We've been having a robust discussion at Talk:East African Islands#Capitalization. My position is that titles like "East African islands" look silly because the noun in the title is lowercase, and also because regions typically are treated as names, so that even though this region name is created by Wikivoyagers, we should treat it as a proper name. I would propose that we restrict sentence-style capitalization to travel topics and itineraries, where it may make more sense (Oamaru to Dunedin avoiding SH1 is a phrase rather than a name and doesn't suffer from not capitalizing "avoiding"), and use title capitalization for destination articles. That would also mean changing Nordic countries to "Nordic Countries", but few other articles would be affected. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:36, 16 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

I second the motion. Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:50, 16 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Would this proposal include capitalizing these article titles within prose as well as in the page title? Powers ^(talk) 01:26, 16 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Only when directly referencing or linking to the articles (e.g., "See our East African Islands article", but "East African islands include Madagascar, Mayotte, etc.", and similarly with "Nordic countries have many characteristics in common"). The proposal also does not suggest any change to capitalization of sections within articles, where I believe the continuation of our practice of sentence-style capitalization, which is somewhat of a WV/WT signature, is and should be uncontroversial. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:49, 17 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Well it would make sense when directly referencing the article, but we usually just link them in the course of prose: "You can find a lot of beaches in the East African Islands" implies that it's a proper noun; I don't think capitalization of a phrase should depend on whether it's linked or not. Powers ^(talk) 00:41, 21 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

I agree. If the article is referenced without a link, it should be capitalized then, too. But not in phrases such as the ones I posted above in which it's not treated as a region, and therefore, not as a proper name. One point I want to make is that this policy change is not in my mind the thin wedge of anything. I support keeping Wikivoyage's style of sentence-like section titles, would not advance any proposal to change that and would expect to oppose any such proposal if anyone else were to advance it. This is only for destination article titles and references to them. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:57, 21 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

I'm afraid I disagree with the proposal then. It's not our place to invent proper names for regions. Powers ^(talk) 00:11, 28 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

I don't understand why you asked the questions, then. I figured you were opposed to this from the beginning, and that my answers would have no effect on your opposition, but now you seem to be implying cause and effect. Besides, we're inventing names for such regions in the first place. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:51, 28 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Names, yes, but not proper names. I'd be willing to accept a proposal to capitalize article titles but I don't support it in prose. Powers ^(talk) 17:06, 29 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

I thought I made it clear that I don't support it in prose, only when referring to the article specifically. See the remark that begins "Only when directly referencing or linking to the articles". If you explain what you disagree with in that post, it sounds like we could probably work out a policy both of us agree with. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:26, 29 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

So in Germany at the very least, sometimes the river upon which a place sits is used as a disambiguator in (semi-)official contexts such as rail station signs and the likes. w:Werder (Havel) is one example. When they are written in the form town (river), they present a problem. When they're written as "town on the river", they are not as much of a problem, but they might be a mouthful. What advice should we give prospective editors for the likes of this? Hobbitschuster (talk) 12:45, 7 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

This sort of thing exists with English place names, for instance "Kingston upon Hull" is Hull while "Kingston upon Thames" is an outer London borough. K7L (talk) 13:40, 7 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Quite common in UK, I think, & sometimes hyphenated like Stoke-on-Trent. Pashley (talk) 14:30, 7 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Yes, and in France, and probably other places.

We should always use the most common English name for destination articles; for most smaller towns etc, this usually means using the official name. So if Werder (Havel) is the common EN name / official name (whichever best applies), then it should be used for a Wikivoyage article about that town. However, if the official / common EN name is something else, then we use that. If there is more than one place with the same official / common EN name, then there should be a disambig.

When using the name in prose on any article, then it would make most sense to use the form that is most likely to be encountered by travellers. E.g. Shuttle buses to Fairytale Rat Land operate from Werder (Havel) train station. €25 pp. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 14:45, 7 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

The point is that having a river disambiguator in parenthesis is problematic, as it can be mistaken for our standard disambiguators, which are countries, states provinces and the likes. Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:03, 7 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

That shouldn't be an issue. If the river is part of the official name, we use it in the article name. If it's not, we don't; the standard disambiguators should be used in this case. It's not as confusing as you think it is. ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:18, 7 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

But usually what is in the parentheses is always a territorial unit and in some cases the word "city", "province" or the likes. I think we should avoid City (River) if at all possible for that reason. Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:29, 7 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

