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Manual of Style for Philippines barangays?

There is already quite a collection of articles under the Category:Barangays of the Philippines that do not seem to follow any title format. The City suffix in the title of city barangay articles re-emerge e.g, Mamatid, Cabuyao City and there are those that include the city/municipality where they belong and some that do not. I propose we agree on a single format for our smallest LGU's before it gets even more out of hand. RioHondo (talk) 09:29, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to continue the discussion at WP:TAMBAY. --Sky Harbor (talk) 08:00, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Amendment on naming city articles

There has been a dispute on the naming guidelines for Philippine cities. This is a discussion to iron out some kinks.

The "mother" numbered list is the current rule, and the daughter bullet is the suggested rule.

  1. As a general rule, cities should neither be affixed with the word "City" nor the name of the province in which it is located. Examples:
    • Kabankalan instead of Kabankalan, Negros Occidental
    • Tacloban instead of Tacloban City
    • Tagbilaran instead of Tagbilaran City, Bohol
    1. As a general rule, cities should not be affixed with the word "City", but with the name of the province in which it is located. Examples:
      • Kabankalan, Negros Occidental instead of Kabankalan City
      • Tacloban instead of Tacloban City
      • Tagbilaran instead of Tagbilaran City
  2. New guideline:
    1. If a town is converted to a city with a new name, the word "City" may be affixed after the city's name. If the city is a component city, the province's name should be affixed after the word "City". Examples:
    • Opon, upon being converted to a city was renamed as "Lapu-Lapu". The article should be named as "Lapu-Lapu City"
    • Capiz, upon being converted to a city was renamed as "Roxas". The article should be named as "Roxas City, Capiz"

Addendum to the guideline: The naming guidelines also affects the series of articles per each city. These includes legislative districts, "Politics of Foo" articles, "Government of Foo" articles, "Education in Foo" articles, and any daughter list and categories such as "People from Foo" article and category.

Before the new guideline can be applied to all articles, aside from gaining consensus here, a subsequent successful move discussion should be done in order to affirm the new guidelines. As to avoid citing this guideline to oppose a move discussion, the pertinent section has been tagged as {{Under discussion}}, making it attempts to cite the guideline while it is under discussion as invalid. –HTD 17:05, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Support

Oppose

Discussion

I'd like to simplify the geographic naming guidelines to align as much as possible with the general naming guidelines. That is, we only adopt Philippine-specific guidelines to cater to Philippine-specific naming issues. That means that we do not add disambiguation markers like "City" or the provincial name for cities and municipalities if they don't need it (also taking note of the primary topic guideline). My classic example for this is Puerto Galera vs. Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro.

Now if we do need to add a disambiguator (e.g., for San Juan, the city in Metro Manila), we should also align with the general disambiguation guidelines if they exist. If they don't exist or do not address our local needs then that's the only time we create guidelines.

