Forum:Standardization of place names and categories


 * Okay, before this gets out of control we need to address something. We have pages and categories for places in which the names are not consistent country-by-county and even within countries. I am going to gather previous discussions, combine them, and address more issues.

Place/category names problems
In regards to place names for articles and categories. Please ignore whether or not the actual articles or categories exist.

Regarding articles, we have the basic continents:
 * North America (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * South America (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Australia (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Europe (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Asia (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Africa (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Antarctica (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)

We also have country articles and categories:
 * Untied States (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Australia (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * England (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * New Zealand (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)

We also have several divisions of country articles and categories:
 * New York (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Pennsylvania (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Georgia (U.S. states) (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * New South Wales (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * North Yorkshire (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Västmanland (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Gotland (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Gelderland (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Baden-Württemberg (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)

and the thousand of others...

New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, New South Wales, and Baden-Württemberg are states, North Yorkshire is a county, Gotland and Gelderland are provinces. Thus, all countries are subdivided differently.

Another problem is inconsistancy:
 * Chautauqua County, New York - specifies county and state (does not specify the country the United States.)
 * Meddo - specifies hamlet (does not specify the muncipality of Winterswijk, the province or Gelderland, and the country of the Netherlands.)

These are just two of the many examples I could give. Also, a too simplified of a name would not account for the many duplication of places names. Examples:


 * Georgia is a country as well as a U.S. state
 * Winterswijk is a town within the muncipality of Winterswijk.

Solution
Use country name in place name

We'll use our examples from before:

Instead of using these:
 * New York (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Pennsylvania (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Georgia (U.S. states) (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * New South Wales (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * North Yorkshire (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Västmanland (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Gotland (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Gelderland (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Baden-Württemberg (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)

We should use these:


 * New York, United States (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Pennsylvania, United States (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Georgia, United States (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * New South Wales, Australia (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * North Yorkshire, England (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Västmanland, Sweden (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Gotland, Sweden (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Gelderland, Netherlands (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Baden-Württemberg, Germany (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)

Then we can go on to use:
 * Chautauqua County, New York, United States (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Bacon County, Georgia, United States (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Hambleton, North Yorkshire, England (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Västmanland County, Västmanland, Sweden (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Visby, Gotland, Sweden (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Winterswijk, Gelderland, Netherlands (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)
 * Heidenheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany (Born in..., Died in..., Married in..., etc.)

There. That solves the inconsitancy problem and the duplicate place names problem. Too long of a name? No problem. We have redirects. We can make disambiguations.

Info page parameters
Like I said before. There are countries, states, provinces, districts, muncipalities, counties, towns, cities, villages, hamlets, townships, etc.

I once proposed this and I think it needs to be the standard.

So, the problem we currently have is we only use town, county, and state, in which not all countries are divided.
 * Birth town      =
 * Birth county    =
 * Birth state     =

Thus, the better info page parameters are: That way it can apply to all places generally. If the place actually uses "County" or something like that in it's place, it will be put there like such: Which gets us down to the township. And perhaps a more detailed division: Which subcategorizes at the township level. Of course, townships may infact have so little of a population, that dividing them up may be unnecessary.
 * Birth country subdiv3 =
 * Birth country subdiv2 =
 * Birth country subdiv1 =
 * Birth country        =
 * Birth country subdiv3 = Ellery
 * Birth country subdiv2 = Chautauqua County
 * Birth country subdiv1 = New York
 * Birth country        = United States
 * Birth country subdiv4 = Byrnsdale
 * Birth country subdiv3 = Jay
 * Birth country subdiv2 = Elk County
 * Birth country subdiv1 = Pennsylvania
 * Birth country        = United States

Forums/location templates/info pages
If all the above are applied, I can make one forum template, one location template, and oen infobox template in which we can apply to any location and any subdivision.

Conclusion
If all my proposals are followed, we would be better organized, consistant, and less confused.

What I meant earlier by out of control is that we need to address this at 4,300 info pages and not 100,000 info pages as well as an enormous amount of place pages. - AMK152 (talk • contribs) 16:54, 6 April 2009 (UTC)