If the two places being disambiguated are in the same country, we should use whatever term the traveller is likely to hear on the ground. For example Tarbert (Loch Fyne), is less of a mouthful than using the council name: Tarbert (Argyll and Bute), avoids confusion with the similarly sounding Tarbet which is also in Argyll and Bute, and hasn't changed 3 times in the last 50 years (in 1990 it would have been Tarbert (Strathclyde Region), and in 1970 Tarbert (Argyll) ). AlasdairW (talk) 22:04, 7 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Agree. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 10:45, 8 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

I think it is not exactly desirable to have regions named The Coast or "North (disambiguator)". I think we should rather opt for organic names that work without disambiguators like "East Coast of x" or "Caribbean y" or something of the sorts... Hobbitschuster (talk) 15:57, 7 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

I'm guessing these names have been chosen because no more organic name exists for the area. Our regions aren't always the most organic, they're what is judged to best serve the traveller.

However, I do think it very strange that "The Coast" links to a specific region and not to a disambiguation page of all the "The X Coast" articles we have. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:44, 7 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Well in that case instead of having it Coast (disambiguator) rather make it Disambiguator Coast or Coast of disambiguator. Hobbitschuster (talk) 16:53, 7 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

That would certainly be clearer! ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:18, 7 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Hi all. I'm the one who, way back in 2014, created the region The Coast that's cited above by Hobbitschuster. The article covers one of the daughter regions that I created for the Gaspé Peninsula, and I titled it after a literal translation of La Côte, which at the time was the title of the analogous article in French Wikivoyage. I didn't think it needed to be disambiguated because there were no other WV region articles called "The Coast" that it might be confused with, but with four further years of hindsight and experience as an editor under my belt, of course you all are right that the title is extremely ambiguous. Apparently they came to the same conclusion at fr: as well, because their article has since been retitled "La Côte gaspésienne" ("The Gaspesian Coast"), which IMO would be a good way to rename the article in question here. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:19, 8 April 2018 (UTC)Reply

Linking to discussion on the Talk page of Ortisei. Please chime in with any comments if you have an opinion about this change --Marvin The Paranoid (talk) 15:56, 26 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

I realise that this has been discussed a bit in the past above though the discussions appear to predate Wikivoyage but shouldn't we use commas to disambiguate rather than brackets when referring to a higher level place such as Cambridge (Massachusetts) be at Cambridge, Massachusetts (which is apparently common usage anyway) however unlike Wikipedia we should continue to only disambiguate if needed (that is to say even if any other places had articles created it would still be primary) so we would keep Nashville as is.

I realise I would probably need to start a RFC at the pump for this large change but it probably wouldn't be too difficult to implement since all that would be needed is to move the articles and link directly on the DAB pages, other links would be fine left as is. IMO this would benefit readers and editors by making things more consistent with Wikipedia which many people are likely more familiar with than Wikivoyage.

For places that are disambiguated by rule 3 (and probably largely by rule 2) nothing would change similar to w:Corfe Castle (village) and w:Windermere, Cumbria (town) if local disambiguation is needed using the type of place would continue though that isn't needed very often since we don't usually have articles on other types of places and the articles here are as such Corfe Castle and Windermere.

One problem may be when its necessary to disambiguate but there is a double place name such as Antigua and Barbuda, Newfoundland and Labrador and Tyne and Wear since the resulting page title can end up looking like a list but this doesn't appear to have been a problem for w:Washington, Tyne and Wear though. Thoughts? Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:46, 7 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

I agree that commas are more natural, but this change would be a big headache unless someone would like to create a bot, and as you say, there would be many exceptions to the change, so that would complicate the programming. The other issue is that the similarity to Wikipedia's syntax might make it even more likely for Wikipedians to use unnecessary disambiguations here, though probably not. Tldr: I support your proposal, providing that someone is willing to create a bot that takes care of this and has the necessary exceptions to the changes. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:09, 7 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

I'd suggest doing it with AWB or similar not a bot but I don't think there are many cases where there would be exceptions though but I wouldn't risk errors with a bot. There was a discussion a few years back on Wikipedia at w:Talk:Hatting, Tyrol#Requested move 31 October 2018 that I started as well as w:Talk:Hatting, Denmark#Requested move. Regarding unnecessary disambiguation, I agree its more likely that will happen though its not a huge problem, there are 3 cases of unnecessary disambiguation I can think of, the 1st is when the WP article when the articles on Wikipedia uses unnecessary disambiguation due to USPLACE, when its the only topic large enough for an article here or when a non-geographical topic competes for primacy on Wikipedia but not here. I would note for example Powell (Ohio) existed at that title for over a decade but then another article was created for the Wyoming one at the base name but that was soon moved.

