The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:52, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Victoria (Australia) → Victoria (Australian state) — "State" should be included at the end according to article guidelines like Georgia (U.S. state) and Washington (U.S. state). ApprenticeFan ^{talk contribs} 14:08, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Support sounds good. 70.29.208.247 (talk) 04:54, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Reverted the earlier moved based on the WP:SNOW here. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:36, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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Victoria (Australian state) → Victoria (Australia) — The reason given for the previous move was spurious. There is no guideline for the naming/disambiguation of Australian states, or sub-national entities in general. The only examples given were two US states and no reasons were provided as to why the US situation was in any way applicable in Australia. The new name is more complex, more difficult to find for a reader unfamiliar with Wikipedia naming guidelines and does not provide any additional information that is not in the very first sentence in the article. It is an unnecessary complication in a disambiguated name that does nothing of any benefit other than add key-strokes and confusion. In addition the claim for consensus given for the previous move was based on a sample of two. This is not evidence of any sort of consensus worthy of being called such. Mattinbgn\^talk 06:33, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Four issues: 1. "Australian state" is an unnecessary level of disambig as "Australia" is sufficiently clear. There is no other Victoria in Australia. 2. (U.S.) in brackets is confusing; (Australia) is not. Hence what is needed in one situation may not apply in another. 3. No policy or MOS issue was raised to support the original move. 4. The consensus claim is bogus. Orderinchaos 06:40, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. Let's keep it simple and not strive for a false 'tidiness' in the guise of standardisation. It was already unambiguous and the move, made without reference to the Australia project, was unnecessary. Maias (talk) 06:49, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per all three comments above. --Bduke (Discussion) 07:12, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Support as the renaming to Victoria (Australian state) was flawed as, no one from the projects which this affects was not notified, this is an article about a state of Australia but Victoria (Australian state) is too confusing and really not needed as Victoria (Australia) worked well, using the US naming for a state of Australia is wrong and lastly there was no clear consensus. Bidgee (talk) 07:14, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Support as per the reasons above. Grey Shadow | Talk 07:21, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Support As above - All good arguments. Umpteen thousand articles link to Victoria (Australia), high use templates such as ((Infobox Australian place)) will need modification, entire category trees will need renaming. This was not a simple page move and it should have been brought to the attention of the project, especially in the case of a top importance article like this, where agreement between one semi-retired editor and an IP is really insufficient to declare consensus to move. --AussieLegend (talk) 07:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support There is no other "Victoria" in Australia. The 2 American examples cited, Georgia and Washington, both have unique issues in relation to those two states ( confusion with Washington D.C. and the entirely unrelated country of Georgia ) which do not apply here. The custom of superfluously adding additional geographical categories to place-names is mainly a peculiarity unique to American English.Eregli bob (talk) 07:34, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, for the multitude of reasons outlined above. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 07:42, 15 May 2010 (UTC).[reply]
• Guys, that RM was open for a week, nobody participated, and half an hour after closing another one gets opened? Victoria is not "an Australia", and looking at similar entries suggests that it's either the current title or Victoria, Australia, (that being the general pattern for dabbing geographic entities of varying sizes), given that parenthetical titles should usually be a common noun (no reason to make an exception here) and the other Victorias are not state-level entities. I also don't buy the idea that (U.S.) is somehow "more confusing" than (Australia). I also reject the idea that this is somehow an Americanism. Arguably the "state" is useful, since not all immediate subdivisions of Australia are states. Incoming links won't need to be changed - we've had redirects since the earliest days of phase3. I reject the idea that there is impropriety because somebody wasn't notifed. The RM log is public, and you've got watchlists. I notice that no policy or MOS issue has been raised in support. Given there are hundreds of thousands of user accounts, I fail to see how two apparently can't be "consensus" while eight can. I'm not seeing any compelling reasons to revert the move here. 81.111.114.131 (talk) 08:47, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Where to start on this? Firstly, I am unsure what 'Victoria is not "an Australia"' means, can you clarify? I think you are trying to make some point about common nouns - not sure why it is relevant. Secondly, using US alone as a disambiguator for Washington and Georgia is not sufficient, this does not apply in the case of Victoria. That is why it is more confusing, whether you "buy" this or not. Thirdly, "Guys, that RM was open for a week, nobody participated, and half an hour after closing another one gets opened?" And your point is? I asked the administrator who closed the move discussion how to go about getting his decision reversed. This was his advice. Your argument of basically "you snooze, you lose" hardly seems