Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Naming conventions for United States federal buildings

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Recently a dispute has arisen at Talk:U.S. Post Office#U.S. vs. United States over two issues arising in the titling of articles about federal buildings in the United States, particularly historic post offices, customhouses, and federal courthouses. The first issue is whether the title of such an article should spell out "United States" or use the abbreviated "U.S." (all sides agree that the unpunctuated "US" is improper). The second issue is whether the title of such an article should correspond to the enactment of legislation by the United States Congress to designate the name of the federal building in question. The purpose of this RFC is to establish a single convention to serve as the default standard on whether to use "United States" or "U.S.", and whether to use Congressionally designated names. The parties recognize that there may be individual articles representing unique circumstances, under which default rules should not apply.

This dispute affects several hundred existing articles, and several thousand red links for articles to be written. It does not address the naming of government agencies, or of highways. A fairly complete list of Congressionally designated names established over the past 35 years can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject United States courts and judges/United States Congressional naming legislation.

Issues[edit]

Image of the United States Post Office (Peekskill, New York), with "United States" spelled out on the face of the building. NRHP formal listing name (on NRHP nom) is "United States Post Office", though abbreviated as "US Post Office--Peekskill" in NRHP's less definitive NRIS database.
Image of the United States Post Office (Yerington, Nevada), with "United States" spelled out on the face of the building. NRHP formal listing name not yet known (NRHP nom not collected), less definitive NRIS database name is "US Post Office--Yerington Main".

Issue #1: "United States" or "U.S."[edit]

Arguments for "United States":

Arguments for "U.S.":

Relatively rarer image of a post office with "U.S." abbreviated, above the doorframe. NRHP formal name is "United States Post Office"; less definitive NRHP NRIS database name is "United States Post Office--Belvidere"
  • US is often not spelled out in Wikipedia article names, such as for many ships named USS Something (e.g. USS Enterprise)
  • "U.S." is sometimes used by the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in its naming of places. NRHP is under the authority of the National Park Service, and which has been used as an authority for naming many other articles.
  • Less cumbersome, particularly in very long titles (e.g. United States Post Office, Courthouse, and Federal Office Building (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma).
  • Many links and articles have already been created using "U.S.", and it would create additional work to move these articles and find and fix these links.
  • "U.S." is immediately recognized to be an abbreviation of "United States".
  • In some cases "U.S. Post Office" or similar is the only documented name for a place, and/or there is no documentation of "United States" spelled out being the name of the place in common or any other usage.
  • In some cases "U.S. Post Office" or similar is one of several names which can be documented for a place, but the documentaiton for "U.S. Post Office" or similar is better (more recent, more considered by the users of the name who had available various alternatives but chose to use this name instead of others available).

Issue #2: Congressional naming legislation[edit]

Example where both "U.S." and "United States" appear on the building. The full name, using both terms, would be quite long for an article name. The congressionally designated name for this building is "William Kenzo Nakamura United States Courthouse", per PL 106-478.

Arguments for using Congressional naming legislation:

  • Congressional naming legislation is as "official" a source as any for the name of a federal building.
  • The United States Congress is expressly vested with authority over federal buildings in the United States Constitution, so names designated by Congress are the most legally correct names. The relevant Constitutional provisions are as follows:
Through its exclusive authority over places purchased from the states, Congress has exclusive and plenary authority over the national parks, including the naming of the parks and things within them. It has the same authority over "needful buildings", including courthouses, custom houses, and post offices.
  • Wherever Congress enacts such legislation, it specifically states "Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, or other record of the United States to the facility referred to in subsection (a) shall be deemed to be a reference to [the name set forth in the legislation]".

Arguments for using other conventions:

  • In cases where the only sourced name for a place is one, that should be used in an article title..
  • In cases where sources show more than one name is valid, article titles should reflect the most common usage by which a building is identified, just as articles on people reflect the name by which they are known (e.g., our article on the person legally named "Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta" is at Lady Gaga; our article on the person legally named "William Jefferson Clinton" is at Bill Clinton).
  • Article titles should be stable, irrespective of name changes on the part of the subject (e.g., Sean Combs is the title, despite the subject having performed variously under "Puff Daddy", "P. Diddy", and variations thereof, precisely because the subject's adopted names are inconstant).
  • A number of existing articles would need to be retitled, generating additional work.

Ngchen (talk) 18:18, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Opinions[edit]

Issue #1: "United States" or "U.S."[edit]