Dealing with unnecessary disambiguation isn't too difficult since you can run a query where "Foo, Qualifier" exists but not "Foo" and if you find one you can either move to the base name or create a DAB at the base name or in rare cases leave it alone of you think another place that doesn't yet exist here should be at there base name. All we would need to say here is to follow our NC (which sometimes require country rather than state disambiguation) and not disambiguate here if not needed even if needed on WP. Crouch, Swale (talk) 13:40, 9 February 2021 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Many stadiums, public events and venues have official names which differ from the name casually used by the locals and mass media. In many cases, the official name is set by a commercial sponsor. The Stockholm Globe Arena has been officially named Ericsson Globe for a decade, with little recognition among the public. This week, the official name changed to Avicii Arena, honouring the late music producer. It is not clear whether the new name will catch on; but as the venue is a major attraction and landmark, it will be mentioned extensively on Wikivoyage. Does Wikivoyage have an official policy for those kinds of naming conflict? /Yvwv (talk) 09:27, 20 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

We probably should let the reader know the official name (which will be used in ticketing and on new maps), and the common name (which local people will use). Like the Meridian Hall in Toronto which is known as the Sony Centre, Hummingbird Centre, or O'Keefe Centre, depending on on the age of the person you're talking to. Ground Zero (talk) 12:09, 20 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

There's a similar dispute with Newy's stadium of whether it's called "Newcastle International Sports Centre" or "Hunter Stadium". Most locals don't even know the official name. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | en.wikipedia) 12:15, 20 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

I strongly dislike the tendency: my language is not for sale. It can be confusing if the ticket uses a name nobody ever heard about, but that's probably something for Travel basics. Keeping track of every stadium's name changes is a fools errand. Of course, it is useful to mention the official name – when it is reasonably stable and widely used – but we should primarily use the commonly known name, which won't go out of fashion any of these days. –LPfi (talk) 16:54, 20 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Our listings have an alt field useful in such situations. Outside of listings, parentheses can be used in prose. Both names should be stated on first mention. Which name is considered primary and which is secondary should be at the discretion of someone with local knowledge. Nelson Ricardo (talk) 17:49, 20 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Yes, this is a perfect situation for using the "alt" field. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:13, 20 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

I know you'd think that I should know this by now... but is that allowed or not? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 13:51, 16 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

Most acronyms are for businesses and therefore don't constitute an article (for example Amtrak). If there's an acronym for a region, I don't see why we can't use it for an article. EU and UN redirect to the full spellings. We have Scuba diving, which is an acronym, though not capitalized like one. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:04, 16 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

it's for RFDS tourism. no one uses its full name. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 14:07, 16 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

The longer the acronym, the less sense it makes to spell it entirely, so I would support that title for that article. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:12, 16 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

One thing with acronyms is that outsiders have a hard time making sense of the title or memorising it. The articles are mostly intended also for those not familiar with the name, and thus an acronym is a problem. However, as SC says, a long name is not much better, so what we need to do is to put more work than usual in ensuring the article can be found via any plausible search path. –LPfi (talk) 15:28, 16 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

I did put the full name in the first line, so the full name isn't hard to find. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 22:49, 16 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

Redirects can also help.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:28, 17 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

Yes, spelling out the name and making a redirect are good steps. Still, if the name is awkward, we might lower the bar slightly to get it listed in places where travellers might search for it. –LPfi (talk) 09:57, 17 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

It seems awkward for me to have Royal Flying Doctor Service tourism to me, but that's probably because I'm used to it. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:21, 17 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

It seems even more awkward to me, not being familiar with the term. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 11:26, 17 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

There is a place for acronyms in article names, e.g. we use UNESCO World Heritage List and UFOs, but I think we should use them sparingly and only when they are very well known. I had no idea what RFDS stood for and I suspect only a small minority of people would know. We all get very familiar with our local jargon and shorthand and can forget that the rest of the world won't know it. I did already know what the Royal Flying Doctor Service is. I think this one is better spelt in full. Nurg (talk) 11:40, 17 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

I agree with Nurg. The reason why the name in full feels awkward to you is that you're used to the acronym. Those of us who don't know it are not used to it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:14, 17 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

There'd probably be only about 10 million who'd know what that initialism means so: Are we just going to redirect RFDS to Royal Flying... or the other way? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:21, 17 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

Probably that way. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:56, 17 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

tbh, in my opinion, most people who've only lived in big Australian cities often haven't heard of RFDS either, so maybe after all the full name is the way to go? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 00:02, 18 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