The idea is that we make it easy for the editor to follow Wikipedia's MOS. Just because we can create local guidelines does not mean that we should do so especially if we can use the generic guidelines. --seav (talk) 11:23, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Snooping around, we seem to follow U.S. naming guidelines for cities, which have a <town name>, <state name> format (except for the largest cities), which we've adopted into the <town name>, <province name> format. On European (and probably African) place names, it'a aimply <town name>. We've been used to the <town name>, <province name> format anyway, so I don't see current use of dropping the province name wholesale even for towns, which will cause a lot of problems on how to deal with exceptions, on which there is already a long list (such as if the city has the same name with another place). –HTD 13:06, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
Just because we're used to something is not a reason to stick with the status quo. And we would deal with the exceptions like the rest of Wikipedia deals with exceptions. For example, Boston, Lincolnshire is an exception to the UK naming convention of not adding the county to the article title because of that famous city in the United States. The Philippines is not unique in having many places having the same names in multiple locations in the country. If the Europeans can deal with that problem in the expected way we resolve naming conflicts in Wikipedia in general, then why can't we? --seav (talk) 04:15, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
We already have a lot of exceptions to the rule, and most of them are reasonable. Such as Angeles, Philippines and Boston Lincolnshire. No one is questioning that.
Just to illustrate how hard the naming convention is now for cities, when I'm creating the Regional Trial Court page, I'd have to check if the link I created was right. That's why I'm advocating for bringing back the province name for all component cities to avoid the confusion and for at least majority of the cities would have the same naming convention with the rest of the towns.
In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Barangays in Cabuyao City, the focus of "whores of appending the word "city" to the article name" has shifted from adding the word "City" to removing the province name. Nothing much happens politically when a town is upgraded to a city as it still remains a part of the province anyway, so I don't see the logic in removing the province name once it becomes a city, same with adding the word "City" once it becomes one. –HTD 03:42, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm actually an advocate for removing the word "City" from cities' articles' titles as much as possible, only adding them for disambiguation purposes as Wikipedia's main naming guidelines state. Thus Baguio instead of Baguio City. The main point is that the article title should reflect the name of the article's topic as much as possible only adding disambiguation only when necessary. This is how most of the rest of Wikipedia works, with U.S. places being the notable exception. Here in the Philippines, the province name is not part of the name of the city or town. For example, when Dinagat Islands became a separate province, the towns that now comprise the new province have not changed names. They just changed provinces. Thus, Basilisa, Dinagat Islands should be properly titled Basilisa since that is the name of the town. Take note that the naming conventions were not made to make editor's jobs easier. --seav (talk) 14:43, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
The thing with the general WP:MOS guidelines is that it is so irregular, that actually locating these city and municipality articles later on would be tough not just for editors but for readers and researchers as well. Take for example, these municipalities in Puebla (Mexico): you have San Pablito, Puebla on one hand, and San Pablo Anicano (municipality) on the other. At least with our WP:MOSPHIL, these irregularities are avoided. And also, Filipinos have grown accustomed to the City/Municipality, Province format in writing (e.g, addresses) and even in speech (i.e, many are not familiar with Bulalacao, that a person from that municipality would normally say he's from Bulalacao, Oriental Mindoro. Talk about filipino regionalism and isolation?) Anyway, lets just say Filipinos take comfort too seeing the Province alongside the City or Municipality whenever they google search places in the Philippines--they want specific, like their jeepney and bus placards that tell them "Tulay Ilalim, Crossing Ibabaw, SLEX Tatawid. :) So yeah, I prefer the current naming convention for cities and municipalities, and i think component cities should also follow suit. --RioHondo (talk) 17:27, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
Filipinos are not the only readers of Wikipedia articles on Philippine places so I don't think the argument that adding the province name is comforting for Filipinos as convincing. Besides, there are plaenty of component cities and towns in the Philippines where Filipinos don't automatically add the province name. Puerto Galera, El Nido, Pagudpud, Aparri, Los Baños, Calatagan, Tagaytay, Lingayen, Jolo, Dapitan, and Kalibo are just some that come to mind. --seav (talk) 08:14, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
I see your point regarding some popular tourist towns and other well-established historical municipalities, but the concern there is where to draw the line between which places could and could not be considered 'popular' or which towns or cities would and would not require adding the province name. Sure, El Nido and Puerto Galera sound fine by themselves, but then again you have Bulalacao, Mataas na Kahoy, Sapang Dalaga and other LGU's of the same level which may not be as recognizable without their province name but would be 'tempted' to follow suit citing these municipality examples. Ultimately, i think this may just cause more harm than good and as stated, it'll be an editor's nightmare trying to locate these articles. Imagine my surprise seeing Biliran (municipality) just a few months ago, Thanks to our naming convention, I was able to correct it and move it to Biliran, Biliran last June. --RioHondo (talk) 04:22, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
The reason why there are U.S. cities which don't have states attached to them is because the Associated Press has a list of those cities which it feels are notable enough to warrant such treatment, and it is that convention which is currently being followed for U.S. articles. We do not have such a list for the Philippines. --Sky Harbor (talk) 12:16, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

My point is that there is no line to be drawn. The titles of all articles on PH cities and municipalities will be stripped of their province names as much as possible. We only retain the province name for disambiguation purposes (or use "City" as the natural disambiguator). This is in line with the general article title guidelines of Wikipedia.

Let's go through the 5 goals of the said guidelines:

  • "Recognizability – Titles are names or descriptions of the topic that are recognizable to someone familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic."
    • Someone familiar with Palawan will automatically know that Brooke's Point is a town in that province in the same way that an Albayeño or even a Bicolano will recognize Rapu-Rapu. No need for the province name.
  • "Naturalness – Titles are those that readers are likely to look for or search with as well as those that editors naturally use to link from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English."
    • I'll admit that adding the province name seems natural for us Filipinos. But adding the province name is not at all automatic. Some examples are touristy towns like Pagudpud and Puerto Galera that I've mentioned above. And if you look at Raid at Cabanatuan (a featured article), you will see that mentioned town names (e.g., Guimba, Talavera) do not have their province names attached.
  • "Precision – Titles usually use names and terms that are precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but not overly precise."
    • Adding the province name when it's not needed even for obscure towns like Basilisa (in Dinagat Islands) is being overly precise.
  • "Conciseness – Titles are concise, and not overly long."
    • Adding the province name is definitely not being concise.
  • "Consistency – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles."
    • The status quo is consistent, but so is my proposal (don't add the province name unless needed for disambiguation).

