Why do articles on populated places in the United States primarily use the [[Placename, State]] "comma convention" format? Why is there an exemption for cities listed in the
AP Stylebook as not requiring a state?
This is an issue where different rules of
Wikipedia:Article titles can conflict with each other, thus consensus determines which ones to follow. Most of these articles were created by
User:Rambot, a
Wikipedia bot, back in 2002 based on
US Census Bureau records. When creating these pages, Rambot used the "Placename, State" naming format, initially setting a consistent naming convention for these articles. Supporters of keeping the "Placename, State" format argue that this is generally the
most common naming convention used by American
reliable sources. Opponents argue that this format is neither
precise nor concise, and results in short titles like
Nashville redirecting to longer titles like
Nashville, Tennessee. After a series of discussions
since 2004, a compromise
was reached in 2008 that established the
Associated Press Stylebook exception rule for only those handful of cities listed in that style guide (the dominant US newswriting guide) as not requiring the state modifier. There has been since no consensus to do a massive page move on the other articles on US places (although individual
requested move proposals have been initiated on different pages from time to time).