in the spirit of consensus as is generally applied here on Wikipedia. "Consensus can change", it is said - sometimes quite quickly it seems Fourth I note you mention redirects, but fail to address the point about category trees and all the other items that someone will eventually decide need "tidying". Fifth, eight (to date) is at least four times more representative a sample than two - regardless of the large population size. Sixth, "I notice that no policy or MOS issue has been raised in support" I did not see one raised in the initial move discussion either. There was reference to a non-existent guideline but I hardly think that counts. Seventh, "given that parenthetical titles should usually be a common noun" There are literally hundreds (thousands?) of counter examples, starting with Fitzroy River (Queensland). Fitzroy River is not a "Queensland", is it. Even if argumet was actually supported by evidence (which it isn't), you then should be arguing for a name like "Victoria (state)", no? Lastly, the whole rationale for the original move was based around some sort of vague desire for consistency with the US practice, with no consideration given to whether this practice was appropriate in this case or even necessary. I have been consistently opposed to over-elaborate or non-necessary disambiguation (esp. in category names) and my objection to the existing name is based on this. Victoria (Australia) is entirely unambiguous (can you give an example, please?)and as such there was absolutely no reason why the name needed to be changed. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 09:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Parenthetical disambiguators are, by and large, common nouns. Apart from odd cases involving titles, "A (B)" usually mean that "A is a B". I notice your counter-example is also in Australia. In the rest of the world, the preference has been to use a comma for geographical disambiguation (we have "Town, County", "Town, Country", "Town, State", etc.), as can be seen with the various articles ending in ", France" or ", Italy" (most are documented in WP:NCGN). Consistency is a good thing, especially for the readers, and there should be some compelling reason for making an exception - "that's how we've done it in this project" is an excuse, and a poor one at that. We don't usually identify people by their birth date, though there are a handful of cases where this has been done because two people share a name, a profession and a locality. Your attempt at an explanation as to why "(U.S.)" is somehow confusing fails miserably, both on facts and on logic. For what it's worth, the Georgia issue is also not a matter of American practice - that particular argument dragged on for weeks, and involved users from all over the place, and most American editors preferred that article to be simply "Georgia". Again, I say that there is no NC or MOS issue raised by the support voters here, hence I find it hypocritical to suggest that a lack of reference to the NC is fatal to request above yet not to their own "support" comments. So, I'm going for the answer which looks most correct according to our naming rules and existing practice, which is move to Victoria, Australia - with a comma, not parentheses. 81.111.114.131 (talk) 10:35, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a spurious argument. If this was valid, you would have "Paris, France", "London, England", and "Alberta, Canada" under those titles. The "A,B" form is where the places are normally refered to or referenced as A,B as the normal naming, which is not the case for those places ( except for Americans ), and not the case for Victoria.Eregli bob (talk) 16:27, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• • • In case anyone is not happy with the lack of policy being mentioned here, I notice that the comma form is endorsed in WP:NCGN, both in the general case ("the tag is normally preceded by a comma") and in specific cases for Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, India, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Phillipines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, UK and USA. It notes that this applies mostly to settlements and administrative divisions, not so much to features such as rivers and mountains. 81.111.114.131 (talk) 11:00, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Support —Aaroncrick ^TALK 08:53, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Timeshift (talk) 09:02, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - Bamborough (talk) 10:11, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - no need for disambiguation within Australia; the state is Victoria, nothing else, as far as we are concerned- outside Australia there is one in Canada, apparently, so we have had to adopt minimum dab for that reason. Georgia (United States). Washington (state) would be more correct for the divisions in another country in the other hemisphere; just needs two of us to agree (Crusoe8181 (talk) 10:34, 15 May 2010 (UTC)).[reply]
• Support should never have been moved, Victoria(Australia) is concise. Gnangarra 14:49, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page not moved: closed "no concensus" after discussion in Talk:Victoria (Australia)#Close this discussion. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 06:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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Victoria (Australia) → Victoria (state) — 1) If a name of a state is ambiguous, then the normal way is to use the disambiguation term "(state)". This goes well with most official state names, that have a name like "State of Victoria" - i.e. often it simply means incorporating a part of the official in the article title. 2) Additionally the current disambiguation Victoria (Australia) is ambiguous, since there is another Victoria in Australia: Victoria (Western Australia). 3) Specifying an outstanding feature (here: to be a state) separates the topic better from other topics, e.g. there are other locations including the string "Victoria". Details below. --TopoChecker (talk) 14:22, 17 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