In addition, a quick survey of WP:PLACE shows that most countries do not adopt the comma convention. For example, Malaysia and Indonesia both state: "Where possible, articles on places in Malaysia/Indonesia use [[Placename]]. [...] if disambiguation between two places in Malaysia/Indonesia is required, [[Placename, State/Province]] is used. --seav (talk) 15:40, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I dunno about Malaysia or Indonesia but places like Japan also have their own set of guidelines. Go and take a look at MOS:JAPAN and see how their cities and municipalities are titled exactly just like ours. They append the prefecture name to all their cities and towns like we do with province names. Except "designated cities" (their version of independent/highly urbanized cities? :P ) PLUS, the Japanese are also against suffixes. Check out what they did to Toyota City, Hitachi City, Kanazawa City and Chiba City. But anyways, all i'm saying is that theres not one rule that fits all countries and that we should follow what's natural to us, what works for us given our unique setting and subdivisions. --RioHondo (talk) 17:02, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
What is important for me is what's in common usage. If most people in the Philippines write the LGU with the province name (or xxx City for cities), then we have to abide by that convention. Heck, the postal system uses this convention, so it's only natural that we follow it. --Sky Harbor (talk) 01:05, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes indeed, there's no question that the LGU, Province format is what's commonplace in the Philippines. And we are going to abide by it as we do today with the current Mosphil policy. The only amendment we are considering at this point is extending this convention to component cities as well so that all cities and municipalities will have their province attached to them, except the 38 independent cities which will continue to be titled independent of their province. (At least that's how i understood what was said above by HTD based on the earlier discussions in WT:TAMBAY#Changes (or additions) to WP:MOSPHIL) And, by the way whatever happened to my earlier petition for barangay names convention? I was suggesting a standard format similar to MOS:JAPAN's standard for its wards, that is [[{Barangay name}]], [[{City/Municipality name}]] which the current WP:MOSPHIL does not have. --RioHondo (talk) 06:15, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
It's true that there is no one system that applies to all countries but what is so objectionable about aligning our naming conventions as much as possible with Wikimedia's conventions? This would make our naming conventions simpler since we just add a bit to the generic convention instead of specifying a completely new system. Why can't we name the article title about the town in Mindoro as simply Pinamalayan? It's concise, precise, and unambiguous. Take note that almost all town articles start with the phrase similar to "Pinamalayan is a 1st class municipality...". If the comma convention is so common, then we would be starting the articles as "Pinamalayan, Oriental Mindoro is a 1st class municipality...".
As for the perception that "most people in the Philippines write the LGU with the province name", I think that they are simply doing that not just to name the LGU but as a concise way of providing context. If context can be provided elsewhere then the comma convention disappears. An example is the lead sentence in this news article: "Ilagan, the capital town of Isabela, is best known for being the home of the world’s largest wooden armchair—the butaka." Another example: "Families and friends of missing activists have erected a concrete sculpture in Oton town in Iloilo..." And here's another example where the article speaks specifically about Laguna: "The Laguna agriculturist’s report said the areas still submerged under water were low-lying villages of the towns of Sta. Maria, Mabitac, Siniloan, Pangil, Pakil, Paete, Kalayaan, Lumban, Pagsanjan, Sta. Cruz, Pila, Victoria, Los Baños, Bay and San Pedro; and the cities of Cabuyao, Calamba, Sta. Rosa and Biñan.". The comma convention provides context (or disambiguation) and is not an automatic appendage to a city or town's name.
Also, I will argue that the postal system is not a good basis for using the comma convention for article titles simply because (barring a systematic application and usage of a postcode/zip code system like in the UK), an address will be listed with hierarchical places in order to facilitate the sorting of mail. --seav (talk) 14:28, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
You wanna know the real reason why your MOS convention won't work for our LGU's? I mean apart from what's already explained in this page? It's called Motivations for cityhood, a phenomenon that's unique to the Philippines. The way it works is that municipalities get to ditch their province once they have achieved the coveted city status. I mean, you're filipino, you should know this. So you have cities trying to escape the chains of their province as the LGU code promised them but couldn't due to disambiguation constraints (e.g, Naga, Camarines Sur and Samal, Davao del Norte), and yet in effect, you are allowing some measly municipalities like Pinamalayan and Oton to enjoy what they couldn't? ;) I know this may sound petty, but trust me this is a huge deal for filipinos and their political landlords. Lol. Unless of course, youre ready for the return of the superfluous Cityname City, or the Island Garden City of Samal haha! (Unfortunately for Naga City, they're stuck with Camarines Sur and Cebu for good.) And as for your starting the articles assumption, it don't matter. Most city articles start with the phrase "The City of xxx is a nth class city..." even though their titles are obviously not [[{City of xxx}]]. --RioHondo (talk) 17:30, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you're seriously arguing whether the political aspirations of LGUs should be a factor in naming Wikipedia article titles, and they should not be a factor. As for your final point, there are also town articles that start "the Municipality of XXX is...". This is not a problem as it is acceptable to use the official name as the bolded text like "William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946) is an American politician..." on the article on Bill Clinton (note the article title). My point is that you would never add the province name to the bolded text so why add it to the article title when it's not needed? --seav (talk) 23:08, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
That don't matter. The lesser known cities and towns in the US also have their states attached to them, even when they 'don't appear in bold' and no disambiguation are required for them. Like Yonkers, New York, Pahrump, Nevada, Spokane, Washington, even bigger ones like Tulsa, Oklahoma and Fort Lauderdale, Florida which i guess fell short on the notability scale set by the Associated Press as Sky Harbor pointed out earlier. And as far as the Philippines is concerned, there can be no more than 38 notable cities, and that's already being generous. So again, the U.S. has its A.P. list and Japan has its designated cities. Take your pick :) But as already mentioned, we don't have a list similar to the US, so we'll make do with what we have-independent cities that do not carry their province by law and in common usage. Component cities down to municipalities shall continue to bear their provinces' names as they do in their seals, and in real practice. --RioHondo (talk) 07:56, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
If you give the U.S. and Japan as examples, I can give various European countries, Malaysia, and Indonesia as counterexamples to your three points:
  1. That there is a need to have a list of "special" places that don't need the state/province/whatever attached. The European countries, Malaysia, and Indonesia don't use such a list and they remove the state/province/whatever from the article titles of their cities/towns/villages. Examples of towns/cities where no comma convention is used: Old Weston (UK), La Granada de Río-Tinto (Spain), Abbeville-Saint-Lucien (France), Tauberrettersheim (Germany), Julau (Malaysia), Kwandang (Indonesia).
  2. That we can attach the province/state name even if they are not part of the bold text in the article's first sentence. See examples above.
  3. That we can attach the province/state name even if not needed for disambiguation. See examples above.
As for your last point that we continue to include the province name in the article titles of component cities and municipalities simply because they do in their seals and in "real practice", I have already argued before that this is simply because the province name provides context and is not an inherent part of the name of the municipality, and that we would ditch the comma-province convention if there is an alternate way to provide context (as given by my earlier examples of news articles about Ilagan, Oton, and the Laguna towns and cities). Adding the province name even when not needed goes against Wikipedia's naming convention that we use precise and concise titles, and not to do premptive disambiguation. --seav (talk) 09:54, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Re:Municipalities that were given new names upon cityhood. While Lapu-Lapu City and Roxas City, Capiz sound right, i'm not sure we can say the same for Cagayan de Oro City (renamed from Cagayan [Cagayan de Misamis] by virtue of R.A. 521 (Charter of the City of Cagayan de Oro); and Marawi City, Lanao del Sur (renamed from Dansalan by virtue of R.A. 1552 City Charter of Marawi.) Note: Both Cagayan and Marawi are not eponymous names compared to Lapu-Lapu City, Roxas City and Ozamiz City, Misamis Occidental (renamed from Misamis by virtue of R.A. 321 City Charter of Ozamiz). So i'd like to get a clearer understanding on this particular guideline. RioHondo (talk) 15:47, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