IMO it's not important. Pick one and redirect the other. People either arrive here via their web search engine (in which case, they know what name they put in their search engine) or by typing something in our search box (in which case, both the title and the redirect will be available to them). If they're still confused, the very first sentence will spell it out. Deciding which way is "perfect" is therefore just not that important. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 18 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

I think it should be named Royal Flying Doctor Service tourism. Moving it to that can leave a redirect from the other name. Having the name in full makes it a little simpler to link to it from other articles. Nurg (talk) 21:33, 19 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

There was talk in the pub recently about the national park articles and while a preference was expressed for title case, our current policy is to use sentence case for article titles. I personally have always found this strange and ugly. Title case, as the name suggests, is how titles are written in English. It seems unnecessarily counterintuitive to avoid title case and there doesn't seem to be any benefit to using sentence case. To me, it's off-putting and awkward-looking. It looks like we don't know how to write titles and in those articles (mostly travel topics and itineraries) just doesn't make our guides look as reputable as they should. Is there a good reason why this is preferrable? Can we just use title case for article titles? ChubbyWimbus (talk) 11:46, 3 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

1. The notion that "titles should be in title case" is outdated. If you look at the major US newspapers, only the New York Times uses it. The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune don't. Of the major UK newspapers (Times, Guardian, Telegraph, Daily Mail), all use sentence case. Australian (The Age, Sydney Morning Post, West Australian) and Canadian (Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post) papers use sentence case.
2. Wikipedia chose a long time ago to go with sentence case. One of the reasons was "that because links are case sensitive this guideline makes it possible to include a link to an article in a sentence without creating a redirect with alternate case".
3. If we are changing to title case for article names, it would look odd to continue to use sentence case for section headings and subheadings, which suggests that we also change to title case within articles.
4. When there are two commonly used styles in the English-speaking world, changing our style from one to another because of the personal preferences of some contributors would be a lot of work with little or no benefit. Changing the Wikivoyage style would probably just mean that we'd have heaps of articles that violate the policy, unless someone undertook to implement the change.

• If the style for headings and subheadings were also changed, tens or hundreds of thousands of articles could be put offside the policy.

I don't think this would be a good use of our limited volunteer time. Ground Zero (talk) 13:00, 3 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

(written before reading Ground Zero's comment) I thought it would be helpful to know when and why sentence case was adopted as our preferred style, and it turns out that it was written in to Wikitravel policy from the very start by our founder, Evan. Only he could tell us exactly why he chose sentence case rather than title case, but at any rate a community discussion on this is probably overdue.

That said, I don't have particularly strong opinions on the matter. Two style guide articles I found on the subject ( and ) made some interesting points that are relevant to us. They both emphasise the importance of knowing your audience and publication style. They also say that consistency is vital, and note that this can be harder to achieve with title case. Consistency requires that the chosen style apply throughout a publication, which means that if we adopt title case for article titles, then we should also be using it for other headings and subheadings throughout Wikivoyage.

The relevant points in favour of title case were that it is more authoritative, and is punchier for short headings. Both of those are qualities I think Wikivoyage should have. The downsides are that title case can be seen as high register (something Wikivoyage certainly is not) and also looks worse the more it's used; this can either mean in longer titles (e.g. Travelling With High Blood Pressure, Travelling With A Mental Health Condition/Travelling with a Mental Health Condition, which grate on me personally), but also if it's repeated throughout an article (e.g. 'Get In', 'Get Around', 'Eat and Drink', 'Go Next'), as consistency would demand.

The major upsides of sentence case are that it's "casual" and more "conversational and approachable", which is what we aim to be in our articles. On the other hand, informality may also imply a lack of seriousness or professionalism, particularly for readers older than the millennial generation (i.e. 40+). Sentence case is also best employed, as the name suggests, in titles that are complete sentences, which we don't tend to have.

So, take your pick. They both have their WV-relevant advantages and disadvantages. I don't think one has a knock-out case against the other. My main worry if title case wins out, is that changing all the article titles and project space page names will be a time-consuming job if it needs to be done manually. Even more so if we need to also change subheadings like 'Go next' to 'Go Next'. There are definitely other tedious repetitive tasks that I would consider more important, such as fixing dead links and replacing those ghastly footnote-style links such as I used above with nice frontlinks.

