Germany has its own official disambiguation system for place names which is used e.g. on road signs and official publications. Mostly they disambiguate by river name, region or district, often in brackets or with a slash. Examples include: Frankfurt (Oder), Frankfurt am Main, Oldendorf (Holstein), Oldendorf (Landkreis Stade), Aschendorf/Ems, Borsum (Harsum), etc.

Rather than invent our own system, my proposal is that we adopt this as the convention for Germany with a couple of caveats:

• We don't use disambiguation unless there are 2 articles of the same name (i.e. only disambiguate if we have to).
• We drop the German words for district (Landkreis) or parish (Gemeinde) where they appear. E.g. Oldendorf (Landkreis Stade) becomes Oldendorf (Stade).

--(WT-en) SaxonWarrior 16:35, 6 May 2011 (EDT)

As there appears to be no objection, I propose to include something on the lines of the above in the convention shortly. --(WT-en) SaxonWarrior 10:03, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

There doesn't need to be a special convention for separate countries. These rules apply for all countries. --Globe-trotter (talk) 19:00, 13 October 2012 (CEST)

Uh? What do you mean, Globe-trotter?

SaxonWarrior is proposing that we adopt the official disambiguation system of Germany for Germany but dropping the German words for district (Landkreis) or parish (Gemeinde)

How the heck can those specifically German proposals apply to "all countries" ?

Do you actually object to SaxonWarrior's specific and precise proposals? --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 19:53, 13 October 2012 (CEST)

I meant we don't need a separate system for Germany. The current way of disambiguating pages works fine for all countries. Just because its the official disambiguation system of Germany, doesn't mean we'd have to adopt it. --Globe-trotter (talk) 21:29, 13 October 2012 (CEST)

As discussed at Talk:Northeast#North East vs. North-East vs. Northeast, there are a ton of articles named "North East," "South West," etc., which should be renamed to Northeast, Southwest, etc. Are there any instances in which this renaming would not be appropriate? --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 02:01, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

• North East (Pennsylvania) is one example, though it's still a redlink -- it's a town actually named "North East". I would also imagine anything of the form "West South Carolina" or "North East Timor" should be left alone, though I don't know if any such instances exist. (WT-en) LtPowers 10:26, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

"Northwest" in the English language is only common in North America. "North west" and "North-west" are more common in the United Kingdom (e.g. North West England), Australia (e.g. Mid West and India (e.g. North-Eastern India). --(WT-en) Globe-trotter 13:16, 8 December 2011 (EST)

Agree with (WT-en) Globe-trotter. Northwest looks odd to my eyes. --(WT-en) Inas 14:22, 8 December 2011 (EST)

Swept in from the pub.

What are thoughts on using the Hawaiian or English spelling of names, when the names only differ by the use of the okina (ʻ) and kahakō (āēīōū)? E.g. Hawaiʻi or Hawaii, Oʻahu or Oahu, Kalākaua or Kalakaua?

Obvious options:

1. Use only the English spellings.
2. Use the Hawaiian spelling the first time a name is mentioned, then switch to the English spelling without comment.
3. Treat it like any other foreign language, and introduce the Hawaiian spelling in a parenthetical note.
4. Just give names in Hawaiian exclusively.

(I imagine this could apply with other pairs of languages where words differ only by accent marks... heck, even Japan could benefit from this, with Tōkyō or Tokyo.)

--(WT-en) BigPeteB 12:13, 7 December 2011 (EST)

Hi - have a look at Project:Article naming conventions/Accented characters for a similar discussion. I think the general consensus is that if the city/town has a common English name, then the English name should be used. Including the local name as well within the article is always okay. So Hawaii is always Hawaii, and Oahu is always Oahu. If there is no English name, we don't try to anglicise (effectively misspell) a local name. There are borderline cases like Malmö where it isn't clear (at least to me) whether using Malmo is a misspelling or an English spelling. We have redirects to help anyway, and we're probably always going to have problems in the edge cases. --(WT-en) Inas 17:13, 7 December 2011 (EST)

I was referring more to the article text, and not the page name, so I think that discussion only applies tangentially.

So to rephrase my question: within an article, what's the preferred way to handle English vs native or romanized names when the only difference is "accented" characters? --(WT-en) BigPeteB 10:04, 8 December 2011 (EST)

Use the same naming as used in the title. Else it would be confusing. --(WT-en) Globe-trotter 11:50, 8 December 2011 (EST)

Still doesn't answer my question 100%... what about names of streets, buildings, businesses, etc. (things that don't get their own articles)? The physical street signs in Hawaii read "Kalākaua Avenue" and "Liliʻuokalani Avenue", so do we write it like that when giving the address for a business, or do we strip the funny characters? --(WT-en) BigPeteB 12:03, 8 December 2011 (EST)