May I request for a review and modification of this guideline? So far we have identified five municipalities-turned-cities-with-a-new-name from the List of renamed cities and municipalities of the Philippines. These are:
1. Lapu-Lapu City
2. Roxas City, Capiz
3. Ozamiz City, Misamis Occidental
4. Cagayan de Oro
5. Marawi, Lanao del Sur
While I am open to the suggestion of adding "City" to the first three named after people, I take exception on Cagayan de Oro and Marawi. For me, they just don't fit. --RioHondo (talk) 06:37, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
I actually had a proposal like this before. I'd support adding the word "City", and removing the province name disambiguator, for articles about cities which had their names changed upon cityhood. Another example is General Santos City (renamed from "Opon"), but "General Santos" is quite prevalent. –HTD 13:50, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Provinces

The articles about the provinces of the Philippines deviate from the general style in Wikipedia. Almost everywhere the term "province" is included in the title of articles about provinces. So for readers the articles about the Philippines are often confusing.

Compare with the ASEAN neighbors Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and non-province countries: Burma (regions, states), Brunei (districts), Singapore (CDC and regions). Other countries in Asia where article titles include the term "province": Afghanistan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Provinces of Iran, North Korea, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Japan.

Only exceptions in Asia seem to be three sets of provinces: PRC (except Taiwan Province, People's Republic of China) - mostly not ambiguous, Indonesia - mostly not ambiguous, Pakistan - only four entities, which are all much larger than the Philippine provinces. For smaller entities on lower levels even these three countries use Foo District, Foo County, Foo Township, Foo Regency etc. for all articles, i.e. they include the type of the entity.

Apart from the inconsistency the following issues exist:

  • The plain name for single word provinces is always shared with other topics, i.e. is ambiguous. There are often islands that have the same name.
    • That means all these articles have a hat-note. Check
  • Determination of primary topic not obvious. Why Leyte or Cebu are the province articles is not easy understandable to outside readers.
    • Especially if many articles contain statements like "lies south of Leyte" - and Leyte is linked to the island article not the province. This is very inconsistent and confusing.
  • The official names as seen in the seals use "province" or "Lalawigan" or something similar.
  • Even on maps the term "province" is included, e.g. on http://www.cagayan.gov.ph/ - the neighboring Kalinga Province has the type of entity attached, and is written "Province of Kalinga" and not just "Kalinga". Including the term "province" makes the map much more easy to read.

