Talk:Liverpool Edge Hill

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I have just reverted your move of Liverpool Edge Hill (UK Parliament constituency).

The practice of adding the "(UK Parliament constituency)" to all constituency articles has been agreed after a lot of discussion at WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies, and it's not just for disambiguation.

See the disciussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies#Article_names.2C_guidelines_needed.3F. --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 11:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia naming conventions mandate that you must not add the parenthesis to articles that do not have ambiguous titles. No amount of discussion within your own little WikiProject can change or override this. You will need to bring the issue up at a higher level, and you will likely lose the discussion then because Wikipedia wants to be consistent. — Timwi 11:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Timwi, that's not my "own little wikiproject": it's a collaborative exercise which has produced a massive historical and contemporary collection of articles on Brtish politics. There are very good reasons for applying a consistent naming pattern to the 2000 or so articles on parliamentary constituencies in the UK, so I am confident that if we ever had to discuss the issue as a policy matter, other editors would appreciate the reasons for consistency, which I will summarise here:

• the suffix is not solely a disambiguator, it is part of the name: "Liverpool Edge Hill" id formally the "Liverpool Edge Hill borough constituency", and it is misleading to simply call it "Liverpool Edge Hill". However, distinguishing between borough and county constituencies in the name is counter-intuitive and unnecessary for most purposes, so we omit that bit.
• the disambiguation function of the suffix is essential to maintain the integrity of a large collection of articles which are widely referenced. There are about 100,000 links in wikipedia to constituency articles, and by definition the names used refer to geographical entities whose names are often used for other articles. ("Borsetshire South" may refer to a Westminster constituency, a European Parliament constituency, a district council, a railway station, a primary care trust, or any number of other entities). Creating a unique and consistent naming format for inherently ambiguous article names has allowed us to maintain the links in very good shape. --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 12:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The policy stresses as a basic principle that naming should "make linking to those articles easy and second nature". Consistency of naming across the collection of constituency articles is essential to ensure that. --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 12:23, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Timwi, I have moved it back again. Rather than edit warring, why not discuss your concerns at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Parliament constituencies#Article_names.2C_guidelines_needed.3F with the editors whose experience has show this naming format to be necessary? -BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 12:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Nobody has "shown this naming format to be necessary". Quite to the contrary, all of Wikipedia has shown it to be unnecessary. If I had genuinely wanted to find out about this constituency, I would not have found the article because it has such an unexpected and unguessable name, even if I knew the actual name of the actual constituency. Therefore, I strongly suggest that if you are going to carry on with your preferred format, you really should at least create redirects (or disambiguation pages where the name is actually ambiguous). — Your "100,000 links" argument is a red herring. — Now, I can't be bothered to pursue this to a formal level because it's a rather minor issue anyway, but you should be aware that if I find another article six months from now that has an apparently unnecessary disambiguating parenthesis, I'll remove it again, because that is what Wikipedia's naming convention says. — Timwi 13:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

If there wasn't a redirect or disambiguation page at Liverpool Edge Hill, there should have been (most such articles do have a link, sorry if that one was overlooked) ... but you would of course have found the article easily by searching.

It's a pity, Timwi, that you appear not to have not read the discussion before saying that nobody has shown this to be necessary.

The 100,000 links argument is not a red herring at all: it's central to the problem. It allows editors monitoring articles on British politics to determine straight away whether a constituency link actually points to the constituency, or to a geographical (or other) entity with the name. Before we standardised on this format, there was a widespread problem of links to constituencies being misdirected, but that has now been greatly reduced. For example, there are lots of long lists of politicians which contain hundreds of constituency links: the standardised format (of which the suffix is only one component) makes it simple to check whether those are pointing to the constituency or to something else. --BrownHairedGirl ^{(talk) • (contribs)} 14:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.