  1. I don't think there's an issue of ambiguity, but "United States" strikes me as more encyclopaedic. WFC (talk) 19:23, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    But, we have naming convention standards, that say a place should be named what it is named in fact, not what some one editor among us would like for it to be named. Isn't it encyclopedic to use the actual names of places, and to require sources documenting that a given name is the actual name? --doncram (talk) 23:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Agree. U.S. = United States. They are exactly the same. "U.S." is merely an abbreviation and use of abbreviations is purely a question of style. The Manual of Style suggests "Acronyms should be used in page naming if the subject is almost exclusively known only by its acronym". I don't think that's the case with United States or United States Post Office. But since "U.S. Post Office" is also very commonly used, that should always be created as a redirect. Station1 (talk) 21:14, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  3. United States is best in the article name, but in the text of the article (after the first use) U.S. can be abbreviated, especially in tables, where space is limited. In all cases, there should be redirects. Jonathunder (talk) 22:52, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I should make it clearer then that the RFC is entirely about the name of the building to be used in the article title, and consequently in the first sentence of the lede. bd2412 T 02:01, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Umm, I understand the RFC being about the name to be used as the article title. Of course alternative names which are documented could/should be shown in bold in the lede. The "issue" is less important, if you fully understand that all documented names can/will be stated in the lede! --doncram (talk) 02:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  4. I think United States should be preferred. To my knowledge we don't normally use abbreviations in the tile of articles for convenience sake. That's what redirects are for. Taken to it's logical extension, we'd need to atart apply postal abbreviations to city articles.DCmacnut<> 02:45, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  5. I think it depends on what the subject of the article is. Here the matter of dispute were U.S. Post Offices. Post offices are not notable because of they're post offices but because of their significance in architecture, events of whatsoever. Most of them are notable because of their listing in the National Register of Historic Places. So IMO the relevant naming source is the name which is entered into the NRHP. --Matthiasb (talk) 09:34, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Are you suggesting that the NRHP selects buildings to be listed on the Register which are not historically/architecturally significant? I was under the impression that the only reason we include NRHP buildings at all is that listing on the registry is evidence of their notability due to actual historical significance. If these buildings are not notable, they should simply be deleted from the encyclopedia, and this discussion is moot. If these buildings are inherently notable (for their historical significance, which the NRHP has deemed sufficient to list them), then the NRHP name for them is irrelevant. I would also point out that nowhere does the NRHP claim to provide the "official" name of the building; if it did, we would have to move United States Capitol to US Capitol, and United States Supreme Court Building to U.S. Supreme Court Building, because that is exactly how the NRHP lists each of these buildings. (NRHP listing for the "US Capitol"; NRHP listing for the "U.S. Supreme Court Building".) bd2412 T 15:15, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Not so, the U.S. Capitol and Supreme Court buildings are not NRHP-listed under the names you suggest or any other, per my searching the NRIS database. And then more definitively per note at bottom of the first National Pasrk Service page you linked to, which says they were specifically exempted in the 1966 act establishing the National Register. They may possibly both be part of the Capitol Hill Historic District though. --doncram (talk) 02:12, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • No, I am suggesting that these buildings are not notable because of they're post offices but becausoe of they're listed in the register. So the name in the register is the name which is relevant because the register entry makes them notable. They're not notable because of congress named it. So why care what the congress tell them names? --Matthiasb (talk) 12:13, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • The point is, only historic buildings are listed on the register in the first place. Is that not the case? If you're telling me that anyone can pick any random 50+ year old house, which is not itself notable in any way, and get it listed on the NRHP, then we should not be including NRHP listings a all, because there is no evidence of notability. bd2412 T 18:43, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • Nonsense to suggest that, BD! The better way to say it, though, is that we know NRHP-listed places are Wikipedia notable, because they have been deemed notable by a formal, extensive, multiple-level-of-review process which deems they meet objective criteria describing their notability for architecture, for association with events or persons, or for their information potential (the latter applies for archeological sites). And we know that there is extensive, reliable documentation available for all of them, meeting wp:V. --doncram (talk) 02:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • I happen to agree with you - the buildings are not notable by dint of their inclusion in the NRHP; they are included in the NRHP because they are notable, and would merit Wikipedia entries even if the NRHP did not exist. That just means that Matthiasb is wrong to suggest that these buildings would not merit inclusion here but for their inclusion in the NRHP, which is the foundation for his position. bd2412 T 02:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • I think Matthiasb is right, that they would not be deemed wikipedia-notable if there was not NRHP-listing establishing their notability and providing verifiability. For the most part, NRHP-listed post offices get articles; others do not. --doncram (talk) 16:42, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  6. I express an opinion only as it relates to federal courthouses. I don't think it matters. Many courthouses have names that don't even include the United States or U.S. in the name. See, for example, the names of the Ninth Circuit courthouses. Even though there is a Wiki article on the Supreme Court building, on the court's own website it just refers to it as The Court Building. So, unless the court uses United States or U.S. in the building title, it's not important.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:17, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • For the Ninth Circuit, I note that the Congressional designation for the Nakamura Courthouse, at least, is the William Kenzo Nakamura United States Courthouse. I would be surprised if the naming legislation for the other courthouses was not in the same format, which is the standard scheme for Congressional naming legislation. bd2412 T 16:26, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, if the 9th Circuit is smart enough to keep the name a little shorter, can't we? :-) To the extent we need to refer to it all (unless the building is notable, who cares?), if we skip the United States part of the name, we also avoid the issue of whether to abbreviate United States, which is the issue we're discussing here.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Use the name that is best documented in sources as being the name of the place. Note, many of the NRHP-listed buildings are no longer Federally-owned, or are no longer used for the same purpose as in their original name. If someone opens a museum and chooses to use that name for the place, or if another name is documented as the current main common usage name for a place, that should be used, generally following Wikipedia's general naming conventions. We have no right to march through and rename places according to what we feel would be better or more harmonious or more consistent or whatever; we must use what is best documented to be the actual name of a place. Which, for many places named "U.S. Post Office" and listed by the National Register of Historic Places at that name, is "U.S. Post Office". I grant that BD2412 has provided a formal directory of Federal courthouses which shows official names in most cases using "United States" spelled out for those. That source's usage should be strongly considered, along with other sources, for those cases. Where the issue came up is where there is no source provided other than the NRHP name of "U.S. Post Office". --doncram (talk) 23:18, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    But the NRHP is only using "U.S." as an abbreviation for "United States", isn't it? Are you contending that "U.S." as used by the NRHP could possibly mean something other than an abbreviation for "United States"? And would you agree that the NRHP's use of an abbreviation should not override the name of the building as it appears on the face of the building itself? bd2412 T 23:47, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    No, No, and No! From my experience, the NRHP naming reflects the actual name of a place. The NRHP nomination document, usually prepared by an architectureal historian or other private or governmental professional person, usually states alternative names for a place and uses, as the title for preferred name, the name best describing the place. There is a building somewhere named the General Electric Building and there is a different one named the GE Building. They are differently named buildings. The nominator of a place to NRHP listing, I believe, consciously chooses the name the place is to be listed by, to be honored by, in the NRHP listing. And, in every case where "U.S." or "United States Post Office" or any other phrase appears on the face of a building as an architectural embellishment from the 1930s or otherwise, the NRHP nominator is 100% aware of that, and has used that information as an input in his/her decision-making on the best single name for the place. --doncram (talk) 00:37, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    If the nominator looked at the spelled out "United States" on the face of the building and disregarded that, then what exactly did the nominator look at to determine that the abbreviated form was best? I would also say, by the way, that "GE building" is substantially different from abbreviating "United States". The former is a branding decision made by GE's board of directors. A similar "branding decision" for the United States would have to come from the United States Congress, if not by an amendment to the Constitution. bd2412 T 01:26, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, for example Linda Millard and Amanda Welsh, the authors in August 18, 1997 of "National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Sitka U.S. Post Office and Court House / Sitka Post Office / Sitka City Hall / AHRS Site No. SIT-313" (see document here and their accompanying four photos, here), considered the embellishments on the exterior and at least 12 named sources given in their bibliography. As we would hope a wikipedian would do, they consulted multiple sources, and state them. Who are you to judge they disregarded one input/source inappropriately? --doncram (talk) 01:59, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    They are not Wikipedians, however, and are not selecting a title based on encyclopedic considerations. Do you agree that giving this level of credence to NRHP investigations would require us to move "United States Capitol" to "US Capitol", which is the title that the NRHP investigators for that building arrived at? As it stands, the only source cited by these investigators that I was able to find online was "Public Buildings: A Survey of Architecture of Projects Constructed by Federal and Other Governmental Bodies Between the Years 1933 and 1939 with the Assistance of the Public Works Administration, which in every instance uses "United States Post Office" rather than "U.S. Post Office". bd2412 T 02:22, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    N.B., as explained elsewhere on this page, that is a false assertion about an NRHP listing name for the U.S. Capitol. It is not NRHP-listed. --doncram (talk) 16:30, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I came to those links by searching the NRHP page for United States Capitol and United States Supreme Court, and was presented with those pages without any sort of disclaimer. Whether they are listed or not, that is how the NRHP has chosen to present them. bd2412 T 16:56, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I can't figure out how to search that online(?) book to find the Sitka place; my search on "sitka" yields naught. But so what, even if that one 1939-published book which they already considered, did use a different name (which we don't know, anyhow)? There's a Wikipedia article about it now because it is notable according to its NRHP listing, and using the NRHP listing name for the place seems appropriate and seems to use the best-so-far-available name for the place. --doncram (talk) 03:20, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The NRHP names which abbreviate "United States" still contain "United States", they just haven't bothered to spell it out, because they are not writing an encyclopedia which would require formal usage. They are making a list, and saving some space. bd2412 T 18:45, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You're just speculating! The NRHP listing is to formally recognize historic sites, and of course they use formal names, which I observe generally. --doncram (talk) 02:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it is ridiculous to suppose that the name on the face of the building should be superseded by conformity to the style used in a list of buildings into which it happens to fall. bd2412 T 02:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The instructions for naming of NRHP listings are to "Enter the name which best reflects the property's historic importance or was commonly used for the property during the period of significance. .... The historic name is preferred for general reference because it continues to be meaningful regardless of changes in ownership and use and most often relates to the reasons the property is eligible for National Register listing." from page 8 ofthese formal instructions at the National Register. The whole point of the exercise of NRHP listing is to give formal credit to some historic place; it would be poor indeed to use a bad name choice. There's frequently evidence in the NRHP nomination process of name refinements, towards better names. It's a formal process of naming, not lackadaisical(sp?) as BD suggests. I do grant there is some slippage from the formal names, apparently, in the NRIS database entry, and I would myself go with the formal name shown in the NRHP nomination document. For several New York State post office nominatons i've reviewed, i've noticed "United States" used in the formal nomination form, then an abbreviation in the NRIS database entry (which has been used in first cut naming of Wikipedia articles). To be clear, my position is that the formal nomination form name should govern. So there is perhaps less disagreement perhaps than has been perceived, that i would have to agree to move to "United States" name, though sometimes the formal name does use "U.S." --doncram (talk) 04:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It seems to be that we already divert from the "official" NRHP naming conventions for historic houses. Look at theunofficial the NRHP.com page for Beaver County, Utah. Houses are listed as "last name, first name, House", For example, "Tolton, J. F., Grocery" or "Tolton, Walter S., House". That is how NRHP says they should be listed in the guidelines. Yet, the Beaver County list on Wikipedia shows it as "J. F. Tolton Grocery" and "Walter S. Tolton House". The example the NRHP guidelines give for post offices is "United States Post Office - Main Branch". NHRP lists "US Post Office--Beaver Main", with "also known as Beaver Main Post Office". There is no such "also known as" line for the houses. If WP:COMMON and common sense tells us that naming an article "last, first, House" is just plain bizarre, then why can't we apply the same principle to post offices? If not, and we are to follow the NRHP listing verbatim, than every dwelling article needs to be renamed to "last, first, House".DCmacnut<> 20:51, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Good observation, Dcmacnut. What you are observing are the NRHP's NRIS database names for places, which appear like that in the NRIS database that is heavily used by Wikipedia NRHP editors (and which also appear in the private, commercial website NationalRegisterOfHistoricPlaces.Com, where you found them). WikiProject NRHP editors including me have indeed agreed to unwrap comma-convoluted house names that appear in NRIS, in favor of names like "Walter S. Tolton House" that invariably appear in the individual, more official NRHP nomination documents for those places. The NRHP nomination document name is more official, I feel. Likewise, NRIS data entry seems to have used abbreviations "US" or "U.S." for many post office names where the NRHP nomination document says "United States", and I agree to go with the NRHP nomination documnet name instead. However, there are other cases where the NRIS name shows "U.S." consistently with formal NRHP nomination document name also showing that. "U.S." appears frequently for buildings that are combined post offices and courthouses, and otherwise, where the NRHP nomination document author, following formal instructions for coming up with the best title for a place, has come to the judgment "U.S." is part of the best name. Note, i was agreeing with exactly what you say, i.e. that i agree to go with "United States" for many cases where BD2412 and I at first disagreed, where i now observe the more official NRHP name in the NRHP nomination document uses that. --doncram (talk) 22:22, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  8. This is probably the most pointless conversation I have ever seen. "United States" and "U.S." mean exactly the same thing. There is no difference. Yes, we should use the most common name for any place as per Wikipedia:Naming conventions, but that shouldn't even apply to situations such as this because, once again, they're the same freaking name. To write something such as
    "The United States Post Office (also known as U.S. Post Office and US Post Office) in City, State, is blah blah blah."