Same rule applies. If there is an English spelling, or clearly a commonly used anglicised names, use it (giving the Hawaiian alternative if you like). If there isn't a common anglicised name use the Hawaiian name. Whenever you are using Hawaiian names include the appropriate diacritics, accents, etc, for the language you are using. There will probably be examples with some names where you can't be sure whether there is actually an English name or whether it is just a Hawaiian name where perhaps the diacritics are commonly omitted. These are the edge cases, so use your best judgement. --(WT-en) Inas 14:17, 8 December 2011 (EST)

Actually, now that I do my own legwork, I have to say that what you describe doesn't seem to match with what people are doing. Łódź is repeatedly written "Łódź" in its article, São Paulo is repeatedly written as "São Paulo", and Malmö is repeatedly written as "Malmö". (None are 100% consistent, but it's a wiki.) The Hawaiian government's site consistently uses the Hawaiian spellings throughout. So I don't see why, within the article text, we shouldn't follow suit, particularly since that seems to be what we've been doing anyway in other articles. I don't see why there's a need to be imperialist about preferring "English" spellings when the native versions also use Roman letters. --(WT-en) BigPeteB 15:46, 8 December 2011 (EST)

It all does make sense though. Project:Naming conventions have it all spelled out. The article names of Łódź, São Paulo and Malmö use diacritics because there is either no English name available without diacritics (Łódź, Malmö), or because multiple names are used in English and then the local name is preferred (São Paulo). In the case of Hawaii, only Hawaii is used in the English language. Hawaiʻi is Hawaiian. If we'd use Hawaiʻi as an article name, that would would mean we'd have to call the German article Deutschland, which wouldn't make sense. --(WT-en) Globe-trotter 16:26, 8 December 2011 (EST)

(Once again, I'm not talking about article names; I'm only talking about the body of the article.) Somehow you read the same page I did and got exactly the opposite answer. The state government's pages do read "State of Hawaiʻi" and "County of Oʻahu", so clearly they prefer the Hawaiian names. According to Project:Naming conventions and your own words, if there are multiple names, the local name is preferred. And according to Project:Naming conventions, we should use Roman letters "with or without accents/diacritics". The local government's preference is for Hawaiian names with diacritics, so once again I assert that that choice fits all the criteria I've been told. --(WT-en) BigPeteB 17:23, 8 December 2011 (EST)

(Re-indenting) Local names are not preferred, English names are. When there is an English name available for a place, it should be used. Else we would have to rename Germany to Deutschland. I interpret current policy this way:

• Sao Paulo and São Paulo are both used in English. São Paulo is also used in the local language, thus it is preferred.
• Hawaii is used in English. Hawaiʻi is not used in English, it is only used in Hawaiian. Thus the English name is preferred. --(WT-en) Globe-trotter 19:17, 8 December 2011 (EST)

Agree with (WT-en) Globe-trotter. You can see the discussions that led to Sao Paulo at Talk:São_Paulo#.22Sao_Paulo.22_or_.22S.C3.A3o_Paulo.22.3F, and personally I think the policy was hacked to accommodate it. I don't think it would extend as far as incorporating Hawaiʻi or Oʻahu where Hawaii and Oahu are clearly the most common English word, which is the essence of our policy everywhere. --(WT-en) Inas 21:45, 8 December 2011 (EST)

Okay... I guess I got thrown for a major loop by the other articles that seem to also break the rules. In my mind, "São Paulo" isn't English because "ã" isn't a letter in English... so it's just using the native name and spelling, and calling it English. (Similarly, "Wooj" would be valid English, "Lodz" could maybe be English but would be very confusing given how it's pronounced, but "Łódź" is just Polish.) So, I'll stick with the unaccented names of Hawaiian places and treat the Hawaiian names like any other foreign language. --(WT-en) BigPeteB 11:43, 9 December 2011 (EST)

P.S. Thanks for taking the time to explain this to me, y'all. :-)

Frankly, I think Sao Paulo is misplaced here, as the tilde is unfamiliar to most English speakers, but several English-language sources have started using it, including the New York Times and the Guardian. I wouldn't be surprised if the okina started being used in English-language sources in similar proportions in the near future, but it's not there yet. (WT-en) LtPowers 13:40, 9 December 2011 (EST)

Agreed that Sao Paulo in reality is probably best without diacritics, since English doesn't use it (although I have also noticed a recent surge of using Spanish/Portuguese diacritics in English). I think it's strange that people are afraid to use English in the English Wikivoyage. I guess it's an extension of "political correctness" that has everyone worried that it's somehow "offensive" for us to use English in an English website. I think the above comment, "I don't see why there's a need to be imperialist about preferring "English" spellings" shows that attitude well. Is it really Imperialistic to use English spellings on an English-version website??

