Talk:2010 Knox County, Tennessee mayoral election: Difference between revisions

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*:1) What do you think of the NYT and Reuters quotations included above?

*:2) If there really is an informed consensus that is an exception to what’s generally prescribed in the guideline, don’t you think one should be able to find at least some indication of it somewhere in the guideline? Maybe it’s time to start a discussion and walk the extra mile to codify that exception? [[User:HandsomeFella|HandsomeFella]] ([[User talk:HandsomeFella|talk]]) 23:23, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

:::What I want to know is ”why” the proposed titles are more confusing than the current titles, when the proposed titles follow basic grammatical rules accepted by all major style guides, whereas the current titles do not. When I made a comment about the indecipherable nature of the present titles, I was not making any kind of jest. If one holds a basic knowledge of the functions of commas and appositives in the English language, one will read the current title as implying that there is such a thing as a ””Tennessee mayoral election””, which as the opposers are aware, does not exist. The only way that we can quantify ‘confusion’ is by consulting style guides. Style guides are written precisely with the intent of minimising confusion and documenting commonly-accepted rules. If any of the opposers have actual evidence that the ‘confusion’ they describe exists, or has been documented by reliable sources outside Wikipedia, then, maybe, I would be understanding. At the present time, however, no such evidence has been presented. Wikipedia is based on the principle of verifiability, and should not create original stylings or grammatical rules without any basis in commonly-accepted usage as documented in RS. ”Yours, &c.” [[User:RGloucester|RGloucester ]] — [[User talk:RGloucester|☎]] 00:12, 13 November 2025 (UTC)

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer’s talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Consensus is currently against the second comma. Wider discussion on the application of MOS:GEOCOMMA in article titles (in a place such as Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style) may be needed. (non-admin closure) – MrAussieGuy (Talk) 08:42, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

– Move requested to conform with MOS:GEOCOMMA and ultimately to achieve consistency across the project (which is badly lacking).

MOS:GEOCOMMA is clear. It prescribes the following:

In geographical references that include multiple levels of subordinate divisions (e.g., city, state/province, country), a comma separates each element and follows the last element unless followed by terminal punctuation or a closing parenthesis. The last element is treated as parenthetical.

He traveled through North Carolina before staying in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the night. (correct)
He traveled through North Carolina before staying in Chattanooga, Tennessee for the night. (incorrect)

Also include commas when the geographical element is used as a disambiguator:

Hantratty received a PhD from the University of California, Irvine, in 1977. (correct)
Hantratty received a PhD from the University of California, Irvine in 1977. (incorrect)

There is no mention of any specific exception for article titles, and so there isn’t any.

We have similar constructs involving dates:

He set October 1, 2011, as the deadline for Patterson to meet his demands. (correct)
He set October 1, 2011 as the deadline for Patterson to meet his demands. (incorrect)

and royal titles:

Wedding of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, and Mary Donaldson (correct)
Wedding of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark and Mary Donaldson (incorrect)
Wedding of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, and Princess Ingrid of Sweden (correct)
Wedding of Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark and Princess Ingrid of Sweden (incorrect)
Wedding of Wedding of Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, and Daniel Westling (correct)
Wedding of Wedding of Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden and Daniel Westling (incorrect)

and possibly more.

In the first example, without the closing comma, it would (grammatically) appear that Fredrik’s title is “Crown Prince of Denmark and Mary Donaldson”. That’s obviously not the case, as any reader realizes, but that’s no reason to omit the comma.

Wikipedia:Article titles has often been invoked as a reason for deviating from the Manual of Style. Unfortunately, over time, this has resulted in different outcomes (consensuses) on different sets of RMs. Recently, an old RM from 2016, Talk:2015 Columbus, Ohio mayoral election, which was closed as “not moved”, was referred to as basis for reverting a move back to a comma-less version.

That consensus (from 2016) may have been the result of too few editors being aware of the Manual of Style and/or paying attention to the WP:RM listing. If you don’t have the listing on your watchlist already, I suggest you add it. Here’s the link: Wikipedia:Requested moves/Current discussions. Remember to visit it once in a while.

While Wikipedia:Article titles does give some latitude, it isn’t desirable that article titles with what should reasonably be the same format end up with a different format, especially when there is no specific reason, other than that the outcome of a local RM, for whatever reason, happened to be different from the outcome of other RMs.