@ 3) Disambiguation term - Outstanding feature vs. location

• http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=victoria+state - few hits, and only one hit within left column
• http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=victoria+australia - several hits in left colume, e.g.

@ 2) Entities that include the string "Victoria", found via http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=victoria&country=AU Victoria Lake, Victoria River, Victoria Park, Victoria (hill), Mount Victoria (Australia), Lake Victoria (Australia), Victoria Point...

@ 1) General patter for disambiguation of states in WP Disambiguation seems to follow the same pattern for all but two:

• Victoria (Australia), Australia
• Carinthia (state), Austria
• Salzburg (state), Austria
• Tyrol (state), Austria
• Amazonas (Brazilian state), Brazil - There is one in Venezuela.
• Bremen (state), Germany
• Hidalgo (state), Mexico
• Mexico (state), Mexico
• Al Jazirah (state), Sudan
• Blue Nile (state), Sudan
• Kassala (state), Sudan
• Khartoum (state), Sudan
• Lakes (state), Sudan
• Northern (state), Sudan
• Al Qadarif (state), Sudan
• Red Sea (state), Sudan
• River Nile (state), Sudan
• Sennar (state), Sudan
• Unity (state), Sudan
• Upper Nile (state), Sudan
• Warrap (state), Sudan
• White Nile (state), Sudan
• Amazonas (Venezuelan state), Venezuela - There is one in Brazil.
• Barinas (state), Venezuela
• Bolívar (state), Venezuela
• Lara (state), Venezuela
• Mérida (state), Venezuela
• Miranda (state), Venezuela
• Vargas (state), Venezuela
• Trujillo (state), Venezuela
• Portuguesa (state), Venezuela
• Sucre (state), Venezuela
• Washington (U.S. state), United States - Move to Washington (state) under discussion
• Georgia (U.S. state), United States - There is the country of Georgia which is a state too.

The only ones not fitting are Washington and Victoria. TopoChecker (talk) 14:22, 17 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

• Support Most precise and concise. ^walk victor falk ^talk 20:05, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment The proposal has some merit but some of the arguments raised by the nominator need some examination. "Victoria (Australia)" is unlikely to be confused with any of the places that are not actually called "Victoria" but "Lake Victoria". I fail to see the ambiguity here. Victoria (Western Australia), created immediately before this move discussion is an entirely non-notable geographical feature and is now up for deletion at AfD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Victoria (Western Australia). Geographical features in Australia are almost never given just a plain name such as "Victoria" without a descriptor such as "Mount", "Lake" etc. and I suspect that anyone who actually refers to this hill at all (which is doubtful) would call the feature "Victoria Hill". -- Mattinbgn (talk) 20:36, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Agree with everything, except 1) the desire for deletion - I would like to have every location from GeoNames inside WP 2) the nonexistence of ambiguity. Technically if the hill is called "Victoria" there would be ambiguity. Please, understand me right, I really only mean technically, no proof anyone outside GeoNames before today ever called this hill Victoria. And I who did, don't know whether there even really is a hill at that location ;-) TopoChecker (talk) 21:56, 17 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

• Support: To be honest, I don't think it is any consequence whether or not there is also a hill in Australia named "Victoria". If those were the only two things in the world named "Victoria", the article on the state would be at [[Victoria]], and I doubt anybody would be calling it ambiguous. Having said that, I agree that sticking to convention used in similar cases is best, and I'm confused as to why they wouldn't all use the same to begin with. Nightw 23:07, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per precedents cited by nominator. Donama (talk) 23:38, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Support as if one looks very closely into the archives of the Victoria article - there are victoria's in other places that pushed the change of the usage of Australia into the title to please the outsiders - the convention given here looks good - but it would be good to see what other WP Australia users say. The issue of Victoria Hill is a complete furphy SatuSuro 02:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Can I have a bit each way? Yes, this Victoria is a state, and it's in Australia. Both pieces of information are useful. Can we call the article Victoria (Australian state)? The proposed change throws away one piece of useful information to replace it with another. Yes, I know it would be non-standard, but I like coming up with ideas from left-field. Maybe it could the start of something big. HiLo48 (talk) 02:40, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Nice left-field suggestion but clearly rejected last year at Talk:Victoria (Australia)#Requested move 3 for the very good reason that it is not consistent with WP:PRECISION "When additional precision is necessary to distinguish an article from other uses of the topic name, over-precision should be avoided. Be precise but only as precise as is needed." The use of "Australia" or "state" is sufficient to disambiguate the article. The use of both together as "Victoria (Australian state)" is over-precise and potentially misleading - it appears to indicate that there are other states called "Victoria" is places other than Australia. I am not sure which way I am leaning on this change yet but I do know I oppose "Australian state" -- Mattinbgn (talk) 02:54, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• That's cool. I understand your point about over=precision. HiLo48 (talk) 03:15, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Just for reference: At Talk:Washington (U.S. state)#Requested move - Washington (state) it seems that the State of Washington will be at Washington (state), also following WP:PRECISION. TopoChecker (talk) 03:52, 18 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