To me, English is simply more accessible and less initimadating to English-speakers (for obvious reasons) therefore, I would mostly prefer that we use English and have the native language in parenthesis beside site names, like we do in Japanese/Chinese/etc. This is however, a minority opinion on Wikivoyage (either that or there is a very silent majority). (WT-en) ChubbyWimbus 09:22, 12 December 2011 (EST)

The most common english name is well established and documented policy. I'm sure there are strong arguments for using local languages and variants within articles, but it is really up to those who think that to build a consensus for change, and not to just introduce those variants through lack of objection individual cases. --(WT-en) Inas 15:36, 12 December 2011 (EST)

Regarding the specific example of "Sao Paolo" vs "São Paulo", see Project:Article naming conventions#Examples. Project:Article naming conventions#Latin Characters has a long discussion about the reasoning behind those guidelines. If this discussion is about changing that policy (and it seems like it's heading there), could it be moved to Project:Article naming conventions? It's generally best to have policy discussions on the appropriate policy talk page. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 15:48, 12 December 2011 (EST)

I think Big Pete was asking about how to spell names within articles anyway. =) (WT-en) LtPowers 18:24, 12 December 2011 (EST)

I hate to beat a dead horse, but I just got back from a week in Hawaii and I've been rethinking this based on my observations:

The biggest problem I have with the "English names are preferred" argument is that that isn't what locals do when they talk. If I ask locals about a cloth skirt, they'll call it a "muʻumuʻu" (4 syllables), not a "muumuu" (2 syllables, and is a real Hawaiian word that means either "footsteps" or "silent, mum"). If I ask how to get to Ala Moana Center, they'll tell me to turn on Piʻikoi Street (3 syllables) even though the road sign reads "Piikoi Street" (2 syllables, if you pronounced it as written).

So, unless someone has an equally convincing argument otherwise, I think that because the traveler comes first, the Hawaii articles should just use Hawaiian names for things, because if we write "a cloth skirt called a muumuu (muʻumuʻu)", that reads like it's correct to pronounce it "moo-moo", and it just isn't. You may be understood, but you'll be just as wrong as if you pronounce Łódź like "lods" instead of "wooj"... why leave any room for confusion, when you could just write "Łódź" and be done with it? --(WT-en) BigPeteB 16:43, 27 December 2011 (EST)

The English pronunciation of "muumuu" is indeed "moo-moo", so it's not incorrect at all. Hawaii is not a foreign country; everyone there understands English, and there's no reason to avoid using English words just because there are Hawaiian equivalents. (And I don't think proper nouns cause the problem you fear; I would never pronounce "Piikoi" as two syllables any more than I would try to pronounce "Hawaii" with just two syllables, okina or no okina.) (WT-en) LtPowers 21:42, 27 December 2011 (EST)

Proper nouns is mostly what I'm stuck on... unless you've been told in advance, how would you know to pronounce "Piikoi" as 3 syllables? Ditto for "Hawaii"? --(WT-en) BigPeteB 23:58, 27 December 2011 (EST)

Whew, a lot of confusion here. I'm going to try and spruce up Project:Naming conventions, since it's clearly unclear!

Quickly:

1. The article was moved away from Wikivoyage:Article naming conventions to emphasize that it is for all naming, not just article naming, so spellings should be consistent everywhere.
2. If in doubt, the default is local naming conventions, so you would write Piʻikoi St.
3. Accent marks and diacritics are part of the Roman alphabet, and are perfectly acceptable in English prose.
4. Names such as "Hawaii" and "Oahu" are so commonly spelled without the ʻ, that we should omit it. Aside, perhaps, from a pronunciation explanation next to the article title.

Hopefully this clears things up at all? --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 19:45, 29 December 2011 (EST)

per http://en.wikivoyage.org/w/index.php?title=Wikivoyage:Naming_conventions&oldid=1892031#Article_naming, why the heck are we using Bogotá as our article title? --W. Frank^e-mail_talk 18:44, 28 September 2012 (CEST)

Because both Bogota and Bogotá are used in English. Thus, the following rule applies: "For destinations where multiple names or spellings are in use and there isn't an obviously correct English name, the title should be the most commonly-used name in the local language." --Globe-trotter (talk) 19:00, 28 September 2012 (CEST)

Fair enough. I hadn't realised US English was so progressive. That Spanish form of Bogotá is rare in Commonwealth English. -- 89.242.187.211 W. Frank^e-mail_talk 22:44, 28 September 2012 (CEST)

It isn't. Bagota is clearly the overwhelmingly most common English name. This rule should only kick in where there isn't a common English name. --Inas (talk) 23:12, 28 September 2012 (CEST)

Encyclopaedia Britannica , Merriam-Webster , Oxford Dictionary and Dictionary.com disagree. I'm sure many sources use Bogota, but Bogotá is also used, so the rule applies. --Globe-trotter (talk) 23:57, 28 September 2012 (CEST)

Bogotá and Bogota aren't even different names. To me, using the diacritic seems thoroughly uncontroversial based on English-language sources I encounter (in the U.S.—I'm not counting stuff I read... in Bogotá), and also based on this policy. Our naming policy does have a bit of an internationally-minded bias, but shouldn't we have an internationally-minded bias? --Peter ^Talk 01:45, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

