Board Thread:Wiki discussion/@comment-18014300-20181025173429

There was a proposal on Discord to move Philadelphia, United States and Thebes, Greece to "Philadelphia (United States)" and "Thebes (Greece)", a proposal which I disagree with, but it should still be heard, regardless of my disapproval.

I do not understand what argument is there for the move, but I believe the arguments in support of this is:
 * 1) Consistency with the way other articles are disambiguated.

My argument against this is as follows.


 * 1) Technically, parenthetical disambiguations are meant only to be used as a last resort when there is no other way. This is because they are rather sloppy, but in many cases, there is simply again, no other way. However, when there are valid, standard means of disambiguation such as with location names, this renders parenthetical disambiguation unnecessary, and natural disambiguations should be preferred.


 * 1) Consistency with Wikipedia. While I know some have argued that there is no reason to be consistent with Wikipedia, I would argue that as a wiki derived from it, even if it is necessary, it is preferable to be consistent with precedents set by higher prestige wikis and Wikipedia. For more information, read and . Also see,  and.


 * 1) Codified in the . To be fair, the Manual of Style was largely drafted by me, and since there was no previously codified rule concerning this, I deferred to Wikiipedia. I had asked the other staff to review it and raise any concerns or objections that they have, and this was not disputed at the time. It is my conviction that once a MoS becomes official, it is our responsibility to respect it with integrity and amend through formal procedure if there are any objections. Otherwise, how can we ask new editors to respect our guidelines? I understand that perhaps some might not appreciate the fact that the MoS was published when they were inactive or neglected to review it when presented, but I don't think it is fair to then disregard it for this reason.

If you are voting, please type either parenthetical disambiguation or geographical disambiguation, in bold preferably followed by any comments unbolded if you have any. 