What do you think about aligning the Philippine province articles with similar articles from other countries by applying the almost-all-Asia-style to them? AsianGeographer (talk) 06:48, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with this observation and the proposal to amend the mos convention for Philippine provinces. I too wonder why the Leyte article talks about the island's northern half that is Leyte Province when obviously the first thing that comes to mind for most people when they hear Leyte is that of the whole island. The same goes for Samar and how the article ended up talking about only the western third of the island. There's also Sulu which should go to the Sulu Archipelago as the primary topic covering the group of islands consisting of Basilan Province, Sulu Province and Tawi-Tawi Province. Archipelagoes or islands (geographical features basically) should take precedence over provinces, IMO. I propose that all Philippine regions be appended too with "(region)" especially now that some of those administative regions have taken the name of their geographic feature which cause confusion.
I dont know if you'd agree with me on this but this is the sort of changes i want to see to address the concerns on primary topic.
Cebu -- island
Cebu (province) -- province
Cebu (city) -- city
Leyte -- island
Leyte (province) -- province
Leyte, Leyte -- municipality (same)
Zamboanga Peninsula -- peninsula (geographic)
Zamboanga Peninsula (region) -- region
Zamboanga del Norte -- province (same)
Zamboanga -- city (note:No changes to mos convention for Phl cities, just no need for the 'City' suffix as there is no province of the same name just like Surigao
Cagayan -- disambiguation page
Cagayan Valley -- valley (geographic)
Cagayan Valley (region) -- region
Cagayan -- province (same)
Cagayan de Oro -- city (same)
Compostela Valley - valley (geographic)
Compostela Valley (province) - province
Compostela, Compostela Valley - municipality (same)
Dinagat - island
Dinagat Islands - province (same) [unless an article about the islands is made, that would put the province at Dinagat Islands (province)]
Dinagat, Dinagat Islands - municipality (same)
Davao -- city (same as Surigao)
Davao (region) -- region
Davao del Norte -- province (same)
--RioHondo (talk) 19:49, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
I could've heard "Cebu Province" elsewhere, mostly in discussions where Cebu City is involved, but I've never heard the likes of "Davao del Norte Province" or "Dinagat Islands Province". "Cagayan Province" is heard too, but mostly on non-Philippine sources. Also, the region names are as per NCSB, with some region names including the word "Region" (Bicol Region), while some don't (Central Luzon); if a geographical feature has an identical name with a region, the region gets to be the primary topic (see for example, "Jamaica"). –HTD 13:46, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
Or Cebu (province). Anyway, i understand our WP:Mosphil is flawed and need revisions to be more consistent with the general WP:MOS guidelines. I am starting to think we need to do away with preemptive disambiguation (as what this earlier user pointed out). So Davao del Norte stays at Davao del Norte, the only question is which gets the wp:primary topic for identical places. And as i have explained above with minor changes, my preference is: 1) if the island has the name name as a province, the island is primary topic. 2) if the city has the same name as a province, the city gets primary topic. (something to do with the province having been named after towns that became their capitals, not the other way around). Hence, Samar should be at Samar (province) and Leyte at Leyte (province). And the city of Davao at Davao and the city of Zamboanga at Zamboanga. --RioHondo (talk) 15:30, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
How do you even pronounce "Cebu (province)"? Does one say "Cebu [softly] province", or "Cebu open parenthesis province close parenthesis"? The "(province)" part acts like a disambiguator. –HTD 16:27, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
As for provinces having the same names as islands, I'm not so sure. For the most part, people encounter lists of places on PAGASA typhoon storm warnings. If an island has several provinces is under a storm warning signal, it is per province; if a province has several islands, it is per island. For example, "Signal #1: Leyte, Southern Leyte, Samar, Calamian Group of Islands, rest of Palawan." In transport, if a bus says it's going to "Leyte", there's a high chance it won't get to Sogod, Southern Leyte, unless it's specified.
As for cities having the same names as provinces, the largest jurisdiction can not-so-easily claim WP:PRIMARYTOPIC here. Our basis is current practice. If one says "I'm from Batangas", does it automatically mean that he's from Batangas City"? In fact the only case where the might be confusion in this case is if someone says "I'm from Cebu/Zamboanga/Davao/Samar/Mindoro", as both the province and city can claim the "Cebu" name, and the Zamboangas, Samars and Mindoros almost always need a disambiguator. If one says "I'm going to Iloilo/Bulacan/Leyte", there's a pretty high chance that he's referring to a province; same case for "I bought this from Quezon" (no one says "I'm from Quezon" when he's from Quezon City). How about Negros? By my experience, "I'm from Negros" is almost always proceeded by "Occidental" or "Oriental". How about Ilocos? More likely he'd refer to the region.