I'm not a fan of the rule. On a PC I can work around it, but when I'm using WV on a cell phone the diacritic is a problem. As long as there's a redirect I can get to the page, otherwise it's go through all the regions. On a third party application like Wikisherpa, the redirects aren't picked up so I can't directly access a page with a diacritic in the name. I'd personally prefer more functionality than international-mindedness. -Shaund (talk) 04:25, 29 September 2012 (CEST)

Policy has always been to use the common English name. I'd say that means quite a few articles that currently have names with diacritics should be moved to names without. Examples include Bogota, Cracow, Dusseldorf and non-diacritic cases like Moluccas. We have a policy and should either stick to it or start a discussion aimed at changing it (I would oppose), but we should not be overruling it on a case-by-case basis without really excellent reasons. I see none in any of those cases, though reasons have been argued on some of the talk pages. Pashley (talk) 21:21, 23 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

I totally disagree on eliminating umlauts from German place names, but if people insist on doing so, you have to use Duesseldorf, not Dusseldorf. The first version is a perfectly acceptable alternate spelling of Düsseldorf, whereas the second version means "Fool Village." For the record, I like all the accents and diacritics because that's what travelers will see when they visit, they're also useful search terms for web searches, and if the spelling is otherwise the same or pretty much the same as we normally or often use in English, where's the down side? Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:32, 23 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Re: Pashley, in cases where there isn't a "most common English name" then policy is to use the name that is in local use - see Wikivoyage:Naming conventions#Examples for some examples. "Bogota" does not appear to be significantly more popular than "Bogotá" when doing an English-language search, thus the local version is preferred, but a redirect exists for the non-diacritic version. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:41, 23 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Here]'s an Ngram of Google Books results for the two spellings. "Bogota" seems significantly more common, even in recent works, although there may be some false positives in there due to OCR errors. Powers ^(talk) 00:13, 24 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Agreed. There is a push among some and on WP to use the diacritics which rather than reflecting reality will be more likely to influence it, but Bogota has always been the very clear and well-established English way of writing the name. It should be our page name. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 04:54, 24 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

I'm redirecting Wikivoyage:Why Wikivoyage doesn't use official names to here as part of our drive to rationalize our policies. The below was too long to copy over, but I wanted to preserve these nuggets (all written by Evan) on the talk page in case someone wants to reference them later. --Peter ^Talk 05:07, 22 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

There are some common objections to using the most common English name rather than the official name (or some other scheme). These are some of them.

The official name is the correct name. We should be correct.

There is not, actually, any single body or organization that sets rules for the English language (unlike French and some others). Usage dictates what's "correct" in English.

In addition, "official" names are often in conflict. The official name used by a local government isn't necessarily the same as the one used by the English, Australian, American, or Canadian governments, and all of them may differ from the official name used by dictionaries, the United Nations, cataloging systems like the AACR2, or others. Which "official" is really "official"?

It's offensive to local people to use an older or unofficial name.

This may be the case, and it's regrettable. But those local people are also being offended by the majority of English speakers. We don't use the oldest or most offensive name -- just the one in most common use.

It's important to be respectful to locals, but the traveller comes first on Wikivoyage. If travellers can't find the article about a place, they won't be able to be respectful in person, anyways. It's better to have some information about the politics of naming in the article itself, rather than in the article title.

Using old names makes Wikivoyage look "behind the times."

In point of fact, using the most common English name for a destination puts us solidly in the times. We run with the pack; neither ahead nor behind.

We have a responsibility to teach travellers the right names.

This is a fairly convincing argument. However, it presumes we have one single idea of what the "right" name for a place is. If a name is disputed, or two different groups use two different names for the same place, which side should we fall on? Which one is "right"?

It's good for Wikivoyage to convey information to travellers, but it's probably counterproductive to try to indoctrinate them in one or another political or philosophical view. We try to keep as neutral a presentation as possible, while keeping a firm focus on the traveller's interests, and choosing one side or another in a naming debate doesn't seem really all that neutral.

1. Was there a discussion about this merge somewhere that I missed? I think it is a good move, but didn't see any discussion. If it was a plunge forward I have no objections. Reducing the number of marginally different policy pages should make things easier for all.
2. Is there an intention to rename the page to Article naming conventions? • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:14, 22 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

1. The discussion was here, but I obviously went ahead and plunged quite quickly—I figured no one would object, and they can just revert if they do.
2. See #Policy article title—that was the old name. --Peter ^Talk 07:18, 22 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I see. No worries, I think it is an improvement. The shortcut is a little confusing though. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:16, 22 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Is there a reason why our naming convention is against capitalizing itineraries which essentially are given names that are titles? The example in this article, "Discount airlines in X" is preferred over the more-attractive "Discount Airlines in X". The article "Rail travel in Canada" is actually what made me come here. It looks like it should be corrected but is apparently correct under our current rules. Why do we write titles as if they were sentences? ChubbyWimbus (talk) 17:35, 17 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Same reason we use sentence case for section headings. And that, I presume, is mainly because that's what Wikipedia does. =) LtPowers (talk) 00:42, 18 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I know it's nitpicky and perhaps just a personal pet-peeve, but do you think it would be possible to capitalize the titles without starting one of those endless debates everyone loves/hates so much? lol ChubbyWimbus (talk) 14:59, 18 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

