details could be determined by consensus rather than just by voting. Any of the inclusion criteria that have been discussed before (eg Wiktionary:Place names) could be experimented with. The intended scope of this namespace includes potentially all toponyms, so it could include Nile, Half Dome, and Tropic of Cancer (continental divide is a common noun, but Laurentian Divide could be up for inclusion) but again inclusion criteria can be debated if the vote passes. I would've used Toponym: except that it is such a rare word.--Bequw → τ20:30, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Re "is the main page unclear on that?", the vote page says CFI will read "Layout and inclusion policies of this namespace are separate from the main namespace and found through Wiktionary:Place names". According to what you wrote, it should say "...are separate from those of the main namespace and are not yet set: for now, this namespace is a free-for-all".—msh210℠20:38, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
That was intentional. As every modification to the CFI requires a vote, I don't think the CFI should describe the current status of separate policy pages that it links to. That the place name policy is experimental should be mentioned on the vote page and and on its policy page (whether it be WT:Place names or WT:Toponyms). --Bequw → τ03:26, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
While I agree hat the CFI shouldn't mention the current state of policy pages it includes by reference, it should include by reference only policy pages. Or, at least, it should include by reference only policy pages when such inclusion is central to the point of the particular criterion for inclusion (clause of the CFI), as it is here. Or, at the very least, we should not vote specifically to add an inclusion by reference to a non-policy page where such inclusion is central to the criterion for inclusion. I think that this vote should omit the addition to WT:CFI and be only about adding a namespace for placenames, with criteria for inclusion into that namespace to be decided later (but nothing mentioned in WT:CFI).—msh210℠15:54, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
If you're asking me: It's better than it was, thanks, but I'd prefer no change to WT:CFI at all, with the vote's being only on adding the namespace and (roughly) what the namespace is for (place names' entries). Perhaps that's just me, though.—msh210℠18:52, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Oh, sorry, I misunderstood your previous post. I do think that's better. Let's leave the CFI to the main namespace. --Bequw → τ01:49, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
About The arguments about inclusion of non-attributive place names in the main namespace appear to be at an impasse.: I don't see why. I have seen arguments against being encyclopedic (and I fully agree), I also understand why some are uneasy about this inclusion (because this is not something common in other dictionaries), but I have not seen arguments against including linguistic data about placenames in the mainspace. There is no more reason to create a namespace for placenames than a namespace for animals, or for surnames, or for adjectives, etc. Lmaltier20:52, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Classes of animals, surnames, and adjectives are allowed in the main namespace. Inclusion of proper names, in general, is not allowed by the CFI (Wiktionary:CFI#Names basically says there's got to be some usage independent of a unique referent.) You may not agree with that, or not believe that point of view has legitimate arguments, but some do and have said so in previous debates. The point is to find a place to put certain type of useful, linguistic content for terms that aren't allowed by the CFI. I say "impasse" because half a dozen votes have been proposed to solve this problem and none have succeeded. --Bequw → τ02:13, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Well, which arguments against including linguistic data? I don't remember any, except that this is sometimes already present in Wikipedia. But linguistic data about words belong here. And, as far as I know, no vote was organized on a proposal to deal proper nouns (when they clearly are words) exactly the same way as other words, and to include only linguistic data in their pages. Lmaltier06:31, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
For the moment, I just want to provide feed for thought. It's probably not a good idea to organize several concurrent votes on the same subject. Lmaltier22:08, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
How combined? Do you meaning conjoining the two ideas to get something like "create a separate namespace for non-attributively used place name where entries have at elast 2 of {pronunciation, unique non-English translation, additional definitional information}"? It seemed like from the BP discussion that you wanted to change the CFI for the main namespace somehow. --Bequw → τ20:22, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
We have seen even stranger votes...:-) Sorry, wrong word, I meant that the two votes could have been on the same page, since if the CFI would pass, the namespace wouldn't be needed, and if the CFI would fail, we'd get a picture of how many people oppose placenames. But maybe it wasn't such a brilliant idea, and too late anyway. It's a pity if we have to create a separate namespace, because the strength of the Wiktionary is just having all the meanings of a word on a single page. --Makaokalani15:45, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Mainspace
If this proposal is meant to exclude London, U.K. from "London" from the mainspace, I am definitely going to oppose. If the proposal is meant to provide a namespace for obscure villages while keeping major places in the mainspace, it seems reasonable enough. I think this proposal should clearly state that it does not in any way regulate the inclusion of place names in the mainspace. --Dan Polansky12:13, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
No such direct effect is intended. Consensus is currently to keep very common place names in the main namespace regardless of the CFI and its attributive use clause. If this namespace is successful it is possible that the consensus could change (and regard the namespace as the only valid location for non-CFI-allowed place names). So, this vote doesn't try to regulate current consensus. --Bequw → τ14:53, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
I, for one, would be open to allowing common proper nouns in the main namespace even if this vote passes. --Bequw → τ15:24, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Justification
I think that the justification of the proposal should be clearly separated from the proposal itself. The sentence "The arguments about inclusion of non-attributive place names in the main namespace appear to be at an impasse" does not belong to the proposal itself but to its justification. That is what I think, anyway; other people may differ. --Dan Polansky12:15, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Would "Gazetteer" be a better name for such a namespace? Entries in the namespace could have the same sort of freeform format of our current appendices. Entries could have some sort of hierarchical naming structure e.g. ("Lesser arm of the local spiral galaxy") => "Earth" => "Europe" => "United Kingdom" => "England" => "Somerset" => "Nempnett Thrubwell". SemperBlotto12:28, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand the word gazetteer as something providing linguistic information about placenames, but rather short encyclopedic info about places, such as population. Is my understanding wrong? Lmaltier13:04, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
I do like the hierarchical structure idea. It would be a great idea for the layout if this vote is approved. Gazetteer strikes we as a bit less known that Placename but I if others want the change I wouldn't object. --Bequw → τ14:58, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Is there a public domain gazetteer or a preview gazetteer in Google books that you would recommend I have a look at, to see what kind of product a "gazetteer" is? --Dan Polansky07:16, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
This proposal of organizing together (possibly millions of) place names seems so big and considerably unrelated to Wiktionary that perhaps it merits its own sister project, not a mere namespace in a dictionary. In my opinion, "http://en.wikiworld.org/" would be a good name to it. --Daniel.12:38, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
It's very big, of course, but no more than for other words. And it already exists for encyclopedic info: it's Wikipedia. I don't see why it's unrelated to Wiktionary to build its linguistic counterpart for etymologies, pronunciations, anagrams, demonyms, derived terms, etc. (just as both Wikipedia and Wiktionary include fox or rain, but with different information). Lmaltier13:09, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Agree with Lmaltier. We would focus on the linguistic aspects with minimal attention to the encyclopedic elements. We'd probably have to locate the referents but this could be done with a miniscule amount of info such as a 'pedia link or coordinates. --Bequw → τ15:02, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
Some way to locate the place, yes. Coordinates is not the best way, a map might be the easiest way (if available), together with a very short definition, stating in a few words what the place is (town, etc.) and where it is (e.g. Bulgarian town on the Black Sea coast.). It's enough to understand the word. Lmaltier16:05, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
A map is available. The m:WikiMiniAtlas, which is already being used on 16 Wikipedias, can be easily imported by adding a single line to Common.js. This would allow a small globe icon to be added to the entry, which would display a map of the area centered on the location when clicked. --Yair rand16:51, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
"one of the most beatiful parts of Prague - cobbled twisted lanes , baroque churches, embassies , government buildings, well-kept gardens, Lennon's wall .."
