Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (New Zealand)

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For related discussions, see WP:NZ, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places)#Place names in New Zealand Wikipedia:Naming conventions (landforms)) and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Zealand/Archive1#Macrons.

Although it's not about the title of articles, the discussion at Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board#Māori names is likely to be of interest to anyone watching this page.-gadfium 19:55, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Salient discussion at WT:PLACES

Please see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (places)#Places in New Zealand.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 17:23, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lakes disambiguation

Most titles of articles about lakes are disambiguated in the form "Lake name (disambiguator)", e.g. Seneca Lake (New York), in accordance with the convention at WP:LAKES#Multiple lakes with the same name.

A few lakes of New Zealand use the form "Lake name, disambiguator", e.g. Lake Rotoroa, Waikato. For consistency, I'd like to change it to Lake Rotoroa (Waikato) and not the general convention here. Redirects would still be available.

BTW: List of lakes in New Zealand offers a lot a lakes in need of articles. -- User:Docu

  • Oppose. As with all other such landforms, national conventions take precedence. The main reason that Seneca Lake (New York) is at that title is because using parentleses is the standard disambiguation convention for the United States. If you check other countries where the standard form of disambiguation is "Landform, Country", you will find that that is used for the lakes as well. Rather than moving the current pages to new titles that would clash with the NZ naming conventions, why not have disambiguation pages at your proposed names, rather than changing the system in use. This is what is done by the rivers WikiProject (as noted at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places)#Place names in New Zealand - there's no reason why the same could not also be done with lakes. Grutness...wha? 23:02, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Do you have a sample of lakes other than those in New Zealand using that convention? -- User:Docu
I've only ever seen the comma regularly used with populated place names--geography/landform "place names" (note that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (landforms) is relevant here, not Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places), and the former has no [documented, anyway] 'New Zealand exception') use parenthetical disambiguation in all countries I've ever edited. IMHO it is helpful to have (only) populated places use an exceptional form, to make them easier to distinguish. EG Category:Lakes of Sweden v. Category:Cities in Sweden, Category:Lakes of Russia v. Category:Cities and towns in Leningrad Oblast, Category:Lakes of Chile v. Category:Cities in Chile (I gave up looking for examples in Africa). To the best of my knowledge, the majority of populated place articles use the comma, and an overwhelming majority of landform articles use the parens. Ravenna1961 (talk) 06:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not entirely sure why you think lakes aren't places, and therefore wouldn't be covered by the naming conventions for places. Nor would I regard, for example, English rivers as "populated places", except maybe by fish, despite the fact that - for example - there is River Avon, Hampshire and River Avon, Warwickshire. England also uses the comma to disambiguate lakes, e.g., Little Britain, Buckinghamshire. I don't know of how many countries use a similar system for rivers and lakes, I just know that New Zealand and England clearly do and there are likely to be others, and in cases like these the national conventions take precedence over any worldwide convention for particular landforms, in exactly the same way that national spelling conventions apply for article names - especially when (as it states at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (landforms)) an overall convention is not yet finalised with regards to lakes, whereas it has been used for New Zealand for a considerable time. Grutness...wha? 11:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It seems to me that the only justification I can think of for changing the New Zealand naming conventions is that [[Lake Rotoroa (Waikato)|]] is fractionally quicker to type than [[Lake Rotoroa, Waikato|Lake Rotoroa]] when you're editing a page. Now, even as someone who regularly works on New Zealand geography articles, that seems like an incredibly weak and insubstantial reason to do a mass change that violates national conventions. The attempt to justify a change based on enforcing naming conventions for other countries upon New Zealand articles is not a justification at all as it is inconsistent with the principle of respecting national spelling conventions. - Axver (talk) 00:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
    Actually, [[Lake Rotoroa, Waikato|]] works too.-gadfium 05:36, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh, it does? I wasn't aware of that and I've never seen it used in any of the articles I've edited (or at least I don't recall seeing it). Thanks for letting me know. Well, with that justification gone, then I cannot see any reason to change the New Zealand conventions. - Axver (talk) 08:43, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment This seems to grow entirely out of proportion. There are about 12 articles about lakes in New Zealand that don't follow the usual convention for lakes "lake name (disambiguator)". Little Britain, Buckinghamshire may be an additional case that just hasn't been corrected, but there are hardly any other lakes than the 12 in New Zealand that are titled different. Some articles use the form "lake name, disambiguator", but this mainly as there are about the locality named for the lake rather than only the lake itself. -- User:Docu
Reply to comment. I agree that it's grown out of all proportion, especially since all the articles you're complaining about already follow the naming convention for New Zealand lakes perfectly, given that the usual and accepted convention for New Zealand lakes is "Lake name, Disambiguator", as is implicit in the details on Wikipedia:Naming conventions (New Zealand) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places)#Place names in New Zealand. Little Britain, Buckinghamshire seems to follow the convention for the United Kingdom, too (it's used in Scotland as well as England, hence Loch Burn, Watten, for example - which, like Little Britain, directly refers to the body of water, not to some locality named for the lake). The main point remains: if one country uses a specific naming system, then that system is used for that country's articles - exactly the same as when different terms or spellings are used in different countries. If all articles about Britain which use UK English spelling were changed to American spelling, it would offend a lot of people. Instead, local styling is used for such articles, to conform with local naming conventions. Similarly, local styling is used where particular countries have other local naming conventions - like with the way geographical feature articles are named. Grutness...wha? 12:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. As there is no strict policy over-riding national convention and as New Zealand convention is "Lake name, Disambiguator", I too see no good reason to change this. kabl00ey (talk) 07:31, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Zealand categories

A question more than anything——why do most subcategories of Category:New Zealand people use "New Zealand" instead of "New Zealander" as an adjective, as in Category:New Zealand criminals? If this is a "by nationality" category, shouldn't the demonym be used, which I think is "New Zealander", so shouldn't it be Category:New Zealander criminals. You see Category:French criminals, not Category:France criminals and Category:Canadian criminals, not Category:Canada criminals, so why this? Or has it been agreed that "New Zealand" should be used as the demonym? I'm curious if this has been discussed before. Snocrates 21:32, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

"New Zealand" is both a noun and an adjective. So there are New Zealand mountains, just as there are French mountains (not "France mountains", because France is not an adjective). In "Category:New Zealand criminals", New Zealand is being used as an adjective, not a demonym. "New Zealander criminals" is similar to "Frenchman criminals"; it's ugly and wrong. -- Avenue (talk) 22:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
That makes sense to me; and you're right that using "New Zealander" in some instances sounds awkward. Thanks! Snocrates 22:58, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
An added note, "New Zealander" is acceptable as the noun form - in fact it is probably the commonest noun form (other than the slang "Kiwis"). So people from New Zealand are either called "New Zealand people" or "New Zealanders". Grutness...wha? 23:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)