It's a big change; you'd have to make a strong case in favor. LtPowers (talk) 16:06, 18 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

Sounds like a "No", as I suspected. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 17:06, 18 May 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'd definitely say "No". This is just a personal preference; either title case or sentence case could be used according to various style guides. Pashley (talk) 17:40, 15 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

As a new WikiVoyage user, I'm confused as why WikiVoyage didn't inherit (use) the article naming conventions of Wikipedia instead of reinventing the wheel. They've been working on these things long before I started editing Wikipedia and before WikiVoyage was created. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names) for reference. Sbmeirow (talk) 08:20, 10 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

We "inherited" our naming conventions from Wikitravel, which is where most of us contributed before late 2012. We brought our content and policies over here with us when we joined Wikivoyage. So our naming conventions date back to the 2004-06 time frame, a time when even Wikipedia's conventions were still in flux. And of course, a travel guide is different from an encyclopedia and has different needs, so it makes sense that some policy details would be different. That said, I think the main point of difference between the two policies regards disambiguation; do you see any other significant points on which they differ? Powers ^(talk) 14:32, 10 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

There is some discussion at Wikivoyage talk:Search Expedition#Naming scheme.3F of the notion of replacing, for example "Phoenix (Arizona)" with "Phoenix, Arizona". There appears to be a consensus, though not unanimity, that this might be a good idea.

Opinions here? Pashley (talk) 00:17, 24 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

I see majority support from a relatively small number of people, not a consensus. I will repeat what I posted in the linked thread: I'm fine with using "Phoenix, Arizona" if there's another Phoenix somewhat else in the world and the name of the state is needed for disambiguation. I am not OK with including the US state in the name of every US city, town, and village and not including the province, Land, departement, Daerah, and Oblast in the name of every city, town and village in places like Canada, Germany, France, Malaysia, and Russia, nor do I believe it's a good idea to thus lengthen every name. But if the question is only on using commas instead of parentheses in disambiguated place names, I would have the following question: Is it worth the trouble to rename all those places? But I wouldn't oppose that, if that's the sum total of the proposal. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:45, 24 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

I'd want to see some evidence that there will be any salutary effect on our search rankings before undertaking such a major change. Powers ^(talk) 20:02, 24 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

I don't really see a consensus there either, and I agree with Ikan in opposition to doing it across the board to every place regardless of whether it needs dismbiguation. And if it is just the disambig items we're talking about, I'm with LtPowers too: I'd want proof first that it would make a significant difference. Otherwise I don't see any reason for a change at all. Texugo (talk) 20:16, 24 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

As noted in the previous thread, I think changing our disambiguation from "City (State/Country)" to "City, State/Country" (and only using parentheses when additional disambiguation is needed) is more logical and has benefits for making us consistent with other projects, and thus making it easier for people from other project to transition here, but I don't think there will be noticeable SEO benefits. I'm a weak support for making the change - if enough people want to see this change implemented then it probably wouldn't be terribly difficult to create a bot to make it happen. -- Ryan • (talk) • 22:05, 24 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

Let it be said I strongly support the comma convention on Wikipedia, as I would here had it been that way from the start. But I wasn't aware it was common across all projects. And even if it is, it's hardly a barrier to entry for newbies. Powers ^(talk) 00:03, 25 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

If we did do this, would it apply only to cities? Or would it affect regions too? If so, how would it affect Chaco, for example, where there are multiple hierarchical levels in more than one country ? Currently there are Chaco (Argentina), a region article,; Chaco (province), a province within that Argentinian region; and Chaco (Paraguay), another region article. There are also lots and lots of direction-based regions like "North (country/state/region)", which could not be changed systematically. Texugo (talk) 11:48, 25 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

My understanding is that we would use commas for state/country (even for regions, following the example of w:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Disambiguation) and parentheses for additional disambiguation, so Chaco (province) stays as-is but Chaco (Argentina) becomes Chaco, Argentina. Something like Córdoba (city, Argentina) would become Córdoba, Argentina (city). -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:08, 25 February 2014 (UTC)Reply

My thoughts are:

• in place/region disambigs, convert brackets to commas, e.g. change Wendover (Utah) to Wendover, Utah since that is consistent with both WP & Commons practice. Bracketed versions should be deleted, not redirected.
• keep existing practices of having main article at e.g. Phoenix when the name is unique or London when one instance is hugely important, but encourage redirects from e.g. Phoenix, Arizona and London, England because those help both search & SEO
• develop some sort of policy or advice for why the examples above are preferred over "Phoenix, USA", "London, Home Counties", etc.
• allow optional extra redirects like Phoenix, AZ since those also help both search & SEO. Adding them should not be considered important, though
• delete all incorrectly formatted redirects, "Phoenix Arizona", Phoenix, az", etc. These are just clutter