Also, if one's writing letters, or personal forms like bio-data, the city name is usually added with the word "City" indiscriminately, and the "province" doesn't have the word "Province" on it, unless it's "Quezon Province" (there's actually a legit reason to move that one). While I do not like appending the word "City", I'm OK on appending it on cases such as Cebu City-Cebu and Iloilo City-Iloilo, etc. –HTD 16:27, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
If we base our MOS on current practice, then we really wouldn't be able to reach consensus, as we pinoys have our own different ways of calling places, like for example, people in the provinces refer to Metro Manila as Manila (the same way foreigners and expats do), whereas majority of local Metro Manilans know Manila as just this one city where Erap is mayor. I suggest we go back to the basics, plain names, municipalities/cities with no namesake be titled without their provinces and by their plain names. Although i still think majority of wp readers know Cebu, Leyte and Samar as islands, if we can merge the island and province, like for Cebu, then lets do it. Ex. Cebu is an island and the nth most populous province... But Leyte referring to just its northern half, and Samar its western third is just a disaster. :)--RioHondo (talk) 17:30, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
What I don't like about plain names is that many would have to be disambiguated anyway, so there'd be no uniform naming scheme in the long run. The only major problem is the case of cities which don't have provinces because they'd have to be "plain names", while some would inevitably be disambiguated (just as what's happening now). It will be a disaster if you're making a list of places, and you want all links to point to real articles and not redirects, as what I did in Regional Trial Court. If there were no ICCs and HUCs, we would have all towns and cities in the town/cityname, provincename format and it would've been easier. –HTD 17:38, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
The problem with the current naming convention for cities and municipalities is having to check on their status regularly and having to retitle them every time one moves up the ranks and becomes a city or an ICC/HUC (from X, Province to simply X; or X, Province to X, Philippines and then there's also X, Region). So consistency is a big issue there, and of course the hassle of renaming them, forcing editors to keep track of the latest cities so you end up visiting each article for their current status and title before you could link them anyway. The town/cityname, provincename format also runs counter to the general wp:mos on concise article titles i learned recently. --RioHondo (talk) 18:02, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
The proposed amendments I suggested won't let you check out updates "regularly" as new cities will still remain at their current article titles; the only "upgrades" which would have to be checked is if it free of political control from a province; I dunno how often is that, but presumably, that should be rarer than towns upgrading into cities. One doesn't have to check out "regularly", we usually get updated on upgrades once they happen, which is at random intervals.
As for WP:CONCISE, it doesn't mean article titles have to be short. It means it could be of any length, as long as the reader recognizes it. New Bataan, Compostela Valley and New Bataan both satisfy WP:CONCISE; "Municipality of New Bataan" doesn't, even if it's actually shorter than the first one. –HTD 17:34, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
So i did a quick google search on "New Bataan" and here's what i saw:
New Bataan, Compostela Valley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
wiki.riteme.site/.../New_Bataan,_Comp...
New Bataan is a second class municipality at the Compostela Valley province of the Philippines. The municipality was ...
‎Brief Profile - ‎Barangays - ‎References - ‎External links
You see what I mean that even if we drop the province name, the readers will still recognize it as it appears in the intro included in the result?--RioHondo (talk) 05:54, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
Inexplicably, readers should recognize something when they read the entire thing. Of course, you can't force anyone to read the everything, or even the first sentence.
Assuming someone don't know what/where "New Bataan" is, once a reader saw this at the search box, would they know what it is? Would it be a rock band, a ship, a vision (a la Philippines 2000), a place, a TV show, what? "New Bataan, Compostela Valley" tells you from the get-go that New Bataan is a place. If you're a Filipino, you'd conclude that New Bataan is either a barangay or district in the town of Compostela Valley, or that New Bataan is a town in the province of Compostela Valley, with the latter option presumably getting a higher chance of conclusion, since barangay articles are still quite rare around these parts.
Assuming the reader knows that there's actually a town in Compostela Valley called New Bataan, would s/he sufficiently conclude that once s/he sees "New Bataan" at the search box, s/he'd go to the article about the place? Well, yes, since there should be no other "New Bataan" a place somewhere else, a band, a ship, a TV show or propaganda by the Bataan provincial government. But what if there is? –HTD 15:55, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