Now, consensus can change. It is desirable that we achieve consistency across the project. Editors who oppose this RM – especially if they plan to invoke old RMs – are encouraged to instead seek consensus for an exception for article titles at the MoS, or at least provide a proper rationale other than “silly”, “unnecessary”, or “not needed”.

We need consistency. Badly.

This RM involves many pages in order to attract attention and input from as many editors as possible.

Note to closing editor: some of the redirects “in the way” have been edited, so admin authorization is probably needed. The discussion will probably last more than 7 days. HandsomeFella (talk) 19:07, 6 July 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. CoconutOctopus talk 22:08, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Similar RMs frequently end with consensus against the second comma (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Putting a comma between an single adjective/attributive and a noun is awkward and very unusual, while leaving out a comma after “city, state” or “mmm dd, yyyy” is common. The guideline MOS:GEOCOMMA is based on a quesetionable analysis of the state name as an appositive and external style guidelines that don’t consider the case where the location is used as an attributive. The lack of a written exception in the guideline should not be mistaken for consensus to apply the guideline in this case – instead, it reflects a desire to keep guidelines simple, and a problematic tendency to keep rules that no longer have consensus behind them simply because there isn’t a clear consensus to remove them. Jruderman (talk) 00:26, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Putting a comma between a single adjective/attributive and a noun – as in constructs like “the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks” and “the Jan. 6, 2021, attack” – is what I regularly see in The New York Times, which I subscribe to, so it’s not at all very unusual.

In contrast, I have never seen this type of construct without the comma in NYT. Believe me, I would have noticed.

The construct itself may not be very frequent, but when it appears, it always includes the comma. They are very consistent with their style, and we should be too.

Regarding the desire to keep guidelines simple, implementing an exception in the Manual of Style couldn’t be that complicated, could it? It’s a limited set of circumstances. The problem – as you realize – is that such a proposal has no chance of getting a consensus. The reason is of course that it would make no sense.

Setting aside the wiki-wide MoS on some local RMs is what’s questionable here, and is what has led to the widespread inconsistency that we unfortunately have. HandsomeFella (talk) 09:07, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: There needs to be clarification at MOS:GEOCOMMA and MOS:DATECOMMA over whether a second comma should be used when a construction with a comma is used as a modifier. Evidence from sources like the NYT and from style guides would be helpful. This is an example of an RM where the matching commas were kept. Ham II (talk) 06:57, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here’s a start on the evidence-gathering: Merriam-Webster’s Guide to Punctuation and Style (1995, p. 26): “Some writers omit the comma that follows the name of a state (or province, country, etc.) when no other element of an address follows it, which usually occurs when a city name and a state name are being used in combination to modify a noun that follows. However, retaining this comma is still the more common practice.We visited their Enid, Oklahoma plant.
but more commonly
We visited their Enid, Oklahoma, plant.“Ham II (talk) 14:13, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per the precedents and rationale mentioned by Jruderman. We have discussed this perennially over the years, notably for metropolitan area articles such as Rochester metropolitan area, New York, and there is generally a consensus across the project that applying the letter of WP:GEOCOMMA to short-form titles such as these is a greater evil that leaving out the comma. So while in prose I would always include the comma – “The 2010 Knox County, Tennessee, mayoral election was notable for its use of pineapples on billboards…” Article titles aren’t full sentences and don’t always conform to the same rules as prose. Anyway, as with the Rochester example, the first choice for me would always be to restructure the title so that the awkward construction is avoided altogether. So if someone wants to propose 2010 mayoral election in Knox County, Tennessee or similar, I would be very likely to support that. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 10:38, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I recently proposed a changed naming convention for articles on local elections along the lines Amakuru mentions above – i.e. from “[year] [location, dab], [type of election] election” to “[year] [type of election] election in [location, dab]” – but the RfC was met with solid opposition. That is also a naming convention I could support, but it would have to be discussed on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (government and legislation) first, I think. HandsomeFella (talk) 12:29, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ewww and I was even among the opposers at that one… ah well. I suppose, thinking back to my comment then, the issue is that these small number of disambiguated cases are then disrupting the wider number of articles that don’t have an issue. The 2024 Istanbul mayoral election -> 2024 mayoral election in Istanbul case cited doesn’t seem like a useful change and then where does it end? You’d end up with it spilling over to changes like 2024 United States presidential election -> 2024 presidential election in the United States which isn’t ideal at all. Maybe omitting the statename by default and putting it at the end in parentheses where there’s ambiguity is the way to go after all.

