Talk:Philadelphia/Redirect talk page

Recently, two users have disputed the redirect of Philadelphia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a redirect that has lasted for over a year. They claim there is nationalistic or geographic bias in redirecting to the Pennsylvania city. (I originally thought they claimed bias in importance and common usage.) In the case of Philadelphia, towns that currently have the name outside of the U.S. do not have an article in Wikipedia, save for a town with a different spelling, Filadelfia, Paraguay; and other places that historically had the name are now called by other names.

I believe that Philadelphia is known throughout the world today to refer to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. I disagree with the claim of bias as an irrelevant reason for not redirecting. The vast majority of articles that reference Philadelphia refer to the Pennsylvania city, and that is sufficient reason enough for a redirect to that city. From Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, there is a link to Philadelphia (disambiguation) page, which was cut-and-pasted into this one.

The following U.S. major cities are also place names in other countries. Per the users' argument, they would also want these articles to point to a disambig page, which I obviously disagree with:

• Los Angeles
• Houston
• San Diego
• San Francisco
• San Antonio
• Miami
• Boston
• Cleveland
• Dallas

Another example I give is that Elgin redirects to Elgin, Moray in Scotland, a town of 21,000 people. Yet Elgin, Illinois is a city of about 95,000 people and its article size is longer than Elgin, Moray.

So I reject the users' reasoning, because Philadelphia widely refers to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, independent of nationalistic concerns and when referred to without any context. What's ironic is that both of these users have great knowledge of the Pennsylvania city. Tinlinkin 01:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It should definitely stay redirecting to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania while there are 4000 incoming links to it, as there are now. Ideally, these should be checked and changed to avoid the redirect or properly disambiguated. If a significant (I'd say >100, don't know if there's a guideline) number of these were not to the city in Pennsylvania, there would be an argument for changing the redirect to Philadelphia (disambiguation) (or move, not cut/paste that page here). Fix the incoming links first! --Scott Davis ^Talk 04:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• • NO! Just because people are lazy and don't edit things properly doesn't mean we need to sacrifice WP:NPOV for people who want to take shortcuts. Redirects to disambiguation pages will be fixed when people notice them. It will be self correcting. I object just as much to a Scotish bias to an American bias, since I thought Wikipedia was not supposed to be biased. Shouldn't we error on the side of caution? I think yes, but we need to be careful and try to think about people out side of where we live! The problems the redirect causes will be self correcting! Kramden4700 05:39, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The point is not just that people are lazy, the editors of those other pages may have checked that the link went where they expected. You are proposing the change, therefore you are responsible for mitigating the damage. And besides, fixing those links and finding lots that do not mean Philadelphia, Pennsylvania supports your case. Now quit reverting to your POV and dot the hard work first, then come back to chat. Do the first hundred and report the stats on where they went to. --Scott Davis ^Talk 05:45, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• I would have to agree that it is both lazyness and a WP:NPOV bias violation for all of the cities. As someone from around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania I feel that it would be very biased, and thusly violating WP:NPOV for having Philadelphia redirect to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania instead of Philadelphia (disambiguation). The best thing to do is assume the user would be smart enough to type in some variant of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania or Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia, USA or some thing like that to get to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania article. The most neutral point of view is to disambiguate in all cases because how well known something is is very subjective. Assuming that Philadelphia = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is biased and does violate Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Bias, specifically the point about Nationalistic bias: favoring the interests or views of a particular nation. Also, I would have to say it also violates several points of Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias, most specifically "The bias" which states The systemic bias of Wikipedians manifests itself as a portrayal of the world through the filter of the experiences and views of the average Wikipedian. Each editor contributes to articles based on his or her interests and knowledge. This is obviously not objectionable but, multiplied across the entire body of editors, results in unbalanced coverage of topics in a global context. Philadelphia = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania does not reflect global context, but an American context. And that goes for all of the cities mentioned above, except for the Scottish one, since that has a British bias. Wrath of Roth 14:27, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]