• Mild oppose. It would be so much better if the list above was Victoria (Australia), Carinthia (Austria), Salzburg (Austria), Tyrol (Austria), ... Hesperian 05:01, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• It would be ambiguous for Salzburg (Austria) - could be the town, Upper Nile (Sudan) - could refer to water. Washington (United States) - the city. Etc. The only term that is very good to separate the topics is "state" due to the fact that there are not that many states in the world. TopoChecker (talk) 15:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

• There are even fewer "Australias" in the world. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:45, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• What would matter if one wants to count is the combination: How many Victorias are there in Australia? The combination Australia/Victoria can refer to a lot, the combination Victoria/state only refers to one thing, the State of Victoria. It is not Victoria of Australia. TopoChecker (talk) 17:25, 18 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

• Victoria (Australia) refers to only one thing. We're a pretty lucky country, we don't have people who are so poor they can only afford one name and geographical places are always named appropriately (Lake Victoria, Mount Victoria, Victoria Hill etc.) Changing to "Victoria (state)" doesn't make anything easier, it just creates a lot of unnecessary work. --AussieLegend (talk) 17:38, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• That kind of luck was not given to the 7 things in Australia named Mount Victoria. If you don't like to work, I am happy to do it. That work needs to be done shall not prevent WP from getting better. Early fix, less work. TopoChecker (talk) 18:15, 18 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

• There are a lot of places in Australia that share names. The state of Victoria is not one of them. There is only one of those and changing the article's name to "Victoria (state)" will not fix the multi-naming issue with the Mount Victorias, nor is it relevant to this article. As for your "early fix, less work", I will reply with "no fix, no work" and remind you that Victoria (Australia) hasn't been a problem during the years that this article has existed, except for those seeking to make a mountain out of a mole-hill. I'm afraid that nothing you've said, or re-said has convinced me that there is any need, or anything to be gained from renaming this article. It just seems to be creating a lot of work for no reason at all. In fact, I'm seriously considering changing my vote to "Even more strongly oppose". --AussieLegend (talk) 18:30, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• OMG it would be ambiguous here and there, just like that current convention, which sucks. Not a very strong argument against. Hesperian 22:41, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong oppose As I pointed out at the last RM,[1] umpteen thousand articles link to Victoria (Australia), high use templates such as ((Infobox Australian place)) will need modification, entire category trees based around "Victoria (Australia)" will need renaming and so on. This is not simply a page move; people need to look at the big picture. --AussieLegend (talk) 05:16, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's being proposed that "Victoria (Australia)" should redirect anywhere other than this article, so no such problems should exist.--Kotniski (talk) 09:55, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is exactly why I said people need to look at the big picture. In order to maintain the naming consistency that this proposal is trying to achieve, categories with "Victoria (Australia)" in the name, such as Category:Victoria (Australia), its multiple subcats and numerous articles shall need to be renamed to "Victoria (state)", otherwise the single inconsistency that precipitated this move proposal will be transferred to god knows how many categories and articles. That will then necessitate other changes, such as to ((Infobox Australian place)). It shouldn't be up to redirects to fix a problem that doesn't currently exist but which will if the article is moved. My father taught me that you should do a job properly or not at all, and that's what we should do here. If one article is renamed to make it consistent with others, we need to rename all related categories and articles to make them consistent, otherwise this move is just introducing a lot more inconsistency than it's removing. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:15, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bots and editors will fix this easily. Esp. for templates it's only a little bit of editing, and for category changes there are bots. TopoChecker (talk) 15:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

Sure. Of course they will. It's just a snap of the fingers. I doubt bots will come into it because of the number of categories involved. It's really not worth the effort to get a bot to do it and yet it's still a significant amount of manual work. Since the article moves will not be uncontroversial, most will have to go through a renaming proposal. I think you greatly underestimate the complexity of the task. Renaming the article doesn't automatically mean that everything will happen. There are procedures to follow and a lot of follow-up work. People underestimating the effort involved is why we have situations like ((Expand)) still existing and ((Infobox skyscraper)) and ((Infobox building)) not having been merged more than six months after the discussion finished. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:36, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I guess merging of infoboxes is less of a standard task than category renaming. For category renaming a bot will be found fast. As for other articles - which others would need a move? For changing templates I offer my help. I would clean them up. TopoChecker (talk) 15:47, 18 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

As I said, there aren't enough categories to justify use of a bot and in any case, renaming of the categories isn't automatic. It's something that will have to be discussed first. (Yet more effort from other editors.) As for the articles, you can start, as I've already indicated, with those in Category:Victoria (Australia) and any that may be in its subcats. The required effort is just much as, if not more than, merging two infoboxes. --AussieLegend (talk) 16:00, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bots will do the work depending on how much edits would be needed otherwise. It does not depend on how many categories do need renaming. Either a lot of changes related to categories are required and that is what you suggested in the first place, then there will be bots, or there are only few changes and it can be done manually. Categories follow article names, it is not that existing category names override judgement of editors to what is the best article name. TopoChecker (talk) 17:36, 18 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