Does anyone object to any of that? Any volunteers to write a bot? Pashley (talk) 21:08, 23 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

I remain a weak support for the original proposal, but if it is adopted we should definitely, absolutely, 100% not adopt the first bullet point that "Bracketed versions should be deleted, not redirected". Not creating redirects for old article names would cause us to lose all existing SEO value for the current articles, would break any incoming links, and would set us back significantly from an SEO standpoint. -- Ryan • (talk) • 21:14, 23 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Before any changes are made, some evidence should be provided that shows how these changes will actually benefit SEO. If such evidence can be produced, I would support this policy change as long as it's worldwide, not US-centric like Wikipedia's policy. And I thoroughly disagree with this:

• delete all incorrectly formatted redirects, "Phoenix Arizona", Phoenix, az", etc. These are just clutter

There is no harm and only possible benefit from redirecting such search terms. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:18, 23 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Ryan is correct about not deleting the bracketed forms; I had not considered incoming links. I think the argument for keeping mispellings, bad capitalisation, etc. is far weaker but I could live with that too. Pashley (talk) 21:47, 23 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

I would support Ryan's alternative. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:11, 24 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Am I correct in thinking that what is proposed would only apply to titles with more than 1 identically named place, i.e. not unique? Texugo (talk) 14:21, 24 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

I don't see any point in disambiguating the unambiguous. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:11, 25 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Is there any specific policy regarding T-comma and S-comma versus cedilla? The Romanian language doesn't have cedilla, officially. It was long used however in digital texts, as common computer fonts were not compatible. This issue seems to have been resolved in recent years for many systems, but maybe not all. Our Romanian articles seem to use both now. Any thoughts? JuliasTravels (talk) 14:40, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

The correct characters to be used in Romanian language are t-comma and s-comma. I don't think I've seen them misrendered in the last decade or so. Also, all Romanian keyboards should produce these characters these days. IonutBizau (talk) 14:53, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Best to use the correct orthography when using the local spelling of place-names. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:01, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Also keep in mind that en.voy frowns on using diacritics at all, except when absolutely necessary. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 15:06, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

I didn't know that. Where is that discussion? Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:12, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

And how is "necessary" defined? For example in Polish names, where that l with a line through it is pronounced like our "w," I think it's clearly necessary. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:13, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Any pointers to that rule? I wonder which diacritics are "unnecessary". ș is a totally different letter from s. Seems a bit random to me to disallow correct spelling for certain languages just because they have non-english letters IonutBizau (talk) 15:22, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

I agree. This isn't a question of using Chinese characters or Cyrillic letters: This is the extended Roman alphabet we're talking about. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:42, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

My mistake, I hadn't had my coffee yet. :) Apparently that rule only applies to article titles. See Wikivoyage talk:Foreign words#Pronunciation Help for the discussion I misremembered. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 15:50, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

More so, it seem to be about diacritics in romanization of languages written with other alphabets. So I think we have a consensus here: Always go with the correct spelling using diacritics. IonutBizau (talk) 16:00, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

[Edit conflict]That discussion is about transliteration from Japanese (and on a tangent, Korean). I don't see the direct relevance: "for non-Latin scripts in general and Japanese in particular, use of diacritics is essential in pronunciation guides, but adds little to negative value in article titles due to the broken link problem." My only concern would be the mention of a broken-link problem. Is that relevant? Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:03, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

I don't see a consensus on anything yet. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:03, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

The technical issue is the main concern indeed. We should obviously strive to use correct diacritics where-ever we use them. I don't think anyone disagrees with that in principle. Apparently however, the use of cedilla instead of comma was necessary in the past to avoid issues in rendering. The question now is: does that problem still exist, or can we safely switch to t-comma spellings? Even big sister Wikipedia doesn't seem to have addressed the issue: both forms are used in Romanian topics, even within the same article. It would be good if we could come to a consistent practice. If at all possible, that should be t-comma. JuliasTravels (talk) 16:42, 15 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

(indent) The main rule "against" diacritics is that if an English name exists, it must be given preference over local names, because this is specifically an English-language site. There are other reasons to avoid them, but using English is the a rule above all others when such a name exists. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 13:09, 16 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Yes, those are clear cases. There is however no common "English" name without diacritics in most of these Romanian cases. Just using leaving out the diacritics would also give a misleading sense of pronunciation. It's rather a comparison with places like São Paulo, where we also use the diacritics. It's really only a question of which diacritic. If no-one has reason to believe the t-comma will still create rendering problems, we can safely move towards the correct and common spelling. JuliasTravels (talk) 13:43, 16 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Sao Paulo is a bad example, because the diacritic was unilaterally changed by a user after consensus to NOT use it was reached. What happened there was a user gone awry and unnoticed (at least by admin who are the only ones that could change it since the user had made the non-diacritic name into a redirect). Incidentally, I looked up Romanian cities and could not find any that used the T-Comma (it was a Wikipedia search, but still). ChubbyWimbus (talk) 12:04, 17 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

