Talk:Los Angeles County, California

I thought we had the discussion on places in the United States that we would include the state's name. I'd hate to see people start redirecting to non-disambiguated pages when there may BE a county with the same name in more than one state and they don't know about it. -- Zoe

We did, so I moved it. Most links were to LA County, California anyway. dml

The last time I read the discussion, the most-well-known-name clause did not exclude places in the United States, even if there were another much more obscure county of the same name in another state. --Brion

There was a specific vote on this very issue. The result of the vote was to preemptively disambiguate city names in the US. --mav

When did that vote take place? The only time I see anything about that subject in the votes as recorded on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (city names)/Archive 3 was on the precise format to use when disambiguation did occur "subject to the above determination" (which determination was in fact normal disambiguation, not preemptive). At least, that was certainly my interpretation at the time, and I've seen nothing official or semi-official in the results to contridict it. --Brion 20:19 Sep 2, 2002 (PDT)

Notice the word "all" in that vote. --mav

ALL the ones that are in fact disambiguated, ie the format is to be consistent when it is used. --Brion 20:40 Sep 2, 2002 (PDT)

"All cities in the United States are to be designated in the [City, State] format." I don't see the word "disambiguation" anywhere in there. There was also no overarching statement before that establishing the context of disambiguation. --mav

City, Nation format

Subject to the above determination, cities are to be disambiguated as [City, Nation] unless there is there is a more specific rule such as [City, State] applicable to its country.

[...]

United States

All cities in the United States are to be designated in the [City, State] format.

Notice how the "United States" section is a subsection of "City, Nation format", which starts out by saying that the entire section is subject to the above vote, which was about pre-emptive vs natural disambiguation. --Brion 20:57 Sep 2, 2002 (PDT)

Whew, mav, you've got me confused. What does "preemptively disambiguate" mean? :-) -- Zoe

It means that all cities in the US are to be in the [City, State] format. --mav

You know, pants (clothing), Internet (computing), United States (country)... Just to be sure. ;) --Brion

Those are not at all natural disambiguators. Furthermore there was no vote on disambiguating those things. [Los Angeles, California] is perfectly natural and widely used. I know you are just kidding though. --mav

Look at what links to Los Angeles, California and tell me which is the most widely used. --Brion

That's the beauty of redirects -- they are there for convenience. --mav

Which is exactly why Los Angeles can live at Los Angeles, while the more awkward Los Angeles, California can redirect to it. --Brion

- ::::::Should we redirect New Orleans, Louisiana to New Orleans? San Francisco, California to San Francisco? Boston, Massachusetts to Boston? -- Zoe

Yes, yes, and yes. --Brion

Well, when I tried to get movie names changed to "Name" (year) instead of "Name" (year movie), Maveric took it to the list for a vote. But this has already been voted on, so does that mean it needs to be brought up again? -- Zoe

It just was brought up, and I got shouted down. (YEAR movie) stays where it is needed. --mav

Right, mav, I wasn't trying to complain otherwise, just suggesting that if Brion feels strongly enough, we could vote again. -- Zoe

But this is counter to what was voted on Brion. --mav

Mav, that's exactly what I saw voted for. Everything you've cited at me so far supports my contention. --Brion

Gotta live with the vote, Brion.  :-) -- Zoe

I agree 100%, Zoe. Unfortunately, Mav's interpretation of what the vote was about appears to somehow be the polar opposite of mine. If I had realized he was that misguided at the time, I would have spoken up then. --Brion

Eh, Mav, it was definitely NOT decided to disambiguate all US cities with [City, State], but only when necessary (i.e. normal disambiguation rules) as Brion is already pointing out. Of course, it is necessary in the cases of f.e. Los Angeles and San Francisco, since there are some other towns or hamlets that happen to have the same name. However, there's only one New Orleans, so that article can happily live at New Orleans.

As for redirects: I'd say Los Angeles is pretty much THE Los Angeles, same for San Francisco. So they should be at Los Angeles and San Francisco, with a block-format disambiguation at the top. Jeronimo