    in the lead of an article is completely ridiculous. Any reader with the intelligence befitting that of a 5 year old is able to realize that all three mean exactly the same thing. There is no conflict here between which "sourced" name to use – only a conflict over what the titles of articles about Federal buildings should reflect. It is my belief that they should spell out "United States" for uniformity with other articles (e.g. United States Postal Service, United States Air Force, United States Census, United States Capitol, etc.). This is also standard practice for other countries. Instead of "USSR", there is Soviet Union; instead of "USSR state motto", there is Soviet Union state motto. Instead of "UK" there is United Kingdom; instead of "Monarchy of the UK" there is Monarchy of the United Kingdom; etc. For uniformity not only within the nation itself but with other nations at large, "United States" should be spelled out. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 02:51, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    If they mean the same thing, then you shouldn't mind any choice. Going with the name best-supported by sources as being the actual name of the place, seems best to me. These are not articles about the nation itself. I imagine there are many articles about USSR this or that, like there are articles about USS Ships where United States Ship is not spelled out. --doncram (talk) 16:30, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  9. I agree with Dudemanfellabra. They mean the same thing. I've said this before and it's hard to believe that anyone would be so vehement about this issue as to initiate an RFC. But I was asked to comment since I chimed in before - United States is more encyclopedic and consistent, so go with that.IvoShandor (talk) 04:29, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Don asked me, as the NRHP editor who's expanded maybe two dozen NRHP post office articles to DYK status (with more on the way), what I thought.