In any case, this whole question started when user IonutBizau changed Oravița. The issue applies for t-comma and s-comma alike. Examples include Crișana, Hațeg, Reșița etc. JuliasTravels (talk) 20:22, 17 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Personally I tend to find diacritics to be "not English", since they're not and generally prefer to just drop them, Crisana, Hateg, Resita. In doing searches, the diacritic is only used on Wikipedia; not other English-language sites. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 08:15, 18 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Dropping the comma in a S is like dropping the h in an SH in English. Why would anyone do that - randomly changing letters in a word of a language they don't know? Sure, if an English name exists, that should be used - for example we use Bucharest instead of București - but Romanian cities don't generally have English names (they have German or Hungarian names). Anyway, I don't think the question was even about dropping the diacritics, but about which ones to use - ș vs. ş, ț vs. ţ. I wish more Romanian people would reply, otherwise the discussion is really just wild guessing IonutBizau (talk) 08:27, 18 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

@JuliasTravels: Barring any input from actual Romanian speakers/readers, I would suggest just going with whatever is at the Romanian Wikipedia. We should probably reserve page titles for standard English alphabet titles (Istanbul rather than İstanbul) but it's worth mentioning the native name in the native script once. If you're going to do that, there's no real sense in choosing a version of the diacritic that you know is inaccurate. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:24, 18 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

I would prefer the "right" spelling, i.e. with diacritics when there is no English name. For those that are interested in the local language they do serve a function. With redirects – and those could be used very much more liberally – having a title that is difficult to type is no big deal. But as European, with a mother tongue other than English, I may be biased. --LPfi (talk) 11:57, 18 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Sure, Istanbul is with an I because that's how it's called in English. For the same reason wikipedia says Prague rather than Praha. But if you look at places that don't have an established English name, wikipedia uses diacritics in the title: Asunción, Bogotá, Reykjavík... IonutBizau (talk) 12:42, 18 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

To ChubbyWimbus' point above: If you search for any of these place-names without diacritics, won't the article come up? If not, that's a problem and requires redirects to be made. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:29, 18 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

@|Koavf, IonutBizau has Romanian as a mother tongue, I think? Anyway, if anyone would like to change our current policy on diacritics, that's a different discussion and should be started on a relevant talk page. My question was merely whether changing the previously used (and language-wise wrong) cedilla's into the correct comma's would still generate any rendering issues. It doesn't seem to be the case, so all is well for this matter. JuliasTravels (talk) 20:12, 18 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

@IonutBizau Most of the results in a search I did on those cities were written as I wrote them in English without the diacritics, even when I put the diacritic name in as my search term. On some of the other cities you mentioned, particularly Bogota and Reykjavik, they are quite established as non-diacritic names in English. These are country capitals, so they definitely are known places and have names. In modern times, diacritics in names seem to be popping up more in large part BECAUSE of the international nature of sites like Wikipedia, so although we all look at Wikipedia because of its convenience, it's not necessarily a reliable source for this particular topic. Wikipedia CREATES a lot of discrepancies rather than solving them.

@Ikan Kekek Are you referring to Sao Paulo? I *think* the article was moved from Sao Paulo to the current name so it became an automatic redirect. I personally still find it bothersome that it was never changed back and put to discussion because Sao Paulo seems to be mentioned whenever diacritics come up when there is nothing exemplary about it. I still think that the name is still very prevalent in English WITHOUT the diacritic, enough so that it should be considered to have an established English name (as stated in the original post to leave it as is), but even if there are people who are in favor of keeping the current name, it may be worthwile to at least HAVE the discussion so that we don't keep promoting an article that's name was changed against what was advised as an example for any other changes. That's the kind of behavior that can get people suspended. ChubbyWimbus (talk) 12:08, 19 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

It was agreed to continue using the diacritic on Sao Paulo here: Wikivoyage talk:Naming conventions#Latin Characters (scroll to the bottom of the section). I share your contention that the accentless spelling is standard in English, but the consensus was that the inability to determine whether that was truly the case or not meant defaulting to the local name. Powers ^(talk) 13:45, 19 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

This sort of thing arises routinely in Québec, where French-language accents appear routinely in place names. We usually do not strip accents from any of these except Montreal (which has a sizeable anglo minority on "le West Island") and Quebec City. Every tiny place named after a "Rivière de ..." gets left that way, we don't try to turn Trois-Rivières into "Three Rivers". K7L (talk) 16:18, 19 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

I didn't refer to Sao Paulo in this thread, though others did. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:53, 19 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

Uh, I regret "conceding" in the Sao Paulo argument. A lot of non-native English speakers sometimes appear to be more concerned with "protecting" local names than using English names. Sao Paulo should have been a clear-cut no diacritic case, and it will always leave a bad taste in my mouth regarding its initial change... ChubbyWimbus (talk) 15:38, 21 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

We could always reopen that discussion at Talk:Sao Paulo. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:11, 21 December 2014 (UTC)Reply

With this edit, User:194.66.229.8 added eszett ('ß') to the existing thorn and eth as acceptable non-Latin letters. However, I don't see any consensus for this. Is it standard practice already? I only question it because thorn and eth are Old English letters and so arguably within the scope of the English language, while eszett is purely German. Powers ^(talk) 20:07, 12 October 2016 (UTC)Reply

I don't see the difference. I'm sure way more of our readership reads German than Old English. Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:43, 13 October 2016 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

The English Wikipedia uses the name Brasília whereas we use Brasilia (note the accent).