If the lead section of wp articles is not enough to identify the article as pertaining to a place in Compostela Valley, Philippines, google also displays its map preceding the wp search box for our 5th graders. Try it :) As for senior citizens who aren't familiar with these new provinces and know New Bataan as belonging to the old Davao province, the same article appears with Davao Region in its intro line. Again, the provincename is unnecesarry as you have all these clues already in the search boxes. :)--RioHondo (talk) 05:32, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes, surely sending our readers to an external website to read maps, of which they might not know how to decipher certainly helps them; mind you, not everyone knows how to read maps, those DOTA kids certainly don't know. :| Providing context shouldn't be an Easter egg hunt, once the opportunity presents itself, and it's natural and recognizable for the reader, we should take advantage of it. :) The primary way for readers to know that they landed at the right place is the article title, otherwise we won't have article titles and just let the reader find out at the lead. The comma convention helps the reader do just that for places that they're unfamiliar with; for places that they're likely familiar with (such as highly urbanized cities), they're already undisambiguated.
Also, the old Davao province was no more when New Bataan became a town in 1968; the old province split up in 1967. Let's forget about New Bataan, which could be a band, TV show, place or propaganda just by looking at it; how about the nearby town of Braulio E. Dujali, Compostela Valley? The article about Braulio E. Dujali the person still has to be created, and he could certainly be notable since they named a town after him, but what if the town becomes the clear WP:PRIMARYTOPIC? The reader would then see at the Wikipedia search box "Braulio E. Dujali" and "Braulio E. Dujali (person)". What if Braulio E. Dujali turns out to be unnotable, but the town article is at "Braulio E. Dujali"? Everyone who is searching at Wikipedia and at Google would certainly expect that an article about "Braulio E. Dujali" would be about a person. Would disambiguate this too? How about places such as General Mariano Alvarez, Cavite, or even Plaridel, Bulacan? "Plaridel" is the pen name of Marcelo H. del Pilar, should Plaridel redirect to him, the place, or should the place be the primary topic? –HTD 12:43, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
I was referring to Davao del Norte which inherited the old province, which until 1998 was called simply Davao, hence New Bataan, Davao to oldtimers. As for Braulio E. Dujali, there are several ways to disambiguate the municipality, if and when an article on the person is created. Or the person could be at Braulio Estoperes Dujali and wouldn't affect the municipality which is the more popular and notable entry. Just like the town of Vicente López in Argentina and Pedro Muñoz in Spain. No issues with General Mariano Alvarez, the person is titled following the general guidelines on precise article titles for people, which is the plain name (Mariano Álvarez) similar to the municipalities of General Simon Bolivar and Presidente Jânio Quadros which have separate articles for the people they were named after. Think of it as Sultan Kudarat the province and Muhammad Kudarat the person, General Santos the city and Paulino Santos the person. Plaridel would be a dab page as there is also a Plaridel town in Quezon and in Misamis Occidental. But if it was just Bulacan, then definitely the municipality gets the title as the person is called differently.--RioHondo (talk) 03:07, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
But then we would be making up names now. What if the person called Braulio E. Dujali was actually called "Braulio E. Dujali"? The Sultan Kudarat example is actually a bad one: both the province and the person are actually called "Sultan Kudarat". I don't think no one actually knew his name was "Muhammad"; I would've went for Sultan Kudarat of Maguindanao for the person. As for General Bolivar and Presidente Quadros, I don't presume to know how they truly are called, so I can't comment on those: it should be that the places must be the primary topic if someone talks about the exact term "Presidente Jânio Quadros" with no context. Do people always refer to the people or places when someone says "General Mariano Alvarez" or "General Emilio Aguinaldo" without context? I dunno, but "General Santos" has been about the place, at least recently; I don't think people know who Paulino Santos is, and that he's the namesake of the city. If the place was actually called "General Paulino Santos", then we would have a problem.
As for Plaridel, it might be my Manila bias showing, but the Plaridel in Bulacan might be the most popular of the three as it is the closest to the Metro. But if someone talks about a certain "Plaridel", does he refer to the person, or any of the three towns? Is it actually right for "Dimasalang", Rizal's penname, to redirect to Dimasalang, Masbate? If someone says something about a certain Dimasalang, without context, how sure are we that he's talking about the place in Masbate? –HTD 12:45, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

