The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Reading moved as requested. The move case is much stronger than the not move case. Reading the discussion, it appears that there are three main candidates for the name 'Las Vegas': The city, the strip, and the valley. Assuming that Las Vegas Valley is probably far from the minds of most readers and that they are looking either for the strip or the city, and that they generally believe that the strip is in the city, the solution proposed by powers below, that the strip be included as a linked section in the city article, is the best one. Both WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC are polices with usage rather than pedantic accuracy in mind and, if users confabulate the strip and the city, then we should take that into account, point the page to the obvious candidate (the Las Vegas that is in the minds of the reader as several editors have implicitly suggested), and include the strip in that article. -- regentspark ( comment) 22:02, 18 May 2012 (UTC) reply

• Las Vegas → Las Vegas (disambiguation)
• Las Vegas, Nevada → Las Vegas

Relisted. Lynch 7 18:29, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply

– Las Vegas remains the last outpost of the absurd U.S. city naming convention from awhile back that dictated that every single U.S. city reside at "[name], [state]", no matter how well-known they are. Despite there being apparent consensus in the RFC above for righting this wrong, this still has not been rectified, bulwarked by another dead-end RFC, topped off by an impassioned local explaining the intricacies of the area.

Simply put, the article currently at Las Vegas, Nevada is precisely what one should see if one goes to Las Vegas. All this nonsense about people really thinking of the Las Vegas Strip or the Las Vegas Valley or McCarren Airport or the Bellagio or something else is neither here nor there. There's nothing special about Las Vegas and, as was suggested when the ridiculous U.S. city naming convention was eradicated a few years ago, U.S. cities in general. Nearly every major city in the world has the issue of people not intimately familiar with the city referring to places not technically in that city as actually being there. Nearly every major city in the world has much smaller cities or films or whatever named after them. And, yet somehow we have no qualms about putting major cities at their simple, straightforward titles.

Except for Las Vegas.

We do a serious disservice to readers when we direct readers to a disambiguation page or, worse, to the Valley page because we, a bunch of nitpickers, know better than them what they are looking for. The principle of least astonishment ought to apply; when I type in Las Vegas, I expect to see an article about Las Vegas -- even if that's not the location of the hotel, airport, attraction, or house I'm thinking of. It's about time we make that a reality. -- tariqabjotu 08:25, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply

As you discuss this topic, please remember to be civil to other editors

And I fully admit that I crossed the line on this, with apologies D O N D E groovily  Talk to me 04:02, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply

• Support, as nominator. -- tariqabjotu 18:51, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply
• Support; the nomination says it all. When people type in "Las Vegas", they want the page which is currently at "Las Vegas, Nevada". The name of the city is "Las Vegas"; "Nevada" is not part of its name. I would also point out the obvious WP:COMMONNAME... bobrayner ( talk) 09:10, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
• Move, and enjoy your flame war. Here we go again... D O N D E groovily  Talk to me 12:11, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
• Comment For a possible alternative, see City of London versus London. In London, the legal entity is tiny and not what anyone considers "London". There's a small element of this to Las Vegas, but I don't think Vegas justifies this treatment. D O N D E groovily  Talk to me 12:15, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
• Strong Oppose No, when you here the word Las Vegas do you think of the city or the strip? I'd say 60% of people think the strip, 40% think the real city. Remember, that the Las Vegas Strip is not part of city limits (save one hotel). Like London, the legal entity is somewhat small. And, BTW, this is brought up all the time, and it ends with the same result and no offense, but it has gotten rather annoying and very lame. Y E ^{Pacific Hurricane} 13:46, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
• Strong Support. It doesn't matter that most people think the strip is in the city, or sometimes refer to the entire valley as "Las Vegas". The strip and valley each require separate sub-articles anyway, but the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is the city proper. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:55, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
  • The problem is that those people always refer to the entire valley as Las Vegas. They also refer to the strip as Las Vegas and they also refer to the city as Las Vegas. That is what establishes it as ambiguous! If you look at articles, editors even refer to North Las Vegas, Nevada as Las Vegas! And don't forget the editors who refer to Clark County, Nevada as Las Vegas. Vegaswikian ( talk) 19:08, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
    • No, all that establishes a WP:DABCONCEPT because these uses are all closely related and reference the same general concept: a particular (albeit somewhat ill-defined) place. These are not reference to distinct/unrelated topics. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 22:24, 7 May 2012 (UTC) reply
• Support like a steel-reinforced jockstrap. ("Strong" support ain't good enough in these parts....) I'd say when most people hear the term "Las Vegas" they are thinking of a city in Nevada. When most people hear "Los Angeles" they are thinking of a city in southern California. In both cases, I doubt most readers have a clue one way or the other where the actual city limits are, or whether particular landmarks they may be familiar with happen to fall within those city limits. Indeed, some of them may be looking for the article so that they can learn these facts. Frankly, virtually every city of any size in the entire world has a metropolitan area associated with it that extends further than the legal city limits, and some people may associate places within that wider metro area with the city. In each case, the city is still the primary topic. -- R'n'B ( call me Russ) 18:46, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
• Comment. For those who are suggesting support I'll ask you do something. Go to what links here for the city article. Then go about 6,000 entries in and select at random about 25 of those. Then review those articles and see how many of them are really about about something in the city. When done report your results back here. Please don't use road or airline articles in this since policy has those always linking to the largest city in the area. Vegaswikian ( talk) 19:04, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Vegaswikian, every single discussion you've used this argument, and every single time you've convinced no one. Give it a rest. D O N D E groovily  Talk to me 19:37, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
    • So I always ask for people to get the facts and they elect to ignore them. So your support is based on feelings and intuition and not facts and that's OK? Vegaswikian ( talk) 19:40, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
  • This does not help your point. What you're saying is that people go out of their way to link to Las Vegas, Nevada (rather than just Las Vegas), even though that's not the geographically correct location. This move request will do nothing to change that, and, in fact, it just codifies what that point demonstrates is true: no one, except for maybe a few people very close to the city, cares that the places referenced are not actually in Las Vegas. The writers of those articles know, by making the effort of linking (often pipe-linking) to the article about the city (rather than carelessly linking to just Las Vegas), that people want to see the article currently at Las Vegas, Nevada. Not Las Vegas Valley, not Las Vegas Strip, not Paradise, Nevada -- even if those are more "correct". -- tariqabjotu 21:28, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
    • No you are assuming that editors have and do link as described. That is a fact that we really don't know if it is true. What I will state is that when the dab page was badly constructed a lot of helpful corrections were made based on the false impression that Las Vegas always meant the city. Those were never cleaned up so they skew the results. Also, I suspect, but can not prove, many editors when they see the dab page they don't read and say it must be the city and change the link. That problem would disappear if Las Vegas Valley were moved to Las Vegas. Most editors and readers would be informed and educated by where they wind up. If they also want to read about the city or another topic they can follow the hat note links. Remember that the Valley article is correct almost everytime while the city is not even close! Vegaswikian ( talk) 22:49, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply
      • Pure conjecture. -- tariqabjotu 19:11, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply
• Comment for the nominator. You really should also list the past discussions on this topic and the results. This is not the first time this nomination has been made. The last one was only 5 months ago. Vegaswikian ( talk) 19:09, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply

  I linked to the last move request. The one before that is just a couple sections up. Anyone who cares to see what happened before then can continue back in the archives, but I don't see why what other people said more than a year ago should have a significant effect on the opinions of people now. -- tariqabjotu 20:55, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply

• Support Makes perfect sense. Most people looking up Las Vegas would be looking for the city regardless on whether they think the strip is in the city or isn't. Easily rectified by putting a hat note at the top for those that wanted the strip itself. - DJSasso ( talk) 19:22, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
• Support per nominator. I don't think I could've said it better. Hot Stop 20:57, 2 May 2012 (UTC) reply
• Support. Having Las Vegas as a disambig is apparently meant to force editors to think about whether they mean to link to the city, the Valley, the Strip, etc. But as tariq explains above, the fact is that editors largely just go ahead and link the city article, even if that's not technically correct, so the Las Vegas disambig isn't even achieving its goal. Instead of expecting editors to be nitpicky about a distinction that most don't care about, let's just give them what they want, which is the city article. The solution to the problem of, say, Caesars Palace linking to the city article is for the city article to not be religiously focused only on what's inside the city limits. Toohool ( talk) 01:27, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply
• Comment: I think there is a very similar issue for Halifax, Nova Scotia. I very strongly agree that non-residents of Las Vegas or Nevada who merely want to link to Las Vegas (for instance while editing the André Agassi article) should not be forced to take a crash course in local municipal structures and hierarchies just to be able to add one sentence to an otherwise completely unrelated Wikipedia article. I'm not opposed to the proposed solution, but maybe an alternative would be to create a landing page of sorts that is not a mere disambiguation page, with the usual barebones terse bulletpoint style and limit of one bluelink per line and grab-bag listing of any article title that happens to contain a particular word (eg, sports teams, etc), but rather a brief one-or-two paragraph description limited to a small set of "city-like" choices. -- P.T. Aufrette ( talk) 03:50, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply
• Oppose – the combination of a main disambig page and the "city, state" naming convention seems like the perfect way to handle this very ambiguous name. Dicklyon ( talk) 05:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply

What's ambiguous about it, other than confusing local politics that no one outside Nevada cares about? Portland is ambiguous. But there is no doubt what someone means when they say Las Vegas. D O N D E groovily  Talk to me 12:17, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply

What's ambiguous about "Las Vegas" is well described at Las Vegas (disambiguation). Dicklyon ( talk) 04:55, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply

• Oppose. Again. The only credible argument in favor is that when people (including editors unfamiliar with the topic, including the nominator) refer to "Las Vegas", they think they are referring to the city. The fact that they are almost always wrong makes WP:COMMONNAME a strong argument in favor of this being a disambiguation page. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:49, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply

  How does WP:COMMONNAME provide an argument, let alone a strong one, for keeping the disambiguation page? There is no dispute about what Las Vegas is actually or commonly called, and that part of policy is largely irrelevant. Much more appropriate here is Wikipedia:Primary topic, which says:

  A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.

  Let me repeat the last part, as it's the key here: to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term. What you and Vegaswikian (and others) seem to be arguing is that there should be no primary topic, because the article people think they want to find is not precise or accurate. Setting people geographically straight is not something that should be done through a disambiguation page. The primary topic, the topic most likely (above all the others listed here) to be sought by readers when they search for "Las Vegas" is, without a doubt, the one currently at Las Vegas, Nevada -- even if that doesn't actually denote the geopolitically accurate location. Going into the intricacies of borders and informing people of the common misconception is something that can be done in the article on the city. -- tariqabjotu 15:33, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply

  You're right that it's WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. I was confused by the fact that B2C almost always improperly uses WP:COMMONNAME for his naming decisions. Still, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC shows that you're wrong. When people enter "Las Vegas", they usually want information about the strip, but sometimes downtown, or the metropolitian area, and rarely the actual city. This applies whether or not they think they are looking for the city. This means basically, that, if an article on the city were to be at Las Vegas, it should contain most of the information presently in Las Vegas metropolitan area. Because of our conventions, an article on the city should be at Las Vegas, Nevada, although one could find reasonable justification for City of Las Vegas or City of Las Vegas, Nevada, or possibly even Las Vegas (city), Nevada. One could not find justification for an article on the city being at Las Vegas. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:57, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply

The problem with Las Vegas, Nevada serving as disambiguation is that all the strip, valley and most other topics are in Nevada, too. Everyone agrees that the ambiguity is not between Las Vegas, NV and some other city called Las Vegas somewhere else. It's ambiguity between the city limits and the wider area. If this is where the disambiguation is needed, then City of Las Vegas or Las Vegas (city) is a lot better way to do it - it disambiguates the only thing that actually needs disambiguation. D O N D E groovily  Talk to me 00:25, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply

• Support per WP:COMMONNAME and the points that the nominator has mentioned. I would also like to refer to this page which shows that Las Vegas, Nevada is clearly a primary topic. Stay cool and hopefully, we'll reach a consensus. Yours faithfully, Kotak kasut. 16:09, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply
• Support; there's no reason not to include the Strip in the Las Vegas, Nevada article, and doing so would make it obvious that said article is the primary topic. Powers ^T 17:37, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Agreed. A section on the strip, with a link to the main article, per WP:SUB. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC) reply

• Support per User:Arthur Rubin. When I "refer to 'Las Vegas', [I] think [I am] referring to the city" and when I get to the article, the intro will tell me how I was mistaken. —  AjaxSmack  03:19, 7 May 2012 (UTC) reply

• Oppose. I guess the simple answer is the same reason why the city article was not moved here years ago when the mass moving of city articles happened. Quite simply it is not the primary topic. A point supported since then by various move requests and even an RFC or two along the way. And as always, such a move would go against several guidelines. Adding more from outside the city to the article would also violate established policy.
  
  In this discussion, WP:COMMONNAME is raised and I think it is obvious that Las Vegas is the common name for the city. It is also the common name for the valley, the strip, Paradise, Winchester, Whitney, Spring Valley, Enterprise, Sunrise Manor and more. It is a common name for North Las Vegas and is occasionally used for Henderson when talking about entertainment in the Valley. Part of the logic being pushed is that everyplace is kind of similar and therefor we need to ignore valid cases where being identical to everything else is actually right and correct. In fact one could say that the city article is not an exception, but rather is just like 99% of the other US city articles in how it is named. Also the naming exemption being pushed says that Cities listed in the AP Stylebook as not requiring the state modifier may or may not have their articles named [City] provided they are the primary topic for that name. Again it is established, even by those proposing this move, that the city is not the primary topic.
  
  While it was suggested that looking at the inbound links for the current city article would be informative no one seemed interested in doing so. If someone had, they would have seen that about 70% of the links are not for the city but are for other areas in the valley. That is strong evidence that moving Las Vegas Valley to the main name space is the wisest choice. Why? Because it does not create an arbitrary and inaccurate definition of what Las Vegas is. Moving the city article there, even with hat notes, would be wrong. A comparison has been offered to Boston as an example of why this is correct. Well, they might be the case if the various townships in the valley chose to market themselves as individual destinations and suburbs of a city. That is not the case here where the valley and everything in it is marked under the Las Vegas brand. Is Boston a brand and it is marketed as such? If so is it close to the second best recognized brand? Also in the case of Boston, the city proper is the central engine that drives the area. This is not the case in Las Vegas. The city has less than 10% of the hotel rooms, casinos and casino revenue. It also has less of the high end entertainment and so on. For reference, gaming revenue for the city in February of 2012 was $39,622,360 (listed as downtown) vs $769,459,750 for the rest of the county or a tad over 5%. Also Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not states while travel guides for a city will often mention distant attractions, a Wikipedia article for a city should only list those that are actually in the city.
  
  There are valid points made that using Las Vegas, Nevada may not be the best way to disambiguate the city given that both Las Vegas and Las Vegas, Nevada are ambiguous. If you actually read the articles with inbound links and see how they are worded, I think it becomes very clear that the least confusing option is to move Las Vegas Valley to Las Vegas (which is always going to be correct, if imprecise) as opposed to the other options which will be wrong a significant number of times, and moving (or leaving where it is) the city article to Las Vegas (city) or something similar.
  
  It has been alluded that the page read statistics supports the move. However, based on actually looking at what is linked which causes the vast majority of the hits are incorrect in about 70% of the cases. Given that there are 15,000 or so links, it will take a while to fix these, many of which were created when the dab page was misleading for a while. If you want to see the effect of cleanup, take a look at this count and notice the trend vs the trend here. This is probably a good example for why page moves should not be based on this statistic. Also I having been disambiguating inbound links for Las Vegas, virtually 99.99% would be correct for the valley. The city is the target of less than 10% of these, probably around 4-5%.
  