Consider me persuadable.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 13:17, 3 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

I personally feel subheadings also look nicer capitalized (though I understand it’s probably difficult to change every article Tai123.123 (talk) 14:43, 3 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

Keep sentence case. Ground Zero has given good reasons. Pashley (talk) 17:11, 3 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

Yes. Looking at the reasoning, whatever you think would be better, changing case would be an enormous project. Part of it can be done by bot, but a fully automated would probably result in a lot of ugliness and breakage. Before it were completed, the project would look truly ugly. Looking serious is good, but trying to look more professional and high register than Wikipedia, which is the most important reference point, would feel very odd, so one would need to convince Wikipedia in English first. –LPfi (talk) 18:10, 3 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

Aesthetically, I've always preferred title case, including for section headers, but I don't think we should change to it, for the practical reasons given above. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:05, 3 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

I'd agree with GZ and TT with what they said. But on the other hand, we do run into a problem. Most of the time, Wikipedia does not capitalise "city centre/city center" (same with CBD as well, but that's not an issue with us because we use the abbreviation such as Melbourne/CBD), but we capitalise the "centre/center" bit. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 07:08, 4 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

Well, we don't have to be exactly the same as Wikipedia all the time. After all, we don't have articles with titles like "Syracuse, New York" either. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:16, 4 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

Indeed. "City Centre" vs "city centre" is also location-dependent, as in some cities it or an equivalent is the official name of the centralmost neighbourhood (capitalised) whereas in others it's just a handy descriptor of the central area or equivalent "downtown" (not capitalised), but not actually the area's name.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 12:31, 4 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Ground Zero: Should the five articles in Category:United States National Park System also be renamed? SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 10:11, 5 November 2021 (UTC)Reply

I'd like to challenge the slashes line in § Non-alphabetic characters. While it is supposed to be used on districts only, these appear in proper names in Australia and New Zealand such as Judbarra / Gregory National Park or Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park. Removing the slashes is against our common name policy, and they really don't do any harm. Wikipedia also uses these slashes too, and they too have not had any major issues with it. So I have to ask, what is wrong with slashes? --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 03:31, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

I think it would be confusing. How about using a dash? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:08, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

I think that would go against our standard practice to use the most common name in English though. It's also worth noting that these slashes are also seen on signage too, so that is what a traveller would encounter. These are a couple of examples in Tasmania: , these are a couple in the NT: and there are a couple in NZ too (which I didn't take the time to get a couple of links). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 06:46, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

I think the slashes were discouraged to be used in non-district article names because the part before the slash was automatically omitted from the breadcrumb trail before the migration. They aren't, for some reason, now. Vidimian (talk) 07:19, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

[edit conflict] I agree that the slashed name would be confusing. We (and the Mediawiki software) use slashes for subpages. Although the function may not technically be enabled for mainspace, that's how the slashes may get interpreted. –LPfi (talk) 09:44, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

We can use the official name in the lead sentence, where it can be put in context. I think that is enough for not confusing travellers who see it on signage. –LPfi (talk) 11:12, 8 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

@LPfi If we are to omit slashes, what name should we use for pages like Judbarra / Gregory National Park? I don't know if it's just me, but using Judbarra Gregory National Park seems like the name of the park is "Judbarra Gregory" which is not. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 07:37, 17 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

You also didn't like a dash, which is another option. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:46, 17 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

To me, it looks like two different places though your solution may be the most ideal one for now, even though I may distaste it. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 07:49, 17 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

What does the slash mean? How do you pronounce it? I think it is bad practice to name a thing in a way that leaves such basic questions. We could replace the dash with the word it represents. "Judbarra or Gregory National Park"? –LPfi (talk) 18:56, 19 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

It is used to signify that the park is park of a joint management program (in Australia) or a joint management plan/programme (in NZ). According to w:Judbarra / Gregory National Park, the park was supposed to be renamed to Judbarra National Park in 2021 though it never seemed to happen according to the park website. I would assume a similar reason to Aoraki / Mt Cook and kunanyi / Mt Wellington. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:50, 19 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

"Federal Republic of Germany" is not a good example for this, as the full name is indeed used sometimes. I'd substitute a longer name like "People's Democratic Republic of Korea." Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:03, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China? The DPRK has a certain Orwellian irony to it, and is used at least once on the North Korea page.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 16:04, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, that's a better example. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:26, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

I plunged forward and made that substitution. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:28, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Niiicee.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:42, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

From the article:

"Even when a special character normally appears in the name, thus When to call *555 in New Zealand cannot be linked even though it would be a better than When to call star triple five in New Zealand or When to call star 555 in New Zealand, as the telephone number is written as *555."