Yes, you keep saying bots will do the work but that's not necessarily true and bots can't do all of the work anyway. A lot will still need to be done manually. There still has to be consensus to change the names and that involves discussion. Bots can't discuss. --AussieLegend (talk) 17:46, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And I have evidence, WP:CFD talk confirmed the categories will be changed by bot after they went through CFD. Seems they even have their own one, so not even any bot request is needed. TopoChecker (talk) 15:49, 19 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

• Mild support, seems slightly more natural and consistent with what we normally do, though I wouldn't mind "(Australian state)" either (like Washington (U.S. state)), and in fact would probably most prefer simply Victoria, as primary topic.--Kotniski (talk) 09:53, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Her Majesty would not be amused! -- Mattinbgn (talk) 10:49, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Notice that the state of New York is at New York, despite manifestly not being the primary topic for the phrase "New York", on the grounds that the true primary topic has a natural disambiguator (New York City). If that argument holds there, then it must surely hold even more strongly here, since the queen certainly has an equally natural disambiguator (Queen Victoria), and it isn't clear that the state isn't anyway genuinely primary for the phrase "Victoria" (people searching for the queen are, I think, far less likely to search for her under plain "Victoria" than those looking for NYC are to do so under plain "New York").--Kotniski (talk) 11:05, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1) the "U.S." for Washington will likely be removed per WP:PRECISION 2) New York could be fixed too. Only because it is broken there, it does not need to be broken in other places. Same for Talk:Chihuahua#Requested move - Chihuahua (state). TopoChecker (talk) 15:09, 18 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

"Likely" is not really a statement you can make only a day or so into the discussion. to do so is WP:CRYSTAL. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:39, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose

@1 The list of articles following the (state) pattern (about 34) is quite small in Wikipedia terms, and thus the casual reader is unlikely to recognise this as a common pattern of disambiguation. Disambiguation for geographic articles overall is most commonly by a higher level of geographic hierarchy.

@2 I believe Victoria (Australia) is not readily confused with Victoria Lake, Victoria River, Victoria Park, Victoria Hill (Western Australia), Mount Victoria (Australia), Lake Victoria (Australia), Victoria Point etc.

@3 (Australia) is arguably a more outstanding feature than (state). In the list of disambiguated places, most do not list what type of geographic entity they are, but it is evident for all where they are.

I'm just not convinced by the reasons given for such a massive change, which would supposedly be carried through the very extensive category tree, as "Victoria (Australia)" was some time back. Melburnian (talk) 11:40, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• @1 a) - The reader does not need to see a pattern. In case he would like to see one, then he could see it within the 34 using "(state)" - and they may wonder why Victoria (state) is not in the listing but uses it's own naming.
• @1 b) - Disambiguation for geographic articles is frequently done by feature type. Mississippi River, New York City, all the counties called XXX County. The first try mostly is to use the type, only if that fails, then higher level entity is used. TopoChecker (talk) 15:35, 18 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]
• @2 - Might be. But for Victoria (state) we can be sure.
• @3 - Outstanding means that there is only one state called Victoria on planet Earth. But Victoria (Australia) could, for the uninformed reader - refer to the name Victoria as used in Australia. Search geonames.org for victoria+state and for victoria+australia - the tighter result set one gets with "state". TopoChecker (talk) 15:25, 18 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

@1a If the "reader does not need to see a pattern" why advocate one?

@1b Mississippi River (Ontario) is disambiguated by province, New York City is a commonly used alternative name, XXXX County is often the name of XXXX County.

@2&3 Victoria (state), for the "uninformed reader", could be anywhere. You are assuming that this uniformed reader knows that it is a state when he or she is searching and that it is the only state of that name on Wikipedia. If, for instance, a reader has heard the news about flooding in Victoria in Australia, and subsequently searches for information on Victoria he or she may not know whether it is a city, local government area, region or state. Melburnian (talk) 23:17, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@1a for the readers that want to see a pattern, for those that like consistency. For those reading several articles on states.

@1b and first the Mississippi River has the feature type included. First it reveals it is a river. That is what is true for most things Mount Victoria, Victoria Hill, XXX County, New York City, they get added the type. On Victoria except for Gallic Empire and Australia every link says something about the type.