Where is the pronunciation?
Where is the etymology?
Where is the list of Czech translation, Spanish translation, Chinese translation, German translation, and other translations?
What are you getting at? I posted links relevant to the proposal in this section. —MichaelZ. 2010-03-15 18:54 z
A map showing where the place is located is useful to readers, it's exactly like pictures illustrating common nouns. Where the place is located and which kind of place it is are the only important things in the definition of a placename. Nobody proposed to provide the same kind of data as Wikimapia. Lmaltier20:08, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
I thought the discussion here was about creating another sister project, a gazetteer or some such.
Anyway, a map is not like a picture illustrating a common noun. In a dictionary, a drawing which embodies the essential characteristics of the definiendum is better than a photo which showing a specific referent, with its specific quirks. (Not just my opinion, but that of Landau 2001 and others).
So, would Winnipeg be illustrated by the city's centre point or the location of its central intersection, or an outline of its current city limits, an outline of its built-up area, its residential area, its census subdivisions, an outline of Census Canada's greater CMA, or what?
We're also a historical dictionary. Does the map have to be updated when the city's legal description changes, even though the definition stays the same? A good “definition” of the city would cover the meaning of the name of this settlement from before it was incorporated as a city in 1874, through Unicity when it grew several-fold overnight by annexing the surrounding municipalities in 1972. Do we need to create a map that shows the city's entire historical development?
I think showing technical drawings like maps at all further distances us from the function of a dictionary. We're trying to bring in information about things, not terms. Bad enough to allow creating “senses” for individual specific people and places. —MichaelZ. 2010-03-16 00:27 z
The avenue where I live, the hospital where I've born and most institutions where I've studied probably aren't in Wikipedia nor in Wiktionary, due to their policies. From what I see, the Placename: namespace also (probably) wouldn't include them. A sister project for places could have less strict policies that would result in describing those examples eventually, due to geographical focus rather than notability or lexicology. --Daniel.04:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
CFI for place names based on the quality of the entry
Has this kind of criterion ever been discussed: "Place names are words, and subject to the same criteria for inclusion as any other words. However, unless the place name meets the attributive use criterion, every place name entry should include at least two of the following: an etymology, a pronunciation, a translation that is not identical with the English form, or an additional definition as something else besides a place name." This would prevent blind copying of place names from the Wikipedia or from an atlas. And if somebody makes an entry for his home town in Uzbekistan, isn't it welcome if the etymology and pronunciation are included? --Makaokalani16:29, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
To me, it is really the encyclopedic content that is the long-term problem. We could exclude "North Carolina", but include the toponym word "Carolina". That would address the lexicographic content aspect without us becoming a short-attention span gazetteer. One problem is that the logic would escape most would-be contributors. ("How come 'Georgia' and 'Virginia' have entries, but not 'North Carolina' and 'South Carolina'?") I think that we are likely to get a lot of badly formatted encyclopedic entries from folks contributing their home town, neighborhood, favorite park, or natural feature, etc. If we wanted to incubate a Wikigazetteer, we could try it out for a period of time (3, 6, 12 months ?) and then decide whether we could do it justice or whether it should be a separate project or the responsibility of WP. DCDuringTALK17:12, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Well - speaking as the inclusionist who has deleted more words than probably anyone else - I would include brief entries on all major geographic entities, and even many smaller ones if they have some sort of dictionary-type interest. Do you think I could get away with Nempnett Thrubwell? (probably not) SemperBlotto17:20, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I don't like the idea of requiring an entry to have a certain amount of information to be added. I wouldn't mind having places like Nempnett Thrubwell, so long as the definition lines had a standard, unbendable format. (My preference would be something like "1. A place name." followed by a bunch of m:WikiMiniAtlas buttons/links and a bunch of linked WP icons, but I doubt anyone agrees with me on that.) --Yair rand02:12, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
We need to include "North Carolina" separately from "Carolina" because there are numerous places named "Carolina" (all of which have a "North" portion) but only one place properly denoted as "North Carolina". The same applies for most every state or country for which the name includes a term like "North", "South", "West", "Central", "Inner", "Outer", "New", and so forth. bd2412T02:21, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Also, we aspire that all of our entries should be of that quality. For place names, the cutoff should be in terms of geographic, social, and cultural importance. bd2412T02:24, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Can we include this in the current vote? Can we define geographic, social, and cultural importance? Note that Wikipedia or maps don't provide gender or transliteration for foreign scripts.--Anatoli02:31, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
The proposal sounds fine, and I've already mentioned something similar the last time this was discussed in the BP in order to address the concerns of including large number of (possibly bot-generated) toponyms not containing lexicographically relevant content (i.e. simply the definition lines). There's no point adding something that Wikipedia already covers (and which shows up in Wiktionary search results). OTOH, it's preposterous that quality entries are being deleted on the basis of CFI which hardly reflects community consensus of today. All *nyms should be allowed, especially their derivatives such as demonyms, and possesive/relative adjectives, which are often irregular or counter-intuitive formations. --Ivan Štambuk03:44, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Shall I create a vote? Every place name proposal creates opposition, but what's the harm in trying? Discussions about the relative importance of places seem to come to nothing. Of course all entries should eventually have etymology, pronunciation, etc, but unlike other words, place names are worthless without them. I don't believe we'd be flooded by erratic anon entries, but if we are, they can be deleted on sight. Nobody has the duty to patch them up. Most anons never read the CFI anyway. They are more likely to be intimidated by Anatoli's entries.