I don't understand this sentence fragment, in any event. What is the suggestion for how to represent such a topic, if an article were to be written about it? Besides, this would not be a reasonable article topic, no matter how it's phrased. I think deleting the sentence would be the best move. Any objection? Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:31, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Do we need that example? I think I understand the text (on the page, where the links can be distinguished from the general prose), but it is more confusing than clarifying. –LPfi (talk) 16:52, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

SHB2000 removed the "&" example: "not true. I never encountered any problems when moving Dubai/Suburbs & Hatta".

The move link has the URL

https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Special:MovePage/Dubai/Suburbs_%26_Hatta

i.e. the & is replaced with its coded ASCII value. If you tried to type in the link yourself, without knowing the code (or not knowing about the issue), you end up with an invalid URL, which some browsers and some servers might handle, but there is no guarantee. Saying "never" on the grounds of a single try with a single browser-server configuration is a bit foolhardy. Article names that work only when you handle them with certain tools are not to be recommended.

–LPfi (talk) 21:50, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Regardless of this side discussion, can we please delete this sentence fragment? Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:50, 19 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

A lot of technical aspects and documentation on Wikivoyage are outdated and don't reflect the current situation. In this case, that piece of documentation was added in 2005, which was 17 years ago! Please don't tell me you don't understand that MediaWiki systems change, and while that could have been an issue in 2005, it is not in 2022. This isn't something that is browser specific; many articles on the encyclopedia use the ampersand symbol, so there was good reason to remove it. Outdated decades old information don't help. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 07:12, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

OK. Mediawiki perhaps couldn't construct working links from page names with odd characters, and now it can. I just got the impression that you came to your conclusions based on one or a few cases of own experience, which does not suffice (the example was indeed on "Issues which previously existed", so "not true" is hardly true).

Now, the question is whether we want to allow odd characters, which may or may not cause trouble in certain situations. Can all of Mediawiki handle all the characters we now recommend against? Please point to a Mediawiki documentation page that assures all such issues are issues of the past. Then the user issues remain: it may be hard for an individual person to construct the URL to a certain page, if the name has odd characters.

–LPfi (talk) 10:26, 20 June 2022 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

I was looking for how to name a single article when it covers two or more destinations without a local name for the combined entity. I have seen names like Gour-Pandua (covering two historic towns) and Birbhum-Murshidabad (covering two administrative divisions, now renamed Central Bengal), but I don't think these names may sound natural outside India. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 07:43, 11 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

The hyphens look okay to me, although to be clear the article covers two distinct places, rather than one place with a hyphenated name, you might be better using a connective such as "and", e.g. Newbury and Thatcham, Windsor and Eton.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:07, 11 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

Agree. If I hadn't read Gour-Pandua, I'd have thought it was the one same place (like Leeuwin-Naturaliste or Uluru-Kata Tjuta). "And" works just fine (also see Adelaide/Port Adelaide, Enfield, Prospect and Outer Harbor, Canberra/Weston Creek, Molonglo Valley and Woden, Buffalo/Allentown and the Delaware District, or Dubai/Suburbs and Hatta). SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 01:38, 12 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

Sometimes you just drop one of them. Turku covers most of Turku, a city of 200,000, and Raisio, a neighbouring town of 25,000 with few attractions. If one of the places is minor and less known, there is usually no need to mention it in the article name. You can still have a redirect and a mention in boldface in the lead. –LPfi (talk) 07:11, 12 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

Since this came up in the Russian Empire article, what convention should we use? I know that Tsar Nicholas II is called Nikolai II in Russian, Peter the Great is called Pyotr I, Catherine the Great is called Yekaterina II and so on. And this applies to many other countries too. Philip II of Spain is called Felipe II if we follow Spanish naming conventions, John I of Portugal is João I if we follow Portuguese naming conventions, and William of Orange is Willem Hendrik if we follow Dutch naming conventions and so on. So should we use the native versions of their names, or should we just stick to the Anglicised versions that are more common in English? And of course, sometimes multiple countries can claim an individual; Oleg of Novgorod would be called Oleh of Novhorod by Ukrainians, and Vladimir I would be called Volodymyr I by Ukrainians. The dog2 (talk) 18:20, 16 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

stick to the Anglicised versions that are more common in English, because this is English Wikivoyage. Ground Zero (talk) 18:41, 16 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Yeap, I think the policy for naming the articles should apply here too. And also for other, non-royal historic personalities. Otherwise are we ready to change every mention of e.g. Paul the Apostle to Šā'ûl? Vidimian (talk) 18:47, 16 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

in Portuguese Empire I referred to the former English queen as "Catarina de Bragança" because the context seemed right to do so. Are any hardcore correctionists here eager to apply the "correct orthography"? Ibaman (talk) 18:55, 16 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I don't think that comment was directed at me, but let's please keep Wikivoyage fun. Whether Catherine/Catarina belonged to the House of Braganza or Casa de Bragança is of a much lesser importance I think. Vidimian (talk) 19:34, 16 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