    Welllll ... I see the argument about spelling it out and it seems to be carrying the day and have a lot of good points. I won't raise a hue and cry if we do it. But ... we have to think harder at WP:NRHP about our application of the naming conventions. It has been argued before that we should stick to the NPS name as much as possible, clunky as it sometimes is. Yet here we're not going to do this. I think there are two things to consider:

  • No federal agency has "courthouse" or "post office" in its name (The USPS, of course, used to be known as the US Post Office, but that's not relevant here). Thus the use of the country's name is purely adjectival, and tends to be abbreviated in common use (when used at all ... if we really stuck with common usage, these articles would be named things like "Goshen, New York, post office" since there aren't any other post offices to distinguish (Maybe in a place like Derby Line, Vermont, you might need to make this distinction when giving directions, but probably not).
  • I think the argument would be a little more to the point if every post office was deemed notable, Register or not. We would need a name that makes sense for the building as a type. Consider train stations ... when one in active use is listed, we don't use the NPS name (Tuxedo Railroad Station should redirect to Tuxedo (Metro-North station), for example). So with a common building type where not all of them are notable, in fact many that are notable are notable solely for their Register listings, do we need to be so formal? Daniel Case (talk) 21:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: Hmm. I typed the above while I was out doing my laundry. On my way home I took the short detour past our local post office and found "U.S. POST OFFICE" carved into the wood above the door. It's similar to two other ones in New York that I have pictures of that made the Register (ours did not because of modifications).

Also, I consulted the two stylebooks I am most familiar with. AP said to always use "U.S." as the adjective form ... granted, that's for writers in a medium with chronic limited-space issues. Chicago said the "U.S." adjective form is getting popular and is acceptable in some constructions but to be careful using it. Or something like that.

I looked in the phone book. Both the abbreviation and the full words are used (my guess is that individual post offices report their billing address differently).

It seems reality cannot be relied on for a consensus. Daniel Case (talk) 03:05, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In every case, however, "U.S." is merely an abbreviation for "United States", is it not? Unless there is a post office somewhere named for Ulysses S. Grant, all we are doing is fully writing out the name of the location, which consensus on this page seems to support at this point. bd2412 T 12:02, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"In every case, however, "U.S." is merely an abbreviation for 'United States', is it not" Yes, but ... most of the time we're talking about the term as part of an actual government agency. The U.S. Army is, after all, formally the United States Army. But there is no formal agency known as United States Troops, hence "U.S. troops" There has been no agency known as the United States Post Office now for at least a few decades. And, as some people have noted, our article titles for federal highways use the abbreviation as well (U.S. Route 9 in New York, say, instead of "United States Route 9 in New York") even though the formal name is spelled out in statutes and other documents. (And don't even think of going to WP:USRD and asking them to revisit this).