For now, though, pending any sort of consensus for change at the project talk page, we’re stuck with the current default format of just omitting the second comma for these sort of titles which, per the Merriam Webster cite above about “some writers [omitting] the comma”, is not an clearly incorrect way to render it. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 15:02, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can see your point about Istanbul – btw, it was pointed out to me that it was actually elections, in plural, at least for 2024 – but “small number of cases”? For the U.S., there are only some 20 cities that don’t have a state dab, cities like Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, etc. All the rest (thousands of them) have a state dab, as do all counties (3,144). And from what I’ve seen recently, people are going back creating articles on old mayoral elections on those cities and counties. The small number of cases would rather be the mayoral election articles on cities like Istanbul, Chicago, etc. It’s not a big problem, or even a problem at all.

What I don’t see though, is the U.S. presidential elections (and similar elections) having to be renamed, because “United States” is hardly ambiguous. The only such case I can think of is Georgia, the U.S. state, and Georgia, the country, but they are dabbed using parentheses.

And we’re not “stuck” with any “current default format”, because there isn’t one. If there were one, it would, per WP:COMMONNAME, be with the comma, because, according to MW, that is more common. Lacking a “current default format”, what goes is the Manual of Style, which requires a comma. HandsomeFella (talk) 23:34, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note to closing editor (II): while I’m disappointed in the opposition from many editors – not necessarily here (yet), but historically – and the resulting outcomes, I take comfort in the discussion guidelines at Wikipedia:Requested moves#Commenting on a requested move, which state that “The debate is not a vote“, and “Explain how the proposed article title meets or contravenes policy and guidelines rather than merely stating that it does so” (underscore mine). Closing editors might have failed in considering those guidelines in previous RMs. HandsomeFella (talk) 12:29, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

@HandsomeFella: I’m too late to weigh in I guess, but I’m 100% in favor of a move. My recommendation, though, would be remove the comma question entirely. I’m for avoiding use of commas in article titles. The right way to handle these titles is with normal disambiguation rules. If there is no other “2010 Knox County mayoral election” then “Tennessee” does not belong in the title at all. If it requires disambiguation, use a parenthetical at the end, 2010 Knox County mayoral election (Tennessee).

But also, if written in a sentence, the phrase “Knox County, Tennessee, mayoral election” does require a comma before and after Tennessee, so I agree the article title is incorrect here without the second comma. — Asdasdasdff (talk) 17:24, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I have proposed an added clarification to MOS:GEOCOMMA, so there is actually a more recent place where you can contribute. You’ll find the proposal here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#MOS:GEOCOMMA in article titles. HandsomeFella (talk) 20:33, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

– Second attempt (similar to the above) now that MOS:GEOCOMMA has been amended with

Include a second comma also when a construction with a comma modifies a noun or compound noun:

Correct:

Keith Wilson won the 2024 Portland, Oregon, mayoral election.

Incorrect:

Keith Wilson won the 2024 Portland, Oregon mayoral election.

and per consensus can change (especially after changes in guidelines, one would think). That amendment was added after this thorough discussion. I went the extra mile to ask members in the project to amend the guideline.

Any oppose arguments baselessly (i.e. unsupported by a MoS guideline) arguing an exception for grammatical modifiers and article titles are now moot, and an expression of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Those who are interested can read the (archived) discussion linked in the previous paragraph. HandsomeFella (talk) 21:04, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: 3 redirects as current titles had to be bypassed, because redirects are ineligible to be current titles in move requests. “1980 Portland, Oregon mayoral election” redirects to its plural; “2011 Portland, Maine mayoral election” and “2015 Portland, Maine mayoral election” already target pages with content at their proposed titles. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. – welcome! – 07:00, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I support these moves. —Eyer (he/him) If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message. 21:46, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nominator. Yoblyblob (Talk) 🙂 22:41, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per MOS:GEOCOMMA. A comma is required to close the appositive. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 00:37, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Consensus can indeed change, but the most recent RM on this sort of topic was less than a month ago and there was a clear lack of consensus to move to the proposed awkward titles. To summarise the arguments against, I fully understand the GEOCOMMA argument, and in normal article prose it’s a no-brainier to follow that. But for titles, the proposed format 2010 Knox County, Tennessee, mayoral election is just confusing for readers. It looks like a list of separate things rather than a single grammatical construct, and therefore is not compliant with the WP:RECOGNIZE policy, which is of greater importance than a guideline such as GEOCOMMA. I’ve always been an advocate of seeking alternative constructs which avoid this issue altogether, for example the longstanding consensus at Talk:Rochester metropolitan area, New York, so if a compromise along those lines can be found then great. But for now, the current title is the lesser of two evils but it’s been like this for years without issue and I will not vote to make readers’ experience worse. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 08:31, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree that the proposed titles are confusing for readers, provided that those readers understand the functions of commas and appositives in the English language. If anything, the current titles are indecipherable, seemingly referring to an election for the ‘mayor of Tennessee’ as it took place in various counties. As far as I know, there is no mayor of Tennessee. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 08:38, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Amakuru, is this confusing to you?