TOTALLY agreed. WV:fun is crucial here. Much more than any non-travel-related stuff, oh yes. Ibaman (talk) 19:36, 16 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

I brought this up here since it was suggested that we should have a discussion and come to a consensus. I won't be losing sleep whichever way the consensus goes. I am well aware that Tsar Nicholas II is called Nikolai II in Russian. The dog2 (talk) 20:23, 16 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Yes, personally, I would like us to have this allowance of latitude about nomenclature, in the appropriate historical articles and itineraries. I wouldn't push this type of edit in Russia#History, which by the way needs trimming down, as the Christianity article and its music section, as previously discussed. It must be mentioned, they are only getting bigger and more convoluted of encyclopaedic, totally un-WV:fun language. Yes, I know, you want them to be perfect on every detail, and I don't want to restart the same discussion as always, please excuse me not want to carry on the same discussion as always, oh no, not again. Ibaman (talk) Ibaman (talk) 21:02, 16 August 2023 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

I see many articles being renamed from a transliterated Russian name to a transliterated Ukrainian one. For a fairly typical example see Talk:Terebovlia. There are quite a few things that might be said about this:

• Policy is to use the commonest English name. What is that in these cases?
• The Ukrainian-based names are obviously more politically correct. Should we care?
• Arguably we should just follow whatever WP decides.
• Arguably this does not matter noticeably as long as there are appropriate redirects.
• Some changes are clearly nonsensical. For example, at one point someone changed Kiev->Kyiv in a discussion of Kievan Rus at Russian_Empire#The_Rurikids. That was promptly reverted, but to me it seems weird that it was even considered.

There are other questions as well. Anyway, I think we need some discussion aimed at reaching a consensus policy on these.

Personally I'd be inclined to keep all the old names, though my opinion probably should not count for much since I don't know the region. Other opinions? Pashley (talk) 18:05, 23 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Even if we assume that most-common names should be used, it definitely seems like "Russian-style Latinization" is giving way to "Ukrainian-style Latinzation" for cases like "Kiev" to "Kyiv". I'm inclined to use the Ukrainian style for Ukraine-related topics. Either way, we should have plenty of redirects and where it's appropriate for travelers, note that [place] may have two different spellings. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:24, 23 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I'm a believer that it should be decided on a case-by-case basis. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 20:25, 23 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

In the context of the Russian Empire article, the spelling "Kievan Rus" should stay. We use the Ukrainian transliteration in the Ukraine article, and I think that's appropriate, and likewise, if someone ever decides to work on the history section, we should at least state the Belarusian transliteration in the Belarus article. I don't think we should wade into the political dispute about whether the Rus' should be considered part of Russian or Ukrainian history beyond noting that there is a dispute between the two countries as to whose history it should belong to. The dog2 (talk) 22:15, 23 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

What happened to using the most common English-language name, which has to be "Kievan Rus" and nothing else? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:07, 23 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

this discussion begs another, should we be already thinking of splitting Donetsk and Lugansk and sticking them under Russia? I believe there will come a time when this move will happen, but at this moment it would be premature. I feel the same about choosing the appropriate nomenclature and spellings, just for the record. Ibaman (talk) 23:49, 23 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

That is definitely premature as 1.) there's not a lot of just-for-funsies travel to warzones and 2.) there's no reason to think this will be under indefinite Russian occupation. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:52, 23 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I would even dare suggest that updating Gaza Strip is a more urgent task than this discussion. I kinda lack heart to put myself to write that the Omar Mosque and St. Porphyrius Church are no more. Excuses for this non sequitur. Ibaman (talk) 01:28, 24 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Ibaman Semi-off topic, but the :wp:Church of Saint Porphyrius does not suggest the structure was severly damaged ("one building collapsed" without specifying which building and how many buildings the church had). I couldn't find the right Omar Mosque article to check, :wp:Mosque of Omar (Bethlehem) seems to be doing ok. Piotrus (talk) 07:45, 27 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

I think we need to use official transliteration, or at least the version Wikipedia uses. MrPaschenko (talk) 10:36, 24 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

In general:

"official" is irrelevant. The policy page Wikivoyage:Naming conventions has articles should use the city, region or country name most commonly used in English-speaking countries. This means that official names are often not appropriate for use as article names. Also, there are places with different "official" names according to Russian & Ukrainian governments.