@2&3 And Victoria (Australia) could be anything, which is much more than for something to be anywhere. Victoria (Australia) could be a type of meal from Australia. Victoria (state) reduces the possibilities of what the article could be about much more. Of cause it does not tell how many people live there or what the capital is, or who the president (do they have one?), and not where it is located. But it reveals one feature of the State of Victoria, namely to be a state. TopoChecker (talk) 04:54, 19 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

In my opinion, not as significant as the feature of Victoria, Australia that it is in Australia. Victoria has existed as both a state and a colony, but has always been in Australia. Melburnian (talk) 01:15, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Neutral for now Oppose, I've never really like Victoria (Australia) but I'm just not convinced with Victoria (state) however I wouldn't support Victoria (Australian state) per the reasons raised by Mattinbgn. Bidgee (talk) 11:58, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So what do you support? How about my suggestion of plain Victoria?--Kotniski (talk) 12:32, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

With so many humans named "Victoria" it would fail the first paragraph of Wikipedia:Primary_topic#Is_there_a_primary_topic.3F TopoChecker (talk) 15:41, 18 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

No, I don't think so (at least, not obviously). Many other people and things are called Victoria this and that, but if somebody types "Victoria" into the search box, are they likely to be looking for any of those things? They might be, of course, but I don't find it particularly likely - they would more probably be typing "Queen Victoria" or "Victoria Beckham" or "Victoria Station" or "Victoria Falls" or whatever.--Kotniski (talk) 17:22, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree for Victoria Station, maybe same for Queen Victoria. But then, I would expect "Victoria" to be about the name. I wouldn't expect that people around the world would expect the state page to pop up. And what would people in Australia expect? I don't know. Would they mostly add "state" as you and me would expect other people to add "Queen" or "Station"? Victoria lists first the name. I really thing that people that are not interested in geography and that never have been in Oceania, would when searching for origin of the name just type Victoria. TopoChecker (talk) 18:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

At this stage I support keeping Victoria (Australia) rather then moving it to "Victoria" which is a highly common name. Bidgee (talk) 01:43, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Me too, I would not support the proposal to move to just Victoria. TopoChecker (talk) 04:30, 19 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

Virginia is also a common name, but the article on the state still carries the unqualified title. If someone's looking for an article on someone called Victoria or Virginia, they're not going to just type the forename into the box, are they? Unless they're looking for the article about the forename itself, which I would say is not a very likely topic of interest, compared with a state of a major country. --Kotniski (talk) 08:46, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree that there is a good argument that the Australian state is the primary topic for Victoria, it has zero chance of being accepted as such, not least because of the existence of Victoria, British Columbia. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 09:06, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support; identifying it as a state is more useful than identifying the country of origin, especially so since Victoria is a human name. Powers ^T 13:41, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

...which, I guess we should all remember, is how the state got its name in the first place. HiLo48 (talk) 17:04, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Based on page views, Victoria (Australia) would seem to be the correct location for this article:

• Victoria (Australia) - 40,678
• Victoria (state) - 196 --AussieLegend (talk) 18:40, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Uh, yeah -- because people tend to link to the current title rather than to a redirect. Powers ^T 19:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Page views also indicate what people have searched for. Clearly, "Victoria (state)" is not what readers are looking for. --AussieLegend (talk) 19:58, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Even http://www.google.com/search?q=victoria+state brings readers to the old title, these view stats do not show what people type. And also, it would still be a redirect. Maybe with the term "state" included WP could outperform some of the states own pages that do include the term "state" in the title. TopoChecker (talk) 20:21, 18 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]
• No, they don't. Page views are just page views. Most page views come through internal links, but we don't know how many by just looking at pageview stats. It could be that 40,600 of those views came via internal links and only 78 through searches; we don't know. Powers ^T 22:06, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion of State vs Australia google hits is spurious. They are disambiguators, that's why they are within parenthesis, to mark they are not part of the name proper. We could have our own internal conventions, like Victoria (864) where 864 is a code for "federal state of a monarchy in Oceania". The point is to decide not which is more likely to be associated with Victoria, but whether "state" or "Australia" has the maximum preciseness and conciseness per wp:precise. ^walk victor falk ^talk 01:43, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would highly oppose having "Victoria (864)" or even using "codes", who is going to know what 864 means? Joe Blow or Jane Doe will not. Bidgee (talk) 01:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Bah. If we wikieditors can fully master WP:OMGWTFBBQ, what's a couple thousands disambiguation codes for them luser plebs? ^walk victor falk ^talk 03:17, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose for now Been watching this discussion patiently and with interest. Learnt quite a bit. Some good arguments for the change, but AussieLegend's concerns about its impact elsewhere seems valid. Until I see a concise response eliminating that as a matter of concern I will have to oppose the change. HiLo48 (talk) 00:46, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Would be nice to see what really the problems are. Since I like to work on WP, I am happy to help with the clean up. The 108 templates that I found, I can likely fix within 2 hours time. I will also look to collect category name and post them to WP:CFD, it can go via speedy after the page is renamed to Victoria (state). Speedy needs no extra talk, after 48 hours the renames are performed. So lets say within 96 hours most stuff is done. The plain links can stay and change over time. As Mattinbgn said below, it does not need to be done overnight. But the most important stuff will be changed within maybe 4 nights. TopoChecker (talk) 05:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