I would argue that the ubiquity of roads and post offices makes the abbreviation somewhat more tolerable there. Daniel Case (talk) 19:20, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the United States Congress is just as likely to refer to roads as "U.S.", see, for example, provisions 45, 54, and 67 in section 105 of this legislation. Unfortunately, we can not segregate post offices from other federal buildings because of the substantial number of mixed use buildings which combine post offices and courthouses, customhouses, or other federal function. It would not make sense to have a rule that applies only to dedicated post office buildings, and a different rule for combined post office and courthouse buildings (for which "United States" is exclusively spelled out in establishing legislation). bd2412 T 00:16, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why wouldn't it? Daniel Case (talk) 17:50, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It would lead to an unencyclopedic inconsistancy in article titles based on a trivial distinction (and one that is not altogether apparent, given that there are many buildings which have historically served as courthouses but are now known only for their continuing post office function). Also, as I mentioned, there are many former and current mixed use buildings, and these cover the full range of architectural styles, periods of use, and geographic placement. In this manner, mixed use federal buildings are indistiguishable from the larger post office buildings, and it is, of course, impossible to tell just by looking at a large post office that it was formerly also used as a courthouse. It certainly presents no basis for a distinction upon which to justify the use of a style which a substantial majority of participants in this discussion agree is less encyclopedic. bd2412 T 19:55, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Issue #2: Congressional naming legislation[edit]

  1. WP policy is to use common names, so official names in legislation are irrelevant except to the extent that they are used as sources. However, given that "U.S." is merely an abbreviation of "United States", and they mean exactly the same thing, the whole question is moot. Use "United States" but only as a WP style choice, not because of "official" use. Station1 (talk) 21:14, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • It gets a little more complicated than that, since most people don't refer to their local post office either by a Congressionally designated name or as "the United States Post Office" or as "the U.S. Post Office", but just as "the Post Office", perhaps with some geographic qualifier. Congressional designations for post offices named after people often don't have "United States" at all. For example, there is a post office in Utah which is listed in the NRHP as US Post Office-Beaver Main, and which Congress has officially named the "Abe Murdock United States Post Office Building". Neither would be the "most common" name, but that name would require disambiguation anyway. It's a bit different with courthouses and other federal buildings, which are much less frequent than post offices (although they may contain them), and which draw a more specialized community of attorneys who do federal work. For example, there is a federal courthouse in Miami named the David W. Dyer Federal Building and United States Courthouse. Many attorney's having business there would casually refer to it as "the Dyer Building" to distinguish it from other state and federal buildings in the area; documents addressed to the building would properly have the full, formal name. bd2412 T 02:15, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Common name does not mean what a local attorney or person mailing a letter calls something in casual conversation. It refers to the full, preferably unambiguous, name most commonly used in reliable sources, starting with sources used for the article. That will often be the same as the "official" name, but it doesn't have to be. "Abe Murdock United States Post Office Building" is how its article should be titled if that's how it's commonly referred to in reliable sources; it also has the advantage of being unambiguous. There should be redirects from U.S. Post Office (Beaver, Utah) and United States Post Office (Beaver, Utah) and maybe even US Post Office-Beaver Main (redirects are cheap). In any case, I was really referring only to the question of whether "United States" should be spelled out, and my answer was yes as a matter of style but not because it's spelled out in legislation. If you're asking a broader question -- Should article titles be the same as buildings' names in legislation? -- my answer is no, not necessarily, unless that name is the same as the full unambiguous name most commonly used in reliable sources. Station1 (talk) 18:04, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I will be truly amazed if you can find a single other independent source which identifies that post office as US Post Office-Beaver Main. bd2412 T 18:47, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • You might argue it's not independent, but here's one: http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/ut/Beaver/state3.html, part of an private internet website system building traffic of readers looking for "US Post Office--Beaver Main". It is independent of Wikipedia; it is based on the National Register's public domain NRIS database, which NRHP editors also use. --doncram (talk) 02:32, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • I'm not amazed. The page says "National Register of Historic Places" at the top; you might as well provide a link to a Wikipedia mirror copying Wikipedia's present use of the NRHP designation. bd2412 T 02:38, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I think we should first ask ourselves what the universe of notable buildings is for inclusion on wikipedia. Not every federal building is going to be notable. I would imagine the universe is small. Congress also names hundreds of buildings each year, many of which never had a name in the first place. I would apply a two part analysis over how to name an article. It's similar to how we name congressional committees. We generally use the full official name, even for those with really, really long titles. Example, the United States House Select Committee on the Baltic States is the redirect for the full, official title. WP:COMMON rarely applies, eve for modern committees, since the common name, like "The Judiciary Committee" is generally only in common within congress or those that travel in political circles.