  The current setup while not the best is less harmful than a bad rename of the city article. Vegaswikian ( talk) 22:40, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Are you suggesting that the valley exclusive of the city is commonly referred to as "Las Vegas"? Are you suggesting that the strip exclusive of the city is commonly referred to as "Las Vegas"? If so, I would like to see some citations for such claims. If not, that means that "Las Vegas" is not used to refer to different places, but is used to refer to different variations of the same place (just the city, the city plus the valley, the city plus the strip, etc.). -- Born2cycle ( talk) 23:32, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply

The distinction is important, because it's the difference between having multiple topics (one of which might be primary) vs. a WP:DABCONCEPT. As far as I can tell, "Las Vegas" is a DABCONCEPT.

The point of the Boston analogy is that Cambridge is considered part of the place known as "Boston", even though strictly speaking they are distinct: Cambridge begins where Boston ends. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 00:13, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply

"Again it is established, even by those proposing this move, that the city is not the primary topic." Hell fricking no! Don't you dare misrepresent 80% of the votes on this move request. 80% are saying that the city is primary (including the original nominator). Don't stoop so low as to blatantly lie. D O N D E groovily  Talk to me 02:32, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Forget it. I have more important things to do. I don't really give a damn how these articles are named on a silly website, whereas you have made it your crusade to ensure the status quo sticks. It doesn't matter what I say, or what points I present, because you'll employ the exact same tactic you've used in this and the last move request: wait until the very end of the request period and post a wall of text that misrepresents your opponents in order to give the impression that, despite all that was said earlier, your position is still right.

You even go so far as to outright lie about what was said:

Again it is established, even by those proposing this move, that the city is not the primary topic.

You have some nerve. I posted a full response to Arthur detailing how precisely I felt the city article was the primary topic. You probably read that, but just conveniently ignored it.

While it was suggested that looking at the inbound links for the current city article would be informative no one seemed interested in doing so.

Actually, I was, and I did just that, and told you quite clearly how you were shooting yourself in the foot by suggesting those links prove your point. You didn't respond, unsurprisingly. Instead, you played dumb and pretended your points have just been sitting here unchallenged.

But, I understand. You're desperate. And this underhanded, get-the-last-word approach is your only hope. -- tariqabjotu 03:39, 9 May 2012 (UTC) reply

• Oppose: As a WP reader I personally believe that landing on a disambiguation page when looking for information on an ambiguous term that has multiple meanings, regardless of how primary anyone of the options might, is better than being distracted by the primary when I am looking for something else. But that is my opinion as one reader. I am truly awed by my fellow editors who can divinely predict how hundreds of millions of WP readers from different cultures, different languages and different motivations are going to react when they encounter a WP title. Such divine wisdom is almost messianic because of the obvious absence of any empirical evidence, we must have faith that these divine prognostications are indeed true. It is sad however that these masturbations we call requested moves based on WP:PRIMARYcontinue to sap the valuable energy of editors, energy that would be better spent improving and creating article content. Regardless of the outcome, WP itself will be neither harmed nor improved by this RM. Some will be satisfied and go to sleep relaxed and with a smile. Others will be frustrated and unfulfilled with the climax of this RM, but they will try again. Either way some admin will have to spend some energy to clean up the mess. -- Mike Cline ( talk) 10:58, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply

So it's bad for us to "divinely predict" that readers want to see the city, but it's okay for you to "divinely predict" that they'd rather see the disambiguation page? D O N D E groovily  Talk to me 12:10, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply

If you know my track record on this at WP:AT, you'd know that I think, and have been very vocal about any titling policy interpretation that relies on predicting how millions of readers are going to react. You'll note above that I said the disambigation preference was my personal preference not what readers what. Any predication as to how millions of readers are going to react to a title is sheer fantasy.-- Mike Cline ( talk) 12:14, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply

For a while, we have had that page, Las Vegas Valley which should situate the reader allowing then to switch to other articles if needed. I have not nominated that for moving since I have not been able to see my way through the obstacle of primary use. If and when the inbound links to the city article are cleaned up, then the stats will better help to justify a move like this. But that means fixing links in 15,000 or so articles. Watching the length of the inbound link list, I don't see any indication in a reduction in areas earlier then I have been working, well occasionally a few disappear, so if I keep working on this I should be finished in a few years. Vegaswikian( talk) 18:20, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Odd that you essentially say that page stats don't matter right now, but after you've changed all these links, they will. To be honest, I don't actually think they're significant either way, out of context. More relevant, I believe, is the fact that a wide variety of editors across Wikipedia, when choosing to link text that says "Las Vegas" will link it to Las Vegas, Nevada. Very few people -- basically just you-- will link to Las Vegas Valley. Just because you are going around Wikipedia changing the links in the hopes that the page stats will change to give the impression Las Vegas Valley is more sought after than Las Vegas, Nevada doesn't change the primary usage. -- tariqabjotu 18:46, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Do either of us know how many of the links were created when the dab team did some work with the wrong content on the dab page? Do we know how many editors incorrectly fix the links when they go to a dab page without reading it? Apparently you do. And apparently I don't, which I admit. Page read stats are not the sole determiner of primary topic for good reason. I'm simply pointing out a fact that makes it clear why they are unreliable in this case. I believe I have also said that if the valley article were moved it would be right at least 99% of the time if not the most precise in some cases. Vegaswikian ( talk) 19:12, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply

With such a radical opinion, intentionally flying in the face of Wikipedia:Primary topic and taking an unorthodox stance on disambiguation pages, I'm not sure how or why we should even consider your opinion.

That being said, we shouldn't even be in this mess now with the changes to the U.S. city naming conventions a few years ago. Las Vegas is the last of the AP Stylebook cities that hasn't been moved where the naming conflict is with itself. In other words, the naming convention washed away the arguments (long used to prevent cities like Los Angeles from moving) that people sometimes refer to places outside the city proper as being in the city itself. It washed them away, except in the case of Las Vegas. This should have been moved in the batch move back then; I don't know how a small group of editors have managed to prevent this for so long. -- tariqabjotu 18:46, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply

• Support per WP:CONCEPTDAB, Las Vegas should be an article, not a dab page mgeo talk 00:14, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply
• Support per Born2Cycle, DJSasso, et al. -- BDD ( talk) 00:16, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply

"Las Vegas, Nevada" is not the way to disambiguate this

• Whether or not you think the city government and larger urban area should be treated the same, Las Vegas, Nevada is not the proper way to disambiguate this. We disambiguate with Portland, Oregon because there is another Portland in the state of Maine. This is not the case for Las Vegas. Any need for disambiguation is between the legal city and the surrounding area, and it's always best to disambiguate what actually needs disambiguation, and nothing more (thus we don't put the year of a film in an article title unless there is more than one film of the same name). Thus, instead of Las Vegas, Nevada, we should have City of Las Vegas or Las Vegas (city) - disambiguate what actually needs it, which is the fact that we're talking about the legal city, not the fact that we're talking about Nevada. D O N D E groovily  Talk to me 00:33, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Sounds like you have hit the nail on the head. If we decide to go with City of Las Vegas, the current article will need to be disambiguated. Not a big deal, just some cleanup. But Las Vegas (city) seems to make the most sense and would actually result in a shorter title then we current have. I will ask that if this discussion continues, that we not try to resolve redirects at the same time. For a previous precedent for this type of city rename, see Cork (city) so this would not be setting new ground. Vegaswikian ( talk) 01:47, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Yes, this is probably correct, if it needs to be disambiguated, which is something I obviously don't believe needs to happen. -- tariqabjotu 02:42, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply
  • FWIW, wherever Las Vegas winds up going, Las Vegas, Nevada should go to the exact same place. But with the disambiguation problems that Vegaswikian is constantly dealing with, Las Vegas should be an article. D O N D E groovily  Talk to me 03:25, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply
    • I would stress what has already been noted. We don't have distinct uses of "Las Vegas" here (as is the case for Portland) - what we have are different closely related uses. When several related/derived topics all share the same name, we typically have one main article at the basename, and that's what we should have at Las Vegas. I think moving Las Vegas, Nevada here is an excellent start, though I would expect that article to evolve a bit differently once renamed, with the scope not being quite as tightly controlled as it is currently (to be strictly about the city proper). -- Born2cycle ( talk) 04:22, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Las Vegas (city) would be ridiculous, IMO, when we have perfectly natural forms of disambiguation available. Cork (city) is used because Cork, Cork just looks weird. Powers ^T 15:43, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Not necessarily defending "(city)" ( City of Las Vegas meets the criteria as well and may be preferable to those who prefer to avoid parenthetic disambiguation for some reason)", but adding ", Nevada", though it looks natural ( Las Vegas, Nevada), is not disambiguating, since it doesn't disambiguate any one of the uses in Nevada from any of the others in Nevada. That is, "Las Vegas, Nevada" is no more nor less ambiguous than is "Las Vegas". -- Born2cycle ( talk) 17:31, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply
      • I mostly agree, except in so far as someone explicitly searching for Las Vegas, Nevada is much more likely to be interested in the city itself than in the Strip or the metro area. Powers ^T 00:44, 5 May 2012 (UTC) reply
        • I don't think so, unless you're talking about one of us WP title dweebs. Google search results indicate that someone (who is presumably not intimately familiar with WP US city naming guidelines) searching with "Las Vegas, Nevada", is about as likely to be looking for the metro area (much of which outside of the city, like the Strip, is officially referred to as "Las Vegas, Nevada" -- see the official mailing address of any casino on the Strip) as he is for the city itself. On the other hand, anyone searching for "city of las vegas" is almost certainly looking for the city itself, which is also confirmed by google search results. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 16:33, 7 May 2012 (UTC) reply
          • A USPS assigned address is only a source for routing mail. It is based on the USPS rules and in no way reflects reality. I have spent well over half my life having a USPS assigned address that did not represent the name of the place where I was living. So to use this as a WP:RS is completely wrong! It is not reliable for anything except getting mail delivered. In those cases where it happens to actually match the place everything is fine. It is just the rather large list of exceptions that creates issues. Calling the USPS address official for anything else is an open invitation to confusion. Vegaswikian ( talk) 18:20, 7 May 2012 (UTC) reply
            • While the USPS address is a source for routing mail, it's what anyone who mails anything to that place uses to refer to that place! It's well-known. Don't you think that the vast majority of our readers would say the following statement is True? "Caesars Palace is in Las Vegas, Nevada." -- Born2cycle ( talk) 20:27, 7 May 2012 (UTC) reply
              • Yes, which is what makes the term Las Vegas, Nevada ambiguous. So leaving it focused on the city is reasonable. Are you going to suggest that we write an article on postal codes that cover what is in the USPS definition? Also realize that this changes when North Las Vegas or Henderson annex land so that definition is rather fluid. However the Las Vegas Valley is rather stable and covers what most people consider Las Vegas. Vegaswikian ( talk) 20:40, 7 May 2012 (UTC) reply
                • This discussion has drifted, but the point is that it's not Nevada that's ambiguous, it's city vs USPS vs valley that's ambiguous. D O N D E groovily  Talk to me 20:59, 7 May 2012 (UTC) reply
                • But Las Vegas Valley covers way more than what people consider Las Vegas. If it wasn't for the Strip being outside the city, we probably wouldn't be having this issue. I see no problem with having some information -- a bit more than what is present in the Las Vegas, Nevada article currently -- about the Strip in the city article, as the city's fame comes largely in part because of the Strip. It seems you prefer being pedantic over being informative, and I couldn't disagree with you more. -- tariqabjotu 21:35, 7 May 2012 (UTC) reply
                  • No, the Valley article pretty much covers what anyone includes when they say Las Vegas. If you look at a large number of the articles that currently link to the city article, you will see that. You will find links to the City of Las Vegas for places and people in and from North Las Vegas and Henderson. No one will dispute that they are not in the city of Las Vegas. I will agree that the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA, the census classification that covers Las Vegas, covers way more then what most people consider as Las Vegas. But then it covers about 10 time the land mass of the valley. Ever been on a flight to Vegas? People always say there is Las Vegas as soon as they see the lights past Lake Mead. What are the seeing? Usually Henderson and Boulder City and North Las Vegas and unincorporated areas of the county not the Las Vegas Strip. Vegaswikian ( talk) 21:49, 7 May 2012 (UTC) reply
                    • Ever been on a flight to Vegas? People always say there is Las Vegas as soon as they see the lights past Lake Mead. What are the seeing? Usually Henderson and Boulder City and North Las Vegas and unincorporated areas of the county not the Las Vegas Strip. Ever been on a flight to anywhere? As I said in the nomination, there is not special about Las Vegas; this holds true for nearly every major city. -- tariqabjotu 03:45, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply

The point is that there is one loosely defined place commonly referred to as both "Las Vegas" and "Las Vegas, Nevada" that is the actual city and, to varying degrees, the surrounding areas. The article about that place should be at Las Vegas, and Las Vegas, Nevada should redirect to it. I agree with Tariq that the article current at Las Vegas, Nevada is pretty much that article, perhaps with more added to it from the valley article. But all this can and should be explained in such a DABCONCEPT article. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 22:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC) reply

By the way, I just want to point out a good example of article that incorporates the same approach. Boston, a featured article, incorporates a healthy amount of information that actually is about Cambridge, Massachusetts, even though Cambridge, unlike Paradise, Nevada, is a full-fledged city (with its own city hall) and well-known beyond technical maps. That's, of course, because Harvard and MIT are located in Cambridge, and even though those universities are not in Boston proper, a Boston article without mentioning them is incomplete. Some of the information about Harvard is there because it has facilities in Boston, but most of the information is really about their presence in Cambridge (and specifically noted as such). It even has pictures of both universities. It's not a lot, but it's enough to satisfy the reader and point them to the more relevant articles, if that's what they're looking for. The same thing can easily be done here. -- tariqabjotu 03:45, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Yes, Boston/ Cambridge, Massachusetts/ Harvard University is a GREAT ANALOGY to Las Vegas/ Paradise, Nevada/ Las Vegas strip!. Why not follow it here? -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:56, 8 May 2012 (UTC) reply

First, I really do not care all that much whether the disambiguation page or one of several articles is at Las Vegas. I think a large part of the problem is the notion that articles about municipalities cannot include information about things outside the municipal boundaries. There is no electric fence around municipalities (at least not in most of the world). What a term like Boston or London or New York (or just about any city) refers to is very dependent on context. For example, I live in Michigan, but for three years I worked in Cambridge, MA. When talking with people back home or when traveling elsewhere I'd typically say that I was working in Boston (or the Boston area). If people were familiar with the area or seemed otherwise interested, only then would I specify Cambridge. From a certain perspective, the cultural area associated with Boston extends far beyond the city boundaries. I suggest a better solution would be to loosen the electric fence mentality for articles about municipalities just a bit. That of course leads to some potential issues with duplication of content, but that can be addresses as needed. For large areas, with correspondingly large articles, at some point one or more subarticles might be created for details specific to the municipality, such as government and public services. older ≠ wiser 12:54, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Totally agree with idea of loosening the electric fence mentalitySee also: WT:USCITY#Places_outside_city_limits. -- Born2cycle ( talk) 18:37, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Can you please top using the {{ like}} template? It puts undue emphasis on your comments, and it's simply unnecessary. -- tariqabjotu 19:13, 10 May 2012 (UTC) reply

And yet, there is no legitimate argument for Las Vegas to be a disambiguation page

No matter what your view, there is no legitimate reason to have Las Vegas as a disambiguation page.

• If you think it doesn't matter that the strip is not in city limits, then the article belongs at Las Vegas
• If you do think it matters, then the city would land at Las Vegas (city) (or similar) and the broader area at Las Vegas Valley. But, this doesn't make Las Vegas a disambiguation. This would make Las Vegas the quintessential case of WP:DABCONCEPT, where some ambiguous terms should be articles explaining the ambiguity instead of mere lists. Similar treatment is done at Football, particle and supreme court, where the ambiguous term is an article explaining the concept.
• Summary: Either way you look at it, Las Vegas should be an article. D O N D E groovily  Talk to me 17:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.