• Mild support Ok, if precision is the primary goal, I'll go with the change. Interestingly though, I just looked up Georgia in the USA (one of my favourite ambiguities because so many Americans don't even know that other Georgias exist) and found it under Georgia (U.S. state), which is kinda what I suggested earlier. Oh well, I guess it's not precise. HiLo48 (talk) 05:34, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Georgia is a known issue that is complicated by the Caucasus Georgia also being a "state" in the form of a State (polity). See Talk:Washington (U.S. state)#Requested move - Washington (state) for a better comparison. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 06:02, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Mild support No better reason than "I think it sounds better" (re Victoria (state)). It's the only state of Victoria in the world. Mild oppose The only concern at my end (echoing AussieLegend), which is a significant one, is that if it does change, fixing the links will be a nightmare as there's just so many of them, also bringing category systems and so on into line. (Edit: Each one of those, btw, went through a move discussion to get to its present name so wouldn't be eligible for speedy.) Orderinchaos 02:07, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• I compiled a list of templates below. There are 108. I could maybe do it within 2 hours time. I like to work for WP. If the result is a better WP, I am happy to work on it. I really like to work on WP. It's a pleasure. :-) TopoChecker (talk) 05:00, 19 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

• The bigger issue is all the categories which are named [...] Victoria (Australia) to be consistent with this article - there could be quite a few. Orderinchaos 06:07, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• I asked for clarification at WP:CFD talk and got it confirmed that a bot will do it. Seems they have their own for that. See here. The person that answered also said it may go through CFD speedy. TopoChecker (talk) 15:45, 19 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

• Mild oppose I don't have any specific objection to the use of "Victoria (state)". It is clear, concise and precise. However, it is no more clear, concise and precise than the current term "Victoria (Australia)" The use of "state" is consistent with the disambiguation convention for other sub-national units, which is an advantage. The amount of work in fixing links, categories, templates etc. is a bit of a red herring in my opinion. If the rename is an improvement, then we should not allow the effort of implementation to dissuade us, especially as it doesn't have to be done overnight - an "eventualist" approach is quite a reasonable one. What sways me towards a slight preference for "Victoria (Australia)" is giving consideration to what a reader would expect. If a reader was looking the article on the Australian state of Victoria and understood that "Victoria" is the name of a lot of topics - what would he or she think was the natural attribute of the place that separates it from the others, that would be used to clarify the topic. My opinion, based on no evidence than my own thought process, is that people would associate Victoria as being part of Australia more than associating Victoria as being a state. Hence "Victoria (Australia)" to me is the more natural disambiguation term. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 03:24, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks for addressing the rename work "issue". Me too I think this is a none issue, esp. since the old name will stay as a redirect. For the thought process: Everyone living in Australia and having a girl-friend named Victoria would likely think of the state primarily to be a state, and not as something like his girl-friend being in Australia? Also what do you think if you see: Victoria (Gallic Empire)? Is it a place? Something to eat? Victoria (state) reveals it is a place, and not a kind of meal from Australia that is named "Victoria". "(state)" reveals much more about it's nature than only the location. What is Gallic Empire? A computer game? Something that really existed? That can be asked for Australia. Australia is a second proper name next to the first one. While state is an English language word. If one sees Victoria (Australia) and one knows that Australia is a country, then the topic is not very specific still. It is Victoria (motorcycle) and not Victoria (Germany). To use a feature, described with a word is more precise, isn't it? Except for the Gallic Empire and for Australia every article title (correct me if I am wrong) on Victoria reveals something about the nature of the topic. TopoChecker (talk) 04:26, 19 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