The definition "a place name" looks like deliberate teasing to me (We won't tell you where, ha ha). The reader needs to know if this is the word he meant. On the other hand, there's no need to list every single place. The current practice allows for the grouping of places, with separate definitions for words that have different translations, etymologies or pronunciations. This could be added to the CFI: "Only minimal information about the place is question should be given, with links to other Wikimedia projects. A definition for a common place name might be, for example: "Any of several places in the U.K., U.S.A., Canada and New Zealand.""
This is skirting dangerous ground. We certainly shouldn't include or omit terms based on the “geographic, social, and cultural importance” of their referents (Wikipedia has notability criteria for articles' subjects), and most likely not on these qualities of the terms themselves, either. Using “quality of the entry” sounds like the latter to me. A checklist of included sections is the opposite of quality; it's a meaningless measure of quantity.
Why “define” a term as “Any of several places in the U.K., U.S.A., Canada and New Zealand?” We don't define a surname as “any of several people residing in towns X, Y, and Z.” We're not a gazetteer nor a phone book. Define it as “a place name,” explain its origin and meaning, list its derivatives, and link directly to the Wikipedia disambiguation page which already lists precisely the 7 countries, 2 provinces, and 6 counties where these places lie, and will continue to do a better job at it than we ever could.
Let's add a CFI for non-sum-of-parts toponymic terms. They're probably already includable; we just have to provide some examples. Or I'll get around to it. —MichaelZ. 2010-03-15 05:22 z
How about the following criteria:
At least 150 years old (exception should be made for country capitals or cities with over 1 mln population)
A Wikipedia article should exist (perhaps in the language of origin if not in English)
Searchable information on the location - e.g. Google Map
Makaokalani, why would anons be intimidated by my entries? The main purpose of a dictionary is definitions and translations. (Of course all entries should eventually have etymology, pronunciation, etc, but unlike other words, place names are worthless without them) It applies to place names. --Anatoli05:43, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
It was meant as a compliment. I've seen from given name entries that anons stop adding careless information if there is an impressive Greek or Hebrew etymology. And like Ivan Štambuk says above, place name entries are worthless without linguistic information - you get the same info from Wikipedia through the search button. --Makaokalani16:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
I wonder whether the vandalism slows on pages with good etymology because people don't know what to make of the page, or, in particular, can't find where to add definition lines (for themselves or their friends) because they can't find the definitions. Feedback frequently complains about inability to find definitions. I think perhaps we should stop dividing up by etymology (combine all etymolgies into one Etymology section, with paragraphs for the different etymologies) and put the Etymology and other sections after the definition.—msh210℠16:13, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Re, the criteria: Why?? We're not looking for notability of the place, we don't care about population of the place, or about a Wikipedia article on the place, we don't care about the place at all. What matters to the entry is the place name and only the name, as that's what the entry is about. --Yair rand06:05, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
If you want to change place name definitions and categories into parts of speech, start another vote. It has nothing to do with the CFI. (I removed the definition example from the CFI.) Whatever you put on the definition line, it doesn't say how to pronounce the name, inflect or translate it, or where it comes from. Three years ago I was against place names but by now I'd be ready to vote for them, if only they are entered by people who actually know something about them as words. --Makaokalani16:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
Placenames with linguistic information are accepted
Voting on: Amending Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion as follows: After the existing section "Genealogic content", before the existing section "Names of specific entities", and on a level with them, add a section entitled "Placenames", with the following text:
Placenames are subject to the criteria for inclusion specified in the section "General rule", extended with the following additional requirements. A placename entry should initially include at least two of the following:
An etymology. This is not applicable to multiple word placenames, such as South Carolina.
A pronunciation.
Information about grammar, such as the gender and an inflection table.
A translation that is not spelled identically with the English form. A placename that is in itself such a translation also meets this requirement.
An additional definition as something else besides a placename.