    Buildings are different, and I think a case by case review is better than a blanket one-size-fits-all standard. Buildings are more likely to have a more widely accepted common name, if the building is notable. Even so, I personally would ere on the official name particularly if the common name is something generic that needs disambiguation. I'm not sure what the official name for the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was, but the article to me seems titled appropriately. On the other hand, the Brentwood Postal Facility in DC that sorted the mail used in the 2001 anthrax attacks is now the Joseph P. Curseen and Thomas L. Morris Jr. Mail sorting center after the two workers that died in the attacks. The Postal Service abbreviates that Curseen-Morris Mail Sorting Facility in publications, but many of the folks who were affected by those attacks (myself included) will always know it as the Brentwood Facility. the common name is more relevant to the attacks, but ignoring the official name ignores the fact that Congress renamed it to honor the sacrifice of these two men.DCmacnut<> 03:11, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wait, since when wikipedia is a publication of the congress? Does the congress' POV also mean a neutral POV considering our principles? And since when article naming in Wikipedia is based on honoring the sacrifice of people? --Matthiasb (talk) 06:27, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • My point was that an act of Congress means something when they name a federal building or facility. According to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, an act of Congress that explicitely establishes a name is "official by law.[29], and we shouldn't just dismiss it out of hand. Anyway, my point about "sacrific" was more that 1) the anthrax attacks are notable; and 2) the death of these two postal workers (along with the 3 others who died in the attacks) are notable that the fact Congress renamed the building should be mentioned (an article doesn't exist on this facility, so it's a moot point in either case). It was merely an example.DCmacnut<> 20:22, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  3. As I said before post offices (or other federal buildings) are not notable per se because of they are federal buildings. So the Abe Murdock United States Post Office Building in it's capacity as a federal building is absolutely irrelevant but the US Post Office-Beaver Main in its capacity as NRHP listed building is notable. So the naming should use the NRHP naming and not what congress did consider to do as an honor to Mr. Orrice Abram Murdock, Jr. which is the correct person's name, so the congress itself did not name properly according to the Wikipedia naming conventions. ;-) --Matthiasb (talk) 09:44, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • The NRHP doesn't keep up with building name changes, and many of the Congressionally mandated designations have occurred after the building was listed under its old name on the NRHP. Therefore, the list can not (and does not claim to) reliably reflect current usage. bd2412 T 15:19, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • That doesn't matter. Does Wikipedia claim to reflect current naming or does it claim naming according to common usage? Or according to register entries? Or what WP actually is claiming? --Matthiasb (talk) 12:18, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Adherance to a formal name is exactly the reason why Macedonia is at Republic of Macedonia. It also happens to serve a disambiguation function. There are thousands of buildings in this country named "United States Post Office", several in every city. bd2412 T 13:32, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • No, Macedonia is at Republic of Macedonia only for disambiguation; otherwise it would be at Macedonia, like most countries of the world are at their common name. Actually, its official name according to some sources (the United Nations) is Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. So which official name do we use? (Analogy: do we use Congress's official name or the NRHP's official name?) Neither! We use the common name. When the common name is ambiguous and the topic is not primary usage, we decide on the best unambiguous name. Station1 (talk) 17:36, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • The Republic of Macedonia chooses not to call itself Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which is its right as a sovereign nation, just as it is our right as a sovereign nation to name our federal buildings for significant figures. bd2412 T 18:49, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • Certainly. But it's our right as citizens of the Sovereign Quasi-Anarchic NonDemocratic Editors' CyberRepublic of Wikipedia (English) to name our articles whatever we wish, even if something is officially named Република Македонија. We've legislated WP:UE and WP:UCN to deal with these situations. We're really not disagreeing though: Abe Murdock United States Post Office Building is a perfectly good sourced unambiguous name for an article, and "United States" should always be spelled out. Station1 (talk) 19:14, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • Then I guess we'll just have to agree to agree. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                  • This wasn't contentious enough--we had to bring the Macedonia naming dispute into it? (Don't dare mention Derry, Danzig, or certain rocks, or this thread may implode.) Jonathunder (talk) 23:33, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                    • @ BD2412: What I wanted to express, it is not the Abe Murdock United States Post Office Building what is relevant to Wikipedia, it's the U.S. Post Office-Beaver Main. The building ist notable because of it is listed in the NRHP, it is not notable because of congress named it. Hence, the congress' naming isn't important at all. It's a detail to mention in the article but nothing more. (That the structure described is the same does not matter.) --Matthiasb (talk) 06:27, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                      • Well, of course it matters. It is the building itself that is notable, not the name in a list, which may be one of many it has had in its life, or even a neologism. And why should the NHRP database be more important than an act of Congress naming the place? Jonathunder (talk) 13:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  4. A U.S. Congress naming resolution can be used as one source in identifying the best common name for a place. But obviously many official renamings of places don't "take", and an earlier name or later name can easily prevail as the main name of a place. I don't think articles should be renamed immediately upon a local/state/Federal/other resolution being passed; what matters is if the weight of most common usage changes, which can't immediately be discerned. There's value to being conservative and using the weight of most usage, giving some more weight to recent usage but not letting that overwhelm what is most common. Also, I would note that a formal NRHP listing subsequent to a U.S. Congressional renamaing, should probably be taken as pretty good evidence that the NRHP name is the current best name. If the same as the U.S. Congress one, then there is no debate here. If it is different, that is pretty strong evidence the U.S. Congress name didn't take. --doncram (talk) 01:11, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  5. My preference would, of course, be to use the Congressionally designated names, on the grounds that they are unquestionably official so far as the legal names of buildings go, and they are easily verifiable. Also, Congressionally designated names very often present close and logical ties between the building renamed and the person for whom the building is named. Courthouses, in particular, are very frequently named for judges with whom they were closely associated. This may not present much a conflict with NRHP names at all, so far as post offices go. I went through all of the hundreds of Congressionally named post offices this weekend, and only found four for which we have articles based on their status as NRHP-listed places: the E. Arthur Gray Post Office Building, Heinz Ahlmeyer, Jr. Post Office Building, Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy Post Office Building, and Frederic Remington Post Office Building. bd2412 T 21:29, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  6. When I developed U.S. Post Office (Nyack, New York), one of the things I found in my research was the renaming of the post office in memory of the victims of the 1981 Brinks robbery. I put it in the article, made it one of the two DYK hooks I suggested, and it was used. On the talk page someone raised this very issue.

    I stick with my position then. If the government really wants us to use these names, it should put them on the outside of the buildings and harass anyone who uses the "old" name. That's more or less how they got traffic reporters in the Washington metropolitan area to refer to what was perfectly well named as the Cabin John Bridge IMO to the American Legion Bridge, as if we were in any danger of running out of things to name in honor or memory of our veterans or their politically powerful organization. If I ever get into politics, I'd love to have the opportunity to propose a "American Veterans Memorial Wastewater Treatment Plant" so I could accuse the people living nearby of being unpatriotic by virtue of being opposed to it.

    But anyway ... Daniel Case (talk) 19:35, 27 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Outside view by Uncle G[edit]

(I've been asked for an outside view. Here's my initial view.) This is yet another case, out of many instances, where Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use common names) hits a problem with a vast chasm between common names and formal/official names. This has long been one of our most problematic parts of our naming conventions, not least because so many editors want it to be Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use slang names). In this case, as in many before, the naming convention comes up against the wishes of Wikiprojects to use a single, systematic, naming convention across a broad group of articles, for the sake of uniformity and to provide the least surprise to the interested reader.

