Category talk:Municipal districts in Alberta

Naming conventions

There seems to be a convention to name all the counties and municipal districts in the same manner. For example, the county in Cardston is called Cardston County and the county in Lethbridge is called Lethbridge County. While this reflects the naming of the actual places used by the Alberta government, in other cases it does not. For example, Lethbridge is actually called County of Lethbridge. Does anyone know if a discussion ever took place to start using this convention? --Kmsiever 04:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Believe me, it does make sense to start the article name with a relevant term, even if it is not always the "official" wording. As wikipedia grows, articles are indexed in many different manners and categories. Many, for example, use the {{PAGENAME}} attribute to dump the article in some category (such as templates on the talk page, related to wikiprojects, picture requests, article status-(GA, featured, peer review, Wiki CD), etc). Finding and recognizing such an article in a wider category is much easier if it is indexed correctly, and automated indexing use the full article name.

To answer your question, naming for the counties/municipal districts started in this edit in {{Alberta}}. Names for the subjects involved changed since (re-introduced with the official names by this edit in List of communities in Alberta), and will continue to change. Having a well thought naming convention helps a lot in the long run. Official names, if they differ from article names, are easily addressed through redirects. --Qyd 05:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

So to your knowledge, there was no discussion, but the convention was seemingly arbitrary? Seems like an odd basis to use to rationalise the reverts of legitimate edits when saying "moved back as per naming conventions". Would it be of any use to hold a discussion on this matter? Or more specifically, do you think those who would participate (assuming it would be more than just use and me) would all simply support the current practice?

Regarding your other paragraph, I'm not sure I'd be quick to agree with you that the current conventions constitute "correct indexing", nor am I convinced that dumping articles (a practice I don't necessarily agree with) is a worthwhile reason to avoid naming articles to match real-life naming conventions.

I hope the intent of what I am writing is clear. After rereading what I wrote, it seems like some could interpret what I have said to be written out of frustration or distaste. I am trying to be concise and sincere. --Kmsiever 15:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't say arbitrary, I'm sure those names had a specific source (but that source is not obvious maybe). No, I'm not aware of any discussion related specifically to naming of counties and municipal districts. There are various discussions related to naming conventions of places in Canada (one in Talk:Census geographic units of Canada for example). The result was to use whatever Statistisc Canada used for the census (2001). (Statcan does use "Lethbridge County", see this link). If you wish to pursue the issue further, try Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board#Requests for comment --Qyd 18:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it reasonable to use the naming conventions of Statistics Canada. As long as we are not using seemingly arbitrary (or at the very least, as you said, unknown) reasons. If that were the case, we would need to make sure all are name accordingly. I will ask the other Canadians to comment here as well. --Kmsiever 19:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I would think it best to go with whatever Statscan uses, personally, though the other title should certainly exist as a redirect. Bearcat 22:45, 12 November 2006 (UTC)