“5 Charged in U.C. Berkeley Professor’s Killing in Greece, Including His Ex-Wife”. The New York Times. July 17, 2025. Five people have been arrested by the Greek authorities in the July 4 killing of a well-known University of California, Berkeley, professor, including his ex-wife and her current boyfriend, the police said.
“US judge sentences ex-police officer to 33 months for violating civil rights of Breonna Taylor”. Reuters. July 22, 2025. Taylor, a Black woman, was shot and killed by Louisville, Kentucky, police officers in March 2020 after they used a no-knock warrant at her home.
“Judge T.S. Ellis III, 85, Dies; Stirred Outcry Over Manafort Sentence”. The New York Times. August 12, 2025. He joined the large law firm Hunton & Williams (now Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP) in its Richmond, Va., office as a litigation attorney and briefly worked with Lewis F. Powell Jr. there before Mr. Powell was appointed to the United States Supreme Court in 1972 by President Richard M. Nixon.

(emphasis mine)

I think you are underestimating the readers. HandsomeFella (talk) 09:13, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose I’m aware that you’re proposing a grammatical fix but I think the new pages would be more confusing to many. Second what @Amakuru has said Aesurias (talk) 20:44, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per Amakuru and my objections raised at the discussion referenced and in prior RMs. Although the discussion at WT:MOS/GEOCOMMA did state it was about titles, none of the examples listed there, nor the example added to MOS, involve titles. The so-called thorough discussion had just four support !votes. That hardly trumps the wider consensus across dozens of article titles and RMs. The nominator is free to disagree with opposers and it is reasonable to anticipate and try to preempt common arguments, but the dismissal of coherent objections as WP:IDONTLIKEIT and the gross overstatement of consensus is contrary to the project of collaborative consensus-building. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 22:16, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

“[T]he wider consensus across dozens of article titles and RMs” is likely caused by a lack of awareness of the guidelines, both with RM responders and with the RM closer — i.e. a vote count rather than an assessment of strength of argument (vis-a-vis the guidelines) — probably in combination with a less-than-full understanding of the function of commas and appositives. When I point out the guidelines, what usually comes up is indeed in many cases incoherent: “weird”, “unnecessary”, “silly”, “not needed”, i.e. rather unconvincing arguments, apparently based on visuals.

Coherent objections can of course be discussed, but is your point only that many previous RMs proposing the addition of a closing comma have failed?

The fact that many apparently over time have been uninformed of the guidelines is hardly a strong argument. We can’t always be aware of all guidelines, but speaking for myself, when I become aware of a guideline, I start complying with it if I wasn’t following it intuitively already. More editors should do that.

So I have two questions:

1) What do you think of the NYT and Reuters quotations included above?

2) If there really is an informed consensus that is an exception to what’s generally prescribed in the guideline, don’t you think one should be able to find at least some indication of it somewhere in the guideline? Maybe it’s time to start a discussion and walk the extra mile to codify that exception? HandsomeFella (talk) 23:23, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What I want to know is why the proposed titles are more confusing than the current titles, when the proposed titles follow basic grammatical rules accepted by all major style guides, whereas the current titles do not. When I made a comment about the indecipherable nature of the present titles, I was not making any kind of jest. If one holds a basic knowledge of the functions of commas and appositives in the English language, one will read the current title as implying that there is such a thing as a ‘Tennessee mayoral election’, which as the opposers are aware, does not exist. The only way that we can quantify ‘confusion’ is by consulting style guides. Style guides are written precisely with the intent of minimising confusion and documenting commonly-accepted rules. If any of the opposers have actual evidence that the ‘confusion’ they describe exists, or has been documented by reliable sources outside Wikipedia, then, maybe, I would be understanding. At the present time, however, no such evidence has been presented. Wikipedia is based on the principle of verifiability, and should not create original stylings or grammatical rules without any basis in commonly-accepted usage as documented in RS. Yours, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 00:12, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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