Clearly, it is not seriously disputed that "U.S." and "United States" are two different things in this context. The one is unquestionably, here, the abbreviation of the other. (Ironically, it's a form of abbreviation that is the less common in US English, and is more a Commonwealth English form according to most authorities.) So it's fairly silly to point to a source saying "U.S. X Y Z" and to claim that that is stating something other than "United States X Y Z". Whether or not to abbreviate is nothing more than a matter of house style. Some tend to the formal, fully spelled out, form; and others tend to the abbreviation. Our house style, as pointed out, is for article titles to spell out abbreviations (unless they are acronyms). (It's quite reasonable for article prose to use abbreviations, as long as the abbreviations are spelled out before they are used. This is a simple matter of ensuring that prose isn't stilted and long-winded. But this RFC relates to titles.) Although there are systematic exceptions to this, from ship names to international standards. Moreover, it's not as if we don't have redirects, which are, as the maxim goes, cheap and easy, to guide readers from the abbreviated titles to the full ones (e.g. U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Congress, and so forth). This, too, is a mechanism of long standing.

The fact of the matter is that wherever we have a WikiProject dealing with a large class of articles, be it from asteroids to highways, "use common names" largely goes out of the window, in favour of "use formal names". The formal names may be abbreviated, but we tend to use them as the title when articles are part of systematized collections. The problems in this instance, of course, are (a) that the official names in Congressional legislation are often, as pointed out, quite cumbersome and unwieldy, and (b) that the NRHP names in the register itself are quite wildly at variance with Wikipedia article titling.

On that latter point, I give you a quotation from a book:

It's fairly clear, as can be seen from John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge and all of the things that Special:Search/John F. Kennedy Memorial lists, that Wikipedia doesn't follow the NRHP convention on such names. This is part of a larger disparity between Wikipedia and others. We don't give personal names in family-name-first order, as other encyclopaedias do, but use ordinary reading order. This quotation also illustrates, however, that we aren't the first to have addressed the difference between the NRHP convention and normal reading order.

So the next question is: How do other encyclopaedias handle official/formal names that haven't caught on? One example is this encyclopaedia article on a National Historic Landmark and NRHP listed stucture:

Donald Langmead and Christine Garnaut (2001). "Watts Towers". Encyclopedia of architectural and engineering feats (3rd ed.). ABC-CLIO. p. 363. ISBN 9781576071120. ISBN 157607112X.

This article explicitly states that "the official name of the work is The Watts Towers of Simon Rodia", but entitles its article as above. Our article is Watts Towers, too.

A further example, demonstrating the converse (that Wikipedia tends to prefer formal names to informal ones when we create systematic collections of articles, but that we don't necessarily follow official formalisms) is San Bernardino Mountain Crest Highway. This was the official name as designated by the board in charge of its construction. As Roger G. Hatheway's book notes, and as Brown's and Boyd's 1922 History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties confirms, it was unofficially christened Rim of the World Drive by Dr. John N. Baylis, and that is the unofficial name that caught on in the newspapers, and is still with us today. But Wikipedia, as can be seen, doesn't have either as the name. We list it as California State Route 18. Why? Because the article's creator was systematically creating articles for Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads.

And that leads to something worth considering that is particularly relevant to this discussion. SPUI preferred State Route N (California) to California State Route N. As can be seen from Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-03-12 U.S. Roads, the parenthetical disambiguator form was less popular than the fully spelled out, ordinary reading order, form for the titles. This is in line with Wikipedia's more general preference for ordinary reading order when state or country names are added to/included in formal names in order to disambiguate them for Wikipedia's global readership, even though in local common usage within a country/state the state/country name is often omitted. (Notice "United States House of Representatives" and "United States Department of Agriculture" for just two examples.)

Uncle G (talk) 13:03, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your thoughtful and extensive analysis. I'll have to take some time to digest this. bd2412 T 20:26, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thanks! I do want to assert the situation here is not one of WikiProject NRHP trying to insist upon their own official naming system. There's a fine tradition of wp:NRHP deferring to WikiProject Lighthouse people with their own official U.S. Coast Guard list of lighthouse names, for example, and likewise deferring to other official names or other common names where those seem reasonable, for article titles of NRHP-listed places. I have to absorb too, and i'm curious what more Uncle G has to say, too. Thanks. --doncram (talk) 00:52, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, the Watts Towers example is well-described. Actually for this NRHP-listed place and about 2,000 others (out of 85,000), there is also available a National Historic Landmark (NHL) name, which is simply "Watts Towers" rather than NRHP name "The Towers of Simon Rodia" (which appears as title of NRHP nom doc in references in article). NHLs are the "honor roll" of NRHPs. WikiProject NRHP has generally gone with the NHL name where it differs, for what to display as title in NRHP infobox (as in this article) and to prefer as article titles. --doncram (talk) 01:01, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure where Uncle G ends up. What about when all of many official sources say the place is named "Xerxes Yoyoyo Ziggurat and U.S. Courthouse" and no sources spell out "United States". --doncram (talk) 05:20, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As a practical matter, that is not going to happen for Congressionally designated buildings. I have now looked over literally hundreds of Congressional naming acts, and I have only ever found two that used "U.S." rather than "United States"; these are the Captain Luther H. Smith, U.S. Army Air Forces Post Office and the Thomas D. Lambros Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse. In the latter case, there are other sources, [30], [31], which spell out "United States" in referring to this building. bd2412 T 13:56, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Also, in the course of researching this issue, I found the Washington Post directory of roll call votes on naming legislation, which covers from 1993 to 2009. bd2412 T 14:25, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

another view[edit]

I think the following is useful to consider, pointing to some U.S. Board of Geographic Names. Copied from Dcmacnut's post at User talk:Doncram (Dcmacnut, i hope you don't mind, i think it is helpful here):