Yes, like New York and South Carolina. They just don't meet the requirement 1 (Etymology), two of the other 4 requirements must be met.--Makaokalani13:15, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Abstain - please include my vote in whichever option is closest to includingall placenames. (I can't figure it out) SemperBlotto 18:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC) Moved to this section.—msh210℠18:50, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
This isn't closer to including all placenames, this vote is to impose additional restrictions on placenames. Why should this vote be at support? --Yair rand18:52, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
A place name currently needs to be used attributively. I'm reading this is allowing any entry that meets that criterion or the one stated above. (Of course, as Ruakh notes, below, the ELE will be worded very badly, but whatever.) Am I reading it wrong?—msh210℠18:58, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
In my opinion, this vote will include more, not less place names. In any case, an entry WITHOUT linguistic information can be easily converted into one WITH it, can't it? A basic skeleton for a well-known place name wouldn't immediately be qualified for a deletion but for additional linguistic info. Ask Makaokalani, the vote creator for clarifications. --Anatoli20:27, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
I didn't mean it as an iron rule. It would depend on the patroller. This proposal accepts all placenames if the entry is good enough, except multiple word placenames without a translation or inflection, and those that are judged sum of parts. Yair rand sees quality requirements as restrictions. An entry that gives no information about the placename as a word should not be in a dictionary at all - but old entries can be fixed. I admit the wording leaves it open if the attributive use CFI still stands - I meant it shouldn't - but either way, this proposal allows for more placenames than before. The "Special entities" section might be removed soon, see WT:BP#Straw poll on the 'names of specific entries' .--Makaokalani15:18, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Support because I see this as more closely matching my opinion than currently is the case. I think that we should allow the inclusion of all words that verifiably are or were the name of a distinct settlement that verifiably does or did exist. I also support the inclusion of some lower-level names (e.g. districts of cities), but I haven't worked out an objective way to define what I think should and shouldn't be included at this level yet. Thryduulf11:05, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Support —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 05:10, 27 April 2010 (UTC) The notion of “linguistic information” for place names is a great way of putting it – the examples of etymology, grammar, and translations are all useful, and significantly more compelling than the current “attributively” criterion. This proposal isn’t perfect (as per concerns below), but it’s a far sight better than status quo.
Support. I have some doubts, but this seems to be a good enough temporary solution, one that can be fixed in a subsequent vote if a need arises. --Dan Polansky10:48, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose
OpposeYair rand 05:33, 9 April 2010 (UTC) Much as I would love to have the placename issue finally settled, this proposal leaves a lot of problems open. Does an entry have to start with two of these, and be deleted on sight if someone tries to add a place name's etymology/pronunciation/translation, but without anything else? And what about non-English place names? For many foreign language place name entries, the entry could not be added unless the contributor was aware of both the etymology and the pronunciation (simply because no further grammar info exists, no additional definition exists, and no translation section can be added because it's not English). Virtually all existing place name entries would have to be deleted immediately after this rule was put in place. (And one minor point: this proposal still leaves in the attributive use requirement for place names as outlined in the "Names of specific entities" section, making the addition basically incomprehensible, coming right after a section outlining entirely different requirements.) The issue still needs further discussion (though I would be happy with just including all attested place names, with no additional requirements). --Yair rand05:33, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Because the issues that I just brought up hadn't occurred to me before the start of the vote. What did you think? --Yair rand05:44, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
IMO, this vote should not reduce the existing CFI, so if the new CFI (linguistic) exclude some from the existing (attributive), they should be merged. The proposal may not be perfectly worded but the questions should be on talk page, Yair rand, you seem to base your vote on assumptions. --Anatoli05:45, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
The criterion being voted upon allows a placename entry if it is a translation's and has an etymology. Since every calque or transliteration has an easy etymology, this will allow any placename that is a translation via calque or transliteration. Examples in my own experience are the English names of almost every little town in Israel (many or perhaps even all of which have official English spellings so are easy to attest (see maps, where the name of the town conveys meaning (the street/town is the referent) so meets that CFI)), but many others exist too. I really don't think we want these.—msh210℠16:05, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
And why don't we want these? Are you voting principally (you're against having the entries for relatively insignificant villages), or because the inclusion criteria has to be refined further? --Ivan Štambuk16:47, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
At least the latter. We may want a tiny village's name (though I've yet to be convinced we do), but certainly not (IMO) if all it says is "==English== ===Etymology=== Transliteration of (deprecated template usage)פֿוּ. ===Proper noun=== # A place name".—msh210℠17:10, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
We could require that in such cases the level-1 etymology is not applicable, and would require at least 2 levels of etymological inheritance (< Hebrew < X, where X could be other language or a native derivation). This other step cannot be automated (at least not easily, and at least not without human supervision).
Also note that all the languages that have some kind of phonetic/phonological orthography usually have relatively complex set of rules in adapting foreign placenames, that even native speakers need to master and often learn by heart. The question of 'transliteration etymologies' is far from trivial. Machine-generating entries in any language from FL transliterations seems generally implausible scenario to me. --Ivan Štambuk17:38, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
After thinking it over some more, I was about to come back here and strike my vote in opposition. Not that my objection, voiced above, is invalid, but that there is much to say for this proposal. I would have abstained. but then I remembered Ruakh's point, below, about the CFI's becoming self-contradictory, and decided to retain my vote in opposition.—msh210℠15:10, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
OpposeEquinox◑ 16:53, 9 April 2010 (UTC) Proposal seems confused and overcomplicated. Why should place names have their own special rules? I don't see what the "should have at least two" has to do with anything. Equinox◑16:53, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