It is English names that matter; for example, we use Moscow and Warsaw not transliterated forms.

As an outsider, I know only a few city names in the region -- Kiev, Odessa & Sevastopol -- and I've known those for decades. To me, those seem clearly the common English names, so they should be kept.

That said, it seems clear that Western media & WP are moving toward Kyiv, Odesa, etc. Arguably we should follow suit. Pashley (talk) 15:10, 24 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

In that case we should keep Kyiv (not Kiev), Odesa (not Odessa), as these names are more common: https://imgur.com/a/OeWIxoj MrPaschenko (talk) 15:46, 24 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

And I will say for the names of historical figures, let's just stick to the local versions of the names depending on articles. For instance we should use "Vladimir the Great" or "St. Vladimir of Kiev" in articles about Russia, and "Volodymyr the Great" or "St. Volodymyr of Kyiv" in articles about Ukraine. We won't be able to please everyone, so that's the best compromise I can think of. The dog2 (talk) 15:49, 24 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Agree MrPaschenko (talk) 15:51, 24 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Disagree. We should use the most commonly used English spelling and revert all the changed names to reflect what is commonly understood. It's a matter of communicating clearly and thus putting the traveler first. I see no justification whatsoever for following WP. Mrkstvns (talk) 19:16, 24 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

To be clear, our sister project also has a policy of using common names, so the reason would be not reinventing the wheel. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:00, 24 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

It is not at all clear that Kyiv, Odesa, etc. are more common. User:MrPaschenko gives an example above, but it searches only cnn.com. In a general google fight (mention on any site), Kiev gets somewhat more hits than Kyiv and Odessa more than 10 times Odesa.

Also, there is an active campaign to influence this usage, see w:KyivNotKiev. To what extent does that explain the CNN result? To what extent is my immediate reaction on discovering the campaign (F*** that!) valid? Pashley (talk) 00:12, 25 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

It's okay for someone to want something to be spelled a certain way. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:54, 25 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Yes, but somebody having such a wish doesn't mean we should comply or that we should accept it being forced upon us. It's our choice. Also, if you include dead-wood material, you will get different result than from internet searches. The "least astonishment" rule is affected by what people read in their childhood, which in this case isn't what CNN uses today. For Kyiv and Odesa in contemporary context, the Ukrainian spellings are probably expected (my spell checker still complains!), but probably not e.g. for more obscure places known for historic events. –LPfi (talk) 06:58, 25 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Strangely enough, my spell checker that is Grammarly complains if I use a Russian transliteration in quotation marks (no idea if it also does that outside quotation marks since I favour using local spellings – though it probably does). --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 07:07, 25 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Mine (whatever Firefox uses on a Debian box) does accept both Odessa and Odesa. Why Kyiv is marked as an error is beyond me. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody added the Ukrainian spellings en masse (while not checking that the most common ones were in their list). –LPfi (talk) 07:19, 25 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

MrPaschenko has made several dozen of these page moves & few other contributions. My gut reaction is that he is here to push a political agenda, not Wikivoyage:Here to build a travel guide, so my instinct is to revert the lot.

That instinct is likely wrong.

The only place I see where I'd say the move should clearly be reversed is Odessa.

For a few places like Kyiv and Lviv, the moves are acceptable since media & other web sites use those names. Of course in contexts like "Saint Vladimir of Kiev", "Kievan Rus" or "chicken kiev" a change should not even be considered.

For the various smaller places, it really does not matter as long as redirects exist. Pashley (talk) 14:06, 26 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

My instinct is to let English Wikipedia handle those issues, and just synchronize our names with theirs. I don't think that Wikivoyage has the manpower to deal with this. Piotrus (talk) 07:46, 27 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

Agree MrPaschenko (talk) 09:19, 27 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

@Pashley: "My gut reaction is that he is here to push a political agenda, not Wikivoyage:Here to build a travel guide, so my instinct is to revert the lot." – what?!? That's a spurious claim accusation that comes out as a claim made with 1 minute of research, nothing else. The vast majority of MrPaschenko's edits are improving UA articles, likely as a local, and these are changes that I would have done too, were I a local or were very knowledgeable about Ukraine. Please don't make baseless accusations in the future. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 10:11, 27 October 2023 (UTC)Reply