Thanks or the reply. I'm posting this reply here since it's getting off the main topic of the other discussion (U.S. vs United States). I understand and support the reasoning behind reformating the convoluted comma deliminated names. I guess I would argue that that reasoning could be extended to post offices on the NRHP. It appears from the guidelines that the efficiency of listing and sorting similar places is the primary goal of the NRHP application. Therefore, "United States Post Office--Beaver Main" is more about stating "this is a historic post office -- and this is which post office (since there are so many)." Yes, the documents say you should use the most common name historic name related to the site, but it also says the preferred format is "USPO - name." In most cases, I think the NRHP forms should be the deciding factor, unless there is some other official source that gives a different name. I'm not talking about local usage or even a congressional naming decision. I'm referring to the United States Board on Geographical Names and the Geographic Names Information System. By law, the USBGN is the arbiter over official names for places or features in the United States, with limited exceptions. For example, the Forest Service gets to decide what to name a national forest. While GNIS does not normally rule on the names of Post Offices, leaving that the postal service (and Congress) it will do so on request.[32] In the case of Beaver, the official name is Beaver Post Office. It wouldn't work in all cases, but I wonder how we would resolve these conflicts when two federal agencies have different names. I would lean toward the U.S. Board on Geographical Names, which oversees GNIS, and was madated by Congress in 1947 to resolve naming disputes. I really don't have a dog in this fight and in only limited cases would care what an article is named. I'm just a history buff who likes place-feature name etymologies.DCmacnut<> 14:10, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I have the impression that the NRHP name in the NRIS system is often of form US Post Office-Beaver, when Beaver Post Office is another valid name. I'm wondering if we should build a table of all the U.S./United States post offices and line up alternate names available, such as from this USBGN. Maybe going with the name USBGN name would work well and address most cases. --doncram (talk) 05:20, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The USBGN is still an agency under the authority of the U.S. Congress, which has the final say in what the name of a building is. However, I agree that a table is a good idea. bd2412 T 14:47, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A while back i started such a table, at Talk:U.S. Post Office/NameComparisons, and only mentioned at Talk:U.S. Post Office. --doncram (talk) 17:29, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

revisit[edit]

This RFC has been quiet for a while. I think the original situation was one where disagreement was perceived to be more broad, to apply to more cases than in fact there is any disagreement. Where is there any real disagreement? I think perhaps there is potential disagreement only for cases where there is documentation of "U.S." being part of a long name, such as in hypothetical "Xerxes Yoyoyo Ziggurat and U.S. Courthouse", and no sources describing a different name.

One place with possible disagreement is U.S. Post Office-Federal Building (Sarasota, Florida), which i noticed being moved from that name and i just moved back to that name. The sources in the article, as far as I can see, all document "U.S. Post Office-Federal Building" as being the name of the place.

One generally positive step forward, i think, would be to create articles for all the redlink NRHP-listed places on U.S. Post Office and similar dab pages, at the National Register NRIS database names now mostly shown there (NRIS names were used in creating those dab pages), which i am inclined now to proceed with. Then discussion about possibly better article names can take place at their individual Talk pages, regarding actual sources about the names of the places. If moves are agreed upon, then redirects get left behind which keeps all the intended connections from NRHP list-articles. --doncram (talk) 17:13, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There were two issues, the first being whether to use "United States" or "U.S." in article titles, the second being whether to use congressionally designated names. I think you are confusing the two, and I am surprised that you read anything in this discussion as an outcome supporting abbreviation of "United States". However, to be sure that we have clarity, I'll seek admin review and closure of this discussion. Cheers! bd2412 T 21:14, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think i ever confused those two issues. Congressional re-namings of places is, always has been, a pretty heavy source that would inform the naming of specific articles. But there cannot be an absolute decree that we must use the Congressional renaming of a place, if other sources show clearly that common usage is different, per usual article naming conventions. I don't recall or see any judgment that has to be made by anyone about Congressional names. Most of the places originally discussed have not been given names by the U.S. Congress, however.
It does remain that use of "U.S." could be part of best name for a place, especially when the name is otherwise long and cumbersome, and when all sources or the weight of sources show that "U.S." rather than United States is part of the name.
There has been suggestion that as an editorial matter, we can choose to always use United States rather than U.S. I don't think there was/is consensus for that.
Copy of photo, displayed above, with absurdly long name printed on building
Maybe another thing to confirm as an outcome is that we are not bound to use the name displayed on the outside of a building. Photographic evidence of words on the outside of a building is indeed one source to consider, but there are cases like the "Beer and Wine" and the "WILLIAM KENZO NAKAMURA UNITED STATES COURT HOUSE U.S. COURT OF APPEALS" ones mentioned above, and many more reasonable counter-examples where what was once written as an architectural embellishment is not the common name of a place. I think if there is a Congressional rename of a place you would believe that source is more authoritative than the name on the outside of the building.
Sure, I wouldn't mind someone non-involved closing this. --doncram (talk) 22:11, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, I used Google maps to look at the Sarasota building referenced above, and the only name I see inscribed on the building is "Federal Building". bd2412 T 13:49, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

20:20 hindsight[edit]

In 2017, the USGS announced that all postoffice and building records in the the GNIS database would be archived and removed from the live dataset thenceforth, because it had proven to be unwieldy to keep them up to date since 2014.

Data Content: Since GNIS staff has been unable to maintain Domestic administrative names for quite some time (since October 1, 2014), these records will be archived from GNIS database and will longer be available through the GNIS search application. The following feature classes will be archived: Airport, Bridge, Building, Cemetery, Church, Dam, Forest, Harbor, Hospital, Mine, Oilfield, Park, Post Office, Reserve, School, Tower, Trail, Tunnel, and Well.

— https://www.usgs.gov/us-board-on-geographic-names/domestic-names

Uncle G (talk) 06:21, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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