But the placenames already have their own 'special rules' in CFI: they're only allowed if used in some kind of attributive sense. I agree that they should simply follow the usual CFI. But that is according to some too loose of a criterion, and would allow bot-generation of a large number of placenames with little or no lexicographically relevant data. This vote is a step in the direction of allowing more of placename entries than the current CFI permits. You should be voting for not oppose, according to your reasoning. --Ivan Štambuk17:06, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose, if only because it makes absolutely no sense to me that we would add such a section without somehow amending the "Names of specific entities" section. —RuakhTALK17:24, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, as the proposal stands, we'd have one section explaining that placenames follow only the "general rule" (idiomaticity and attestation), followed immediately by another section explaining that names of specific entities, including placenames, are subject to a special attributive-use rule. In other words, the two sections would flatly contradict each other. —RuakhTALK18:32, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, you're right. The proposal needs rewording to match those 2 sections semantically. I'm surprised that nobody has noticed that before. --Ivan Štambuk23:49, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Ouch. Would "Placenames are subject to the same criteria for inclusion as any other words and terms, extended with the following additional requirements." have been logical? --Makaokalani12:35, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose — The fact that only two of the five requirements need be satisfied to allow inclusion means that virtually any placename may be admitted solely on the basis of satisfying requirements 2 and 3. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 20:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose for, 1., insufficient attention to integration with balance of CFI; 2., insufficient definition of "(deprecated template usage)placename" for our specific purposes; 3., no research into number of potential entries; 4., the word (deprecated template usage)should could be read as merely precatory, under which reading there would be no limits other than attestation; 5., no user-based justification offered; 6., the labor in attesting each challenged translation or transliteration would be substantial. This seems to be a pig in a poke. DCDuringTALK21:10, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Oppose This is barking up the right tree, but not really integrated into our methods and guidelines. —MichaelZ. 2010-05-01 18:46 z
Abstain
AbstainEncycloPetey 00:07, 10 April 2010 (UTC) There are implications of the proposal I don't care for, despite supporting the general idea of being more inclusive with respect to place names. For one, there is no qualification as to whether the "place name" refers to proper noun place names, or generic place names. Lots of cities have an "X Quarter" or "Little Y". All of these, even when sum of parts, can get in under the current ambiguity. Also, I'm not sure whether I like the idea that all the street names in bilingual cities qualify easily (pronunciation and non-identical translation) while street names in predominantly monolingual cities or districts would have a harder time being admissible. There are parts of San Francisco and Oakland where the street names are given on signs in two forms, usually English and Chinese or Korean, but there are other parts of the same cities where they are not. This doesn't seem equitable to me. --EncycloPetey00:07, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
A street named X Street, and a square named X Square look like sums of parts to me, so having translations would not save them. Has anybody actually tried to make an entry for a street name? German street names can be justified because they may be mistaken for common nouns. Maybe street names could be mentioned as language-specific issues in the "Wiktionary:About--" policy pages.--Makaokalani15:18, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Abstain---> Tooironic 13:30, 17 April 2010 (UTC) I don't feel qualified enough to vote on what seems like quite a complicated issue/proposal. IMO, though, all placenames should be included if there are people around who want to add them. ---> Tooironic13:30, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
If "all placenames should be included", then it should be "support", not "abstain". Basically, without exaggerating the fears of too many place name entries, this vote, although not explained in all details, would allow to have a verifiable place name to be added if it has some linguistic information and translation(s), as it should be in a dictionary, the same rules as for any other word. --Anatoli01:00, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
AbstainYair rand 22:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC) Many of my original reasons for opposing appear to be incorrect. I support including all place names, regardless of amount of content. Honestly I wouldn't mind bot-generated place names entries, simply because they will become useful eventually, but then again I wouldn't mind mass-creating empty entries with {{rfdef}} either, so that isn't saying much. I am undecided as to whether this proposal is an improvement over the current lack of policy. --Yair rand22:07, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
This is going to lead to an expansion of place names as far as I am able to determine. The five requirements specific to names of geographical entities can be met for a large set of such names, with a bit of research work. --Dan Polansky10:51, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
Is there a need to specify that sum-of-parts placenames like Hamilton Street, Mount Hamilton, South Hamilton are not acceptable without attributive use? It seems clear anyway since the next CFI section "Names of specific entities" gives New York as an example.
Does somebody want to add "information about grammar such as gender and inflection" as one of the requirements?--Makaokalani13:05, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
Definitely inflection (knowledge of IPA/SAMPA and etymology is often too specialist). I'd also explicitly state that in case of sum-of-parts or multiple-word etymologies the etymological requirement should not apply because that could be completely automated. The purpose of these requirements is, unless I'm not mistaken, to force contributors to focus on relevant content, and not mass-create relatively useless entries. Entry quality prerequisites should be carefully established so to disallow any form of abuse. --Ivan Štambuk01:03, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
I've added inflection. How would you word the etymology rule: "For multiple word placenames , an etymology does not count as one of the justifications"? --Makaokalani16:40, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
One thing, though. The complete entry (in the final stage) should have the gender, inflection and other linguistic thing but sometimes the gender is unknown even by native speakers (rare or foreign words where gender can be unpredictable or can vary by dialect or level of education) or not so easy to create (inflection). These cases can be flagged as needing attention. --Anatoli04:23, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
I knew I'd get stuck with the wording somehow. Is the reference to the attributive use rule necessary? And the section "Names of specific entities" says this:
A person or place name that is not used attributively (and that is not a word that otherwise should be included) should not be included.
It seems to contradict, or anyway confuse, my proposal. Could I include in the vote the change of words here:
A person or a multiple word place name that is not used attributively (and that is not a word that otherwise should be included) should not be included. --Makaokalani16:40, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
After sleeping on it, I've just decided to pretend that sentence isn't there. New York delicatessen seems like a weak reason for including New York anyway. What is the formal reason for excluding Hamilton Street - sum of parts? no citations? not idiomatic? English street names would only pass one of the five requirements of this vote (pronunciation), but street names do have declensions in other languages. If there is a logical gap in the wording of the vote please tell me before I start the vote. --Makaokalani12:20, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Well, I think that Hamilton Street is usually considered as a name, but not as a word. This is a good reason not to include it. However, some odonyms (street names) are words, such as Strand or Canebière. On the other hand, New York is the name of a town, and such names are considered as words. If, in some languages (maybe German, I'm not sure?), all odonyms are considered as words, I think that they should be allowed for this language, but this should be discussed, because the definition might be an issue. Lmaltier18:00, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Translations are a major reason for including placenames, and there's no reason to make foreign placename entries more difficult than English ones. Londres now meets the requirement 4.--Makaokalani09:31, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Explicit additional requirements
Proposal: replace
Placenames are subject to the same criteria for inclusion as any other terms.
with
Placenames are subject to the criteria for inclusion specified in the section "General rule", extended with the following additional requirements.