• A person looking for an article on Victoria "the place in Australia", knows that the place is in Australia, but may not know it is a state. On the other hand, a person looking Victoria "the state" may not know it is in Australia. Hence, "Australia" in my opinion is the term most useful to assist in leading a person to the correct article - remembering that not everyone will get there via a disambiguation page. Also, it is important to remember that the purpose of disambiguation terms is not to reveal the "nature of the topic" but to guide people to the correct article. I think "Australia" does this marginally better than "state" - although both work well. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 04:58, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Agreed, purpose is to disambiguate. I don't understand your first conclusion: (Australia) reveals location, (state) reveals type, why then is (Australia) better? If one has the task: "Find the state of Victoria"... "Find Victoria in Australia" one will find the article irrespective of article title, since the redirect will still exist. So that point is neutral. Toponyms mostly get disambiguated by type. Mississippi River, New York City, Buenos Aires Province (like almost all provinces, except for cases where the word "province" wouldn't be sufficient), all the states listed above. Only for cities and towns feature type is mostly left out, since it often does not help much, there preemptively location is used. But for things in Category:country subdivsions that are states, provinces, counties, districts, departments... the choice number one is the type. The only outside I know of is Victoria. The issue will pop again and again, because other people will find it out of place to use a different way for Victoria, despite the standard way, namely Victoria (state) being feasible. I guess if we would have to name the article today from scratch, while knowing the other subdivisions all use "(type)" as first choice people would more agree to use that way too. TopoChecker (talk) 05:42, 19 January 2011 (UTC) comment by banned editor[reply]

Oppose. Victoria (Australia) is more useful than Victoria (state). It seems more intuitive. –Moondyne 06:33, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. while it appears to be consistant with other articles IMHO its those other articles which are the problem disambiguators should be readily recognisable so as to help viewer/reader to find the topic they are looking for. The disambiguator of state does nothing to assure the reader is heading the right direction, Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#Disambiguation says Places are often disambiguated by the country in which they lie, if this is sufficient.. State is not a clear disambiguator because state itself is an ambigious term as such provides no clarity so as to distinguish what the reader is looking for. Gnangarra 18:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Personally I find (state) more intuitive than (Australia) because we normally disambiguate with what something is e.g. (band). I know for geographic places we do normally disambiguate with the next highest entity but this is normally for settlements rather than higher units so I'm unsure how much that applies. Essentially whether people like one or the other comes down to WP:ILIKEIT argument which is far from ideal. Therefore I'm largely supporting on the ground of consistency. The amount of work this may create is a complete red herring. If it improves the encyclopaedia it should happen even if it creates a lot of work. Its not the end of the world if this takes a little while to happen - slightly misnames categories isn't a big problem and we're have a redirect for links. Dpmuk (talk) 13:04, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. I am more convinced by the oppose arguments than the support arguments. Victoria (Australia) is just clearer. --Bduke (Discussion) 21:39, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Blahblahblah (state) is mostly used (IME) when Blahblahblah (Upper) is impossible, because there's a city and a state which share the same name (or similar). We don't have a Victoria which is the capital of Victoria or anything of the sort, so a country-name disambiguator is to be preferred, I think. Victoria (Australian state) is too verbose. —Felix the Cassowary 16:30, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator blocked as a sockpuppet of banned editor

• Comment Worth noting the initiator and key protagonist of this piece is now blocked as a sock of a banned editor (something I'd actually been keen to find out about but never got into - seemed weird that an account started on 1 January would have such familiarity with Wikipedia processes), and that the "ambiguous" article was deleted at AfD today. Orderinchaos 07:23, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Procedurally, how does this affect this nomination? As the puppet master was actually banned,[2] and not just blocked, anyone is free to revert any edits made by the sock. Pages created by banned editors are eligible for speedy deletion; surely the same effective process applies to discussions initiated by a banned user. ie the nomination itself is eligible for reversion. This applies to several pages, not just this one. --AussieLegend (talk) 08:45, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well given the amount of discussion this one has got it would seem silly to revert. Edits by banned users are liable to deletion / reversion, they don't have to be. In this case doing so would appear to be process for process sake and a bit pointless. If any of their move requests have no comments then I'd probably revert but given the number of supports here it's obvious other's feel the same way so we may as well see what the consensus is now. Dpmuk (talk) 09:09, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• The thing you have to look at is that by continuing with the discussion we're effectively endorsing edits made by an editor in defiance of a ban. Because the editor was banned, the original nomination should never have been made and if it hadn't been, we wouldn't be having this discussion. This particular editor has been making these edits since 2007 and will continue to do so while his edits are being given credibility. If the outcome of the discussion is move, those who support the move have helped the banned user achieve what he set out to do, effectively becoming his meatpuppets. --AussieLegend (talk) 09:38, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree with this, the nomination is invalid and the present discussion should be closed without prejudice to a new nomination and rationale being subsequently provided by a good-faith editor. Melburnian (talk) 10:21, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

AN/I thread started to try to get some uninvolved input on this. Dpmuk (talk) 10:59, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any issue with closing this discussion and giving the banned user a clear indication that his editing in the defiance of a ban will not be tolerated. At the moment there are 9 supports and 9 opposes so no consensus exists in either direction. --AussieLegend (talk) 14:06, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All of the move discussions initiated by TopoChecker have now been closed. Only this one remains open. --AussieLegend (talk) 16:44, 25 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.