The purpose of Wikipedia article titles is to name, unambiguously, the topic of the article. There is no rule that you need to provide any information or context about what kind of object or person the article topic is. Try going to a random article in Wikipedia. Would you immediately know what each article is about by just looking at the title? Not always. And that is not a problem since that is not the purpose of the article title. RioHondo has already provided some place articles whose titles would appear to be about persons. Some other examples:

--seav (talk) 19:17, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Islands

There is no section for islands, and the naming of the island articles is inconsistent:

I suggest to have only one format: "<Islandbasename> Island". AsianGeographer (talk) 10:54, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's a need for any format for islands except what's standard across all other wp article titles for islands. If there's no need for disambiguator, we'll make it primary topic, also considering common usage. For example: the Islands of Hawaii have Maui, Kauai and Oahu as article titles without appending the unecessary suffix "Island" to them. Just like my above proposal, and following the examples for Luzon, Mindoro, Panay and Mindanao. Cebu and Leyte therefore must have those islands as primary topic, their provinces titled as Cebu Province and Leyte Province instead. --RioHondo (talk) 04:59, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
Isn't it interesting that Hawaii is about the state instead of the Hawaii the island? The comparison isn't that analogous though. One example that I see are the four Balearic Islands: Majorca, Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera. The 4 articles appear to be are both for the island per se and the political unit that has jurisdiction over the island. I'n not entirely sure because the regional government of the island doesn't seem powerful. –HTD 17:57, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
That's because the state of Hawaii is primary topic and what shows up in most searches on the topic. As for Samar and Leyte and Cebu, i think most online references to them are about those islands, the Philippines being the second largest archipelago in the world, a known global fact of course is that our country is divided into islands, provinces are just secondary imo.--RioHondo (talk) 18:20, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Here's an additional point for consideration. There are plenty of articles that discuss both the island and the administrative unit at the same time:

So I think for island LGUs that are roughly coterminous with their island like Cebu and Basilan, there should only be 1 article discussing both. --seav (talk) 14:16, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

"However, the MOSPHIL guidelines for place article titles no longer has consensus support"

Just noting these on the page here for convenience since the statement "However, the MOSPHIL guidelines for place article titles no longer has consensus support" is being made in Talk:Santa Praxedes, Cagayan one of several RM discussions.

These are noted for reference as they relate to this MOS page. In ictu oculi (talk) 21:07, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Proposed changes to MOSPHIL

Following two years of discussion and contentious debates on updating the guidelines regarding place article titles in this talk page and in Wikipedia_talk:Tambayan_Philippines/Archive34 as mentioned above, a compromise has been reached and a new proposal is being worked on in consultation with members of Wikiproject Philippines. This proposal basically touches on the changes to city and municipality article titles in light of the recent successful RMs as well as introducing new guidelines with respect to other local government units missing in this current MOS, such as barangays as proposed above since 2012. Please feel free to participate in the discussion at WP:TAMBAY. --RioHondo (talk) 02:41, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Barangays

After reading both the project page and the talk page, I have some questions concerning articles about barangays.

  • Are they appropriate?
Given the notability standards of Wikipedia, I would question the notability of every single one of the 42,000+ barangays in the Philippines. On the other hand, to the people that have lived their entire life there, that barangay is their world and is important to them. I suppose that it's a matter of digging until you find something noteworthy about a place.
  • Disambigulation
In all of the barangays in the Philippines, I'm pretty sure that there are some in separate provinces with a common name, and the normal Placename, Provincename structure would be sufficient. What if there are two barangay with the same name in a province? Do any of those even exist? — Preceding unsigned comment added by PaulNeb86 (talk • contribs) 18:36, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

@PaulNeb86: Normally geographic places don't have to follow the strict notability standards, but on the other hand, if nothing much can be said about a barangay, it is better to add it to the LGU article (see for example Polangui, Albay).

There are many, many duplicate barangay names within a province, e.g. San Roque in Polangui and Tabaco (Albay). The article name format would be Barangay, Municipality, Province. -- P 1 9 9  ✉ 13:06, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

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