That would mean that "However," should be removed from the subsequent sentence, to the following result:
Placenames are subject to the criteria for inclusion specified in the section "General rule", extended with the following additional requirements. A placename entry should initially include at least two of the following: ...
Simple question: Does this proposal call for the immediate deletion of virtually all existing place name entries? It seems to, requiring multiple sections of linguistic content, which most entries just don't have. Did I miss something? --Yair rand06:10, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Of course not. Existing entries cannot be deleted on sight. If somebody decides to rfd them, one by one, there is good time to add the missing info, or to argue about the old CFI. ( Adding the info is probably simpler and faster.) Right now if somebody rfd's a placename that doesn't meet the attributive use CFI, there is no way to keep it. Instant deletion is only recommended for new entries of the type "A town in Texas", with nothing else. Otherwise we could be flooded with automated entries, possibly done by bot. If there is some info - etymology, for example - it would depend on the patroller.
Why do you say that virtually all existing entries don't meet the new CFI? Names of important places usually do, or they are easy to fix. The rules are not very demanding, if you look at them closely. A place that has not acquired translations is unimportant, so isn't it fair to ask for an etymology and pronunciation at least? And if you don't know them, why not wait until you do? Also, you can add a foreign name to a translation table even if you don't have more information about it.
The purpose of this proposal is to:
Give clear rules for the inclusion of placenames.
Make placename entries better by concentrating on linguistic information
Very many non-English place name entries (probably most, in fact) contain nothing more than a definition line. Whether or not the definition line counts as part of requirement #4 (which is left unclear by this proposal), many would be deleted. Very many English place names only contain one translation and nothing else, or just contain a pronunciation or etymology. With this proposal implemented, a huge amount of useful content would no longer pass CFI. --Yair rand19:43, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
We could add a clause that the new CFI rules don't apply retroactively, if that's a problem. Personally I wouldn't mind if all the entries not passing this CFI would be deleted on sight. There is absolutely no loss at all in deleting such entries, because they are simply mini-wikipedia stubs. The purpose of this policy is to enforce having quality entries with relevant lexicographical data. The sooner we set the bar higher, the better. --Ivan Štambuk16:57, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
As a general rule, I don't like the idea of grandfather clauses in the CFI. (There may be some exceptions I'm not thinking of.) If we think something is inclusionworthy, it is, and if we think it's not, it's not, irrespective of when it was written.—msh210℠17:16, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
That type of black/white reasoning doesn't scale well to the real-world ~_~ I don't think that anyone is willing to waste time chasing current placename entries not passing the proposed amendments anyway.. Their number is at best a few hundred. Having a clause that will temporarily allow their inclusion until their non-inclusivity is phased out through gradual improvement isn't going to hurt anyone. When (basically) all such entries are eventually improved upon, the exemption clause could be easily terminated, even without a vote. We could even explicitly state that within it (sort of a self-modifying law). --Ivan Štambuk00:11, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
And demonyms?
An important information about placenames (at least in some countries) is the associated demonym. Why not mentioning it?
This proposal is not clear: it seems to restrict further the inclusion of placenames, while some consider that it allows more placenames. And I don't see why placenames should follow special rules (this includes definitions: obviously, a definition such as a place name is about as useless as an animal for Labrador retriever). Lmaltier17:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
I guess that demonyms, as well as other morphologically derived words (e.g. relative or possessive adjectives) are not covered by this because they're 'normal' words. I already mentioned that as an argument for inclusion of placenames: it would be ridiculous to have derived terms of a particular placename (e.g. New Yorker, Chicagoan..), and not the main entries that these are derived forom (New York, Chicago..). Making demonyms and adjectives out of placenames is very tricky in most languages, because these are often non-intuitive formations that need to be memorized by heart, often specific dialectal forms. This way, if we include placenames too, the reader would know where to find the sense he was looking for of 'inhabitant of X', or 'pertaining to X'.
Also, note that this proposal is not more restrictive, but is instead less restrictive than the current CFI which only permits attributive usage of a placename. I agree that there shouldn't be some kind of a special treatment, but the big problem is the quality of such unrestricted placename entries which could be easily generated en masse (in terms of hundreds of thousands) by a bot, without adding much lexicographically relevant content, at least not anything that couldn't already be found at wikipedia... We need to add some kind of a restriction to force adding only 'useful' type of content from the perspective of a language learner/explorer or a translator. --Ivan Štambuk00:02, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Multi-word terms
Under the proposal how are the following terms to be handled:
Nitpick: Kings County is the county, not King's. And you say Borough of Brooklyn is coextensive with Brooklyn, but then I don't know what Brooklyn is. As far as I know it's only a borough.—msh210℠16:30, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
The incorrect ones, if attestable, would be equally includable, either as alternative spellings or misspellings. And presumably eye-dialect spellings such as New Yawk, former names New Amsterdam and City of Brooklyn. Would religious districts be included (eg, w:Diocese of Brooklyn, Holy Innocents Parish)? I sense that we have just begun to scratch the surface of the possibilities.— This unsigned comment was added by DCDuring (talk • contribs).
I don't see why not. The reason I linked above to my subpage was to give an idea of what can be listed s.v. "New York". (That was under the other proposal-vote, but AFAICT would apply here, too, as long as pronunciation of New York and some etymology are given. (The instant proposal doesn't say anything about the criteria (two of etymology, inflection, etc.) being needed for each sense separately, and implies that they're not, since one of the criteria is an additional definition not as a place name, which, of course, does not apply sensewise.)) It has 22 definitions, including a state, a city, a county, some informal senses (synonym of Manhattan Island, of Manhattan, and of NYU), some historical senses (synonym of Teraina, and a province of England in North America), the region with ZIP codes 100xx–102xx, and several ships of the U.S. Navy.—msh210℠17:11, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Policy on place names
Voting on: creating a new policy on place names and making consequential changes to criteria for inclusion.