Should we align titles with Wikipedia in simple cases like this one?

I imagine Wikipedia people have pondered the problem for longer than us, so piggy-backing on their policy could save us some time and reduce confusion. What do you think? Cheers! Syced (talk) 10:41, 28 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia is clearly a useful resource when deciding on names for new articles, but moving existing articles because the choice of title is different on Wikipedia is not necessarily a good idea. In some cases, especially for more obscure places, a name can have been chosen against policy and remained unnoticed, in other cases we might have some specific reason for our choice. That means "simple cases" are not always simple. A rule like this would just add one more aspect to take into consideration. If the case is simple, then do the move, if there is an argument, then argue about how the move would benefit the traveller. --LPfi (talk) 11:19, 28 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

See also Wikivoyage_talk:Naming_conventions#Commas_instead_of_brackets. Pashley (talk) 12:05, 28 September 2016 (UTC)Reply

Looking at Indonesian national parks, it appears that the word Gunung is in most cases translated to "Mount" (so we have Mount Ciremai National Park). However, Gunung Leuser National Park comes untranslated. I wonder to what extent we should translate. Kepulauan Seribu is Thousand Islands National Park, which makes sense, as that name is commonly used among travellers. Bali Barat has also been translated to West Bali National Park, so apparently compass points should also be translated. Apart from the Gunung Leuser issue, I wonder what to do for other National Parks (that have no articles yet):

• Bukit Barisan Selatan: South Barisan Mountains; South Bukit Barisan; or untranslated?
• Bukit Duabelas: The Twelve Hills; or untranslated?
• Teluk Cenderawasih: Cendrawasih Bay; untranslated; or even Bird of Paradise Bay?
• Danau Sentarum: Sentarum Lake; or untranslated?

Well, I could go on, but in general my question is: are there clear guidelines on this? I saw by the way that e.g. the article on Mount Merapi is not called Mount Merapi National Park. Should this only be done if the national park only includes the mountain? E.g. Gunung Leuser National Park (Mount Leuser National Park) includes an entire mountain range, and is just named after its highest mountain. --ErwinFCG (talk) 10:29, 23 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

In partial answer, I would say that the English name should be used as the title only if it's used either by the government, routinely in promotional materials for English-speaking tourists, and/or commonly used by tourists, themselves. Otherwise, the Indonesian name should be used. Somewhat relatedly, in Italy, we have an article on Rome, not Roma, but also one on Livorno, not Leghorn, the old English name for the port city. Valle d'Aosta is translated to Aosta Valley, which kind of surprises me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:25, 23 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. Yes, I agree with that, and therefore I am pretty sure that it should be Bukit Duabelas National Park, because The Twelve Hills is simply a literal translation, and not in use by anyone as far as I know. For compass points (and also for place indicators such as Mount/Lake/Bay) I think it is more difficult. Bukit Barisan Selatan is arguably best known under this name, but it seems inconsistent to use "Selatan" rather than "South", when we also have West Bali National Park instead of Bali Barat. Same goes for "Gunung" vs. "Mount". --ErwinFCG (talk) 11:41, 23 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

I agree that inconsistencies are messy, but the overriding guideline remains the same: If no part of the name is translated officially, widely in tourism promotion materials or sites, or routinely by tourists, we keep the non-English title.

I have to admit a little bias here, as a Malay-speaker, because to me calling Gunung Agung "Mount Agung" is strange. I'd translate it as "Most High Mountain", but normally, I wouldn't translate it at all (while otherwise speaking English). But that's my individual decision, not Wikivoyage style. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:20, 23 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

Indeed, I think there is no way to be all (1) fully consistent, (2) in line with the most common names among tourists, and (3) sensible to native speakers. I guess in this case the second criterion is the strongest, leading to inconsistencies such as untranslated Bukit Barisan Selatan and translated West Bali.

I think in Indonesian I would translate Gunung Agung as Great (or Glorious) Mountain, by the way ;). Nevertheless, then the second criterion comes again, and then Mount Agung makes sense. In any case, I will continue to name the Indonesian National Parks with this discussion in mind, thank you. --ErwinFCG (talk) 09:22, 24 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

I just translated it as "Greatest Mountain" in the Mount Agung article. Are you in agreement with that? I do think it's clearer, because "most high" could be misunderstood as referring only to physical height. Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:31, 24 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

Yes, thanks! :) --ErwinFCG (talk) 15:57, 24 November 2016 (UTC)Reply