Text for the new policy on place names
Place names
The following place names meet the criteria for inclusion:
The names of continents.
The names of seas and oceans.
The names of countries.
The names of areas or regions containing multiple countries (e.g. Middle East, Eurozone).
The names of primary administrative divisions (states, provinces, counties etc).
The names of conurbations, cities, towns, villages and hamlets.
The names of other significant natural geographic features (such as large deserts and major rivers).
The Community has not yet reached a consensus as to whether or not the names of places and geographic features other than those listed above should be included in Wiktionary. There is currently no definition of "significant natural geographic features", but by way of an example, the twenty largest lakes in the world by surface area would each qualify. It is hoped that the Community will develop criteria over time to provide greater clarity and address matters not currently covered (for example the names of streets, buildings, tunnels). This policy is not intended to remove or reduce the requirement to find citations to support entries.
Proposed changes to criteria for inclusion
Current text:
Names of specific entities
This section regulates the inclusion and exclusion of names of specific entities, that is, names of individual people, names of geographic features, names of celestial objects, names of mythological creatures, names and titles of various works, etc. Examples include the Internet, the Magna Carta, the Mona Lisa, the Qur'an, the Red Cross, the Titanic, and World War II.
Proposed text:
Place names
The names of countries, towns and cities meet the criteria for inclusion. Significant natural geographic features such as oceans and large deserts may also be included. Further guidance is contained in the Place Names Policy.
Names of specific entities
This section regulates the inclusion and exclusion of names of specific entities, that is, names of individual people, names of celestial objects, names of mythological creatures, names and titles of various works, etc. Examples include the Internet, the Magna Carta, the Mona Lisa, the Qur'an, the Red Cross, the Titanic, and World War II.
Support. John Cross (talk) 07:36, 21 January 2017 (UTC) (I would ask people who think this policy is imperfect to vote for it now and propose amendments later.)
Partial support. I support addition of the text labeled "Text for the new policy on place names", but into CFI; I oppose creation of a new separate policy page. I also oppose the proposed change to "Names of specific entities" section: place names are names of specific entities while the proposed change implies they are a separate group. On a minor note, I find the use of "Community" capitalized and in singular objectionable; it should be "editors" in plural, instead. On a further minor note, it would be better to say "The following place names meet the criteria for inclusion as long as they are attested", which would make the following sentence redundant: "This policy is not intended to remove or reduce the requirement to find citations to support entries.". Another minor note, "meet the criteria for inclusion" should better read "should be included": the sentence itself is criterion for inclusion. Therefore, I support the substance of the proposal. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:16, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Support but I feel kind of the opposite of Dan. CFI is already huge and detailed, so offloading some of it to separate pages may be good. —CodeCat12:44, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
CFI is not huge by any stretch; it is rather short with around 3500 words. My idea is that the reader should find all the inclusion criteria on one page. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:41, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Support By and large. It's not impossible that there will be some obscure administrative subdivision of the Elamite kingdom which doesn't really merit inclusion (I guess) but it's very common for a contemporary dictionary in English to have Alabama and provide an etymology, etc. Since we're not print, we can easily accommodate further place names such as Springfield or Eurasia. These are all part of language. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯16:15, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
I Support in principle. Uninhabited islands are tricky, as some may be inhabited (e.g. by research teams) occasionally. Even places in legends such as Lyonesse merit inclusion, but probably not the fictitious Waikikamukau in New Zealand. DonnanZ (talk) 09:51, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
If I'm not mistaken, this policy would actually increase the number of includable place names, so it would make more sense to support this vote as a step towards the policy of inclusion that you would prefer. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:40, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Andrew Sheedy is correct - part of the current critera for inclusion could be read as meaning that all place names belong on Wikipedia and none on Wiktionary. The proposed policy would add substantial protection for a large number of place names and document that there is not yet a consensus (one way or the other) for other types of place names. I would invite opponents to consider changing their votes in light of this clarification but they are obviously under no obligation to do so. John Cross (talk) 19:26, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Oppose I see I'm the odd one out here, but my preference would be to include only the most important place names, with criteria similar to what we require for brand names, and let readers go to wikipedia to learn about other places. JulieKahan (talk) 08:41, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
I would like to add that the etymologies of placenames can be very elucidating and can enrich our existing etymological data on Wiktionary; oftentimes placenames will preserve archaic elements that have been lost in the normal vocabulary. Blocking the inclusion of the majority of placenames would be to the detriment of Wiktionary's value as an etymological/onomastic resource. — Kleio (t · c) 11:35, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Oppose After rereading and rethinking the matter, I am switching to oppose. The vote proposal is predicated on the assumption that place names are somehow threatened under the current CFI. That is not so. The place name classes listed in the vote proposal are certainly not threatened. But many place names not singled out in the proposal are declared by the vote to lack consensus. For instance, as for lakes, only twenty largest lakes in the world seem to be secure. In its tone, the vote seems to be more exclusionist of place names than Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-05/Placenames with linguistic information 2 even though I have to admit that the vote does not really exclude anything; it only declares absence of consensus. The most important consideration in my decision to oppose is that we do not really need this listing in CFI; the mainspace showing examples of included placenames shows the common practice and provides the required regulation without rules. Furthermore, Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-05/Placenames with linguistic information 2 is in the list of references in CFI. --Dan Polansky (talk) 21:20, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Perhaps the text should be slightly amended to note that there is consensus to keep street names, etc. that are not readily deducible as such, per Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-05/Placenames with linguistic information 2, but the consensus of that vote was that a definition on its own was insufficient for a place name to merit inclusion. This vote removes the requirement that other elements be present, allowing for a greater number of toponyms than could be included previously. These things aside, there is in fact an absence of consensus on other things, hence their exclusion from the vote, so the vote is not inaccurate (as far as I am aware, anyway). It is implicit in the vote that things like street names and minor geographical features can be included if there is consensus to include them, so the vote is not limiting inclusion to the things it lists. Finally, you say that place names are not threatened under CFI. CFI states "Among those that do meet that requirement , many should be excluded while some should be included, but there is no agreement on precise, all-encompassing rules for deciding which are which." The "many should be excluded" implies that most do not merit inclusion, without giving any sort of idea of what falls in that "many" category. The "no agreement" clause is also not true if this vote passes, since it will mean there is finally some agreement on the subject. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:19, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
I believe there is consensus on many more place names than those singled out. Furthermore, "many should be excluded" refers e.g. to full names of individual people, many (not all) names of literary works, many (not all) names of battleships, etc. There already is certain agreement, as evidenced by the mainspace: common practice or common law, not statute singling out items. Note that the vote I referenced was annulled precisely because the requirement that other elements than definitions were to be present in place names was deemed too stringent. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:31, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Oppose I agree with Dan Polansky that this vote is kind of useless. All these placenames can already be included. In fact the new wording is a little ambiguous and could be misunderstood to be saying that placenames are exempt from attestation requirements (if that's what is actually meant, then I especially strongly oppose). --WikiTiki8920:44, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
The proposed policy does say: "This policy is not intended to remove or reduce the requirement to find citations to support entries." Does that allay any of your concerns re attestations? John Cross (talk) 17:52, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
It does. It would have been better if the policy were written more clearly to begin with. But still, I oppose for my first reason. --WikiTiki8916:11, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Oppose. All words in all languages. As long as it's attestable, non-SOP and the entry carries some linguistic information (pronunciation, gender, inflection, ...), it belongs here. No point in pondering whether a tiny pond on a village green somewhere in the sticks is "significant" enough. --Droigheann (talk) 23:22, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
Actually, I believe I overlooked something when I closed this vote almost one month ago. The place name policy passed, yes, but I failed to take into consideration @Dan Polansky's amendments. I just implemented the proposal as initially worded.
I believe this is the full list of Dan's amendments, but I'll say it using my own words:
Leave only the "Names of specific entities", don't create a separate section named "Place names".
The word "Community" should be "editors".
Add the "as long as they are attested" text at the end of this sentence: "The following place names meet the criteria for inclusion as long as they are attested".
The point above makes this redundant: "This policy is not intended to remove or reduce the requirement to find citations to support entries." So, it can be deleted, right?
The text "meet the criteria for inclusion" should read "should be included".
These four people supported implementing the amendments: @John Cross, @KIeio, @Angr and @Andrew Sheedy. (Dan Polansky himself eventually changed his vote to full "oppose", so I believe he is opposing the whole vote, amendments or not.)
I think these 4 support votes can probably be read as support for 2 separate proposals: "I support the vote as initially worded, and I support implementing Dan's amendments." This may be a little bit problematic because we don't know the position of everyone else who did not say anything about the amendments. Most people didn't say anything about the amendments, and @CodeCat kind of opposed the idea.
Still, it would be interesting if we were able to read the 4 support votes with this added twist: "I oppose this vote as initially worded, but I support it so long as Dan's amendments are implemented." I believe this would lead to a different result concerning whether to implement the amendments or not, but the place name policy itself undoubtedly passed no matter how you look at it.
Tell you what: I believe whether to implement the amendments is inconclusive based on this vote alone. If the amendments were a substantial policy change, maybe it would be best to create a 2nd vote. But if no one objects, based on my own unilateral judgement, I'm going to just implement the amendments anyway, just because they are minor cosmetic changes and look good, in my opinion.
I believe all these edits could be done or un-done without a vote anyway. I don't see any reason to create new votes just to merge or split a policy into different pages, or to implement a minor change in wording such as between "Community" and "editors", so long as actual regulations are not changed.
I (obviously) have no problem with you implementing the amendments, but note that I support the original proposal regardless of whether they are implemented or not. I just prefer their inclusion. Also, I Kleio and John clearly voted in support of it before Dan suggested anything. Only Angr's vote is ambiguous as to whether his support was conditional. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 11:04, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
You are correct. I believe this does not change what I said... Since I never said that anyone here certainly voted as "I oppose this vote as initially worded, but I support it so long as Dan's amendments are implemented." I'm sure you know that I just said that this would be an interesting interpretation.
Still, if Angr's vote was conditional (as you said, it's ambiguous, so it might or not be), then it would be enough to clearly affect the result of the vote concerning whether to implement the amendments... Because we would technically have only 13 supports for the original proposal, so we wouldn't be able to say that it "passed" in its entirety (i.e., "passed" without amendments). --Daniel Carrero (talk) 11:20, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
You may interpret my vote as "Support with or without Dan's amendments, but preferably with them". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:11, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
I would not object to the amendments. The main aim of proposing these changes was to provide clear and substantive protection to entries on place names in the written policy. In my view that was not previously the case - it may have been true in practice and it may have been implied by certain parts of the policy but it wasn't explicit in the policy. None of the changes would be contrary to that aim. John Cross (talk) 20:27, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
I agree with your comments in that last message. Thanks for creating this vote, by the way! :) IMO, it's good that the vote passed. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 20:47, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
Done. I implemented the amendments. Except I kept the "Place names" section in CFI because it's kinda large so I guess it wouldn't feel right to outright delete that heading, but I moved it to be a subsection of "Names of specific entities". --Daniel Carrero (talk) 00:39, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
Oppose Beobach972 18:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Support Williamsayers79 11:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Abstain EncycloPetey 05:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC) This vote doesn't seem to have thoroughly discussed or planned before it began. Less than 48 hours after it began, this section is already an unreadable mess. --EncycloPetey 05:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
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WT:BP#proper_names
Oppose 
Done. I implemented the amendments. Except I kept the "Place names" section in CFI because it's kinda large so I guess it wouldn't feel right to outright delete that heading, but I moved it to be a subsection of "Names of specific entities". --Daniel Carrero (talk) 00:39, 15 March 2017 (UTC)