Talk:2024 Florence, Kentucky shooting

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Rough consensus to move to "2024 Florence, Kentucky shooting". Editors opposing cite WP:OVERPRECISION, but those supporting are more numerous and have equally strong arguments in WP:CONSISTENT and WP:ASTONISH. (closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal (talk) 05:02, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

2024 Florence shooting → 2024 Florence, Kentucky, shooting2024 Florence, Kentucky, shooting – I had previously moved the page to the proposed target as I felt that the name without the state might indicate Florence, Italy to readers, but since this has now been reverted I am bringing it up here. The comma is per MOS:GEOCOMMA and the state is to disambiguate from Florence. Raskuly 🐰 11:33, 15 May 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. Jeffrey34555 (talk) 21:13, 22 May 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 04:02, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE. Although there are other towns called Florence, no others had a notable shooting in 2024, therefore adding a state name is unnecessary and counter to the above naming policies. (WP:USPLACE requires adding a state name to actual location pages, but it's never applied to place names mentioned in other titles). There was also an informal discussion above in which the OP declared they preferred "the second" option, so I'm not sure why you've changed your mind. In any case, the consensus then was the shorter name and that's what should remain. It also avoids the confusing commas in the proposed title. If a state name is to be added then it should be 2024 Florence, Kentucky shooting, matching 2023 Columbus, Ohio mayoral election and most other titles of this nature. Otherwise it looks like a comma-separated list rather than a single title. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 12:26, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

  Can someone not change their mind over a period of two years? Florence is the primary topic, and the proposal helps disambiguate it. Wikipedia is a global encyclopedia. Raskuly 🐰 15:02, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

  Sure, you can change your mind, but I'm puzzled that you've changed your mind to favour a title that isn't supported by policy. Sure, Florence in Italy is a primary topic, but there wasn't a notable shooting there that year, so for this title there's no conflict. 2024 Florence shooting will be a redirect here regardless, not a disambiguation page. WP:CONCISE says that article titles only need to be precise enough to identify the topic, no more than that. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 15:26, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

  Okay, I support your position–it makes sense. However, since there has been a support I can't close this as a speedy. Raskuly 🐰 21:10, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Oppose

Same as commenter above. Too much precision. ButteyFelicity (talk) 16:21, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

• Leaning support: The purpose of including the year in the title is not merely disambiguation, and the city in Italy is almost as well known as the one in Kentucky. It is a large enough place that shootings there are likely to occur there on a somewhat routine basis. There is a Chicago in Zimbabwe, but if we want to talk about something that happened there that also happens routinely in Illinois, saying it was in Chicago is probably not sufficient (even if there wasn't any especially notable such event that happened in Illinois in that particular year). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:36, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

Support per nom. No opinion on commas because we are very inconsistent about this. I assumed it was Italy, upon reading it; the title as is is extremely misleading. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:50, 16 May 2026 (UTC)

There is no policy that supports the notion that we should disambiguate purely because you think people might be confused. In addition to the precision arguments mentioned above, WP:NWFCTM tells us that what you think when you first see the title isn't especially relevant. Hypothetical confusion with a non-existent 2024 shooting in Florence, Italy, is not relevant here. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 11:00, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

Did this event happen in Florence? No. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:23, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

I think it happened not so far from the Palestine train incident. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:06, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Support for WP:CONSISTENCY in insisting on WP:CONSISTENCY. We disambiguate U.S. place names with their states in the title even when it's not required, and while you could argue that we shouldn't be doing that (I personally think that at the very least there should be more exceptions than the somewhat arbitrary AP style guide), it is what we do. I don't see it making sense to be doing that but then turn around and not use that convention in other titles that incorporate the names of those cities. Also, if we did decide to start being more liberal with giving exceptions to the convention I think we should perhaps start somewhere other than a place in the US called Florence. ⹃Maltazarian ^{ᚾparley${\displaystyle \lor }$investigateᛅ} 13:20, 22 May 2026 (UTC)

• Support per WP:CONSISTENT (WP:CONSUB), will be confused with Florence, the Italian city, the main topic for the name "Florence", therefore may not be as WP:PRECISE. DankJae 01:47, 23 May 2026 (UTC)
• Oppose as unnecessary WP:OVERPRECISION. If a shorter title would just redirect back to a longer title that's otherwise the same, there's rarely a good reason to use the longer title. This current title precisely describes the incident and is unambiguous. We shouldn't imply by the title that there was a notable shooting in 2024 in some other Florence when there's no such article. Station1 (talk) 03:02, 23 May 2026 (UTC)
• Support per the principle of least astonishment (WP:ASTONISH). As Maltazarian notes, "We disambiguate U.S. place names with their states in the title even when it's not required", for instance when disambiguating buildings and the like by location. WP:PRECISION considers this to make titles "more natural and recognizable" (which are two of the main article naming criteria): "Bothell is already precise enough to be unambiguous, but we instead use Bothell, Washington ... seeking a more natural and recognizable title which is also consistent with most other articles on American cities". Ham II (talk) 11:13, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

  The guideline you mention regarding cities in the US is WP:USPLACE. But this guideline, which deviates from the normal WP:CONCISE and WP:COMMONNAME policies, has always been limited to articles on the places themselves. It has never applied to other articles which mention US cities in the title. A quick glance at Category:2025 mass shootings in the United States shows that in general we never add a state name. When considering all the policies and guidelines mentioned above, this proposed name change has zero merit. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 12:00, 31 May 2026 (UTC)

• Support. Clearly the name Florence is going to be associated with the major city in Italy, not the small town in Kentucky. WP:COMMONSENSE. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:22, 1 June 2026 (UTC)
• Support. The current name is seriously ambiguous and misleading. Andrewa (talk) 05:31, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

• Oppose per Amakuru and Station1. While it’s certainly possible for someone who is unfamiliar with this shooting to see this title and think it’s about a shooting in Italy, recognizability on Wikipedia is a goal to be achieved only for those familiar with the topic the article is about. A lot of editors seem to have trouble understanding this.

Claims that the current title is ambiguous fail to identify a topic with an article on Wikipedia with which this title is ambiguous; therefore such claims are groundless.

Policy supports the current title, not moving it. —-В²C ☎ 07:03, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

• Support per nom, and per WP:CONSISTENT and WP:ASTONISH.

But, btw, I'd definitely lean toward the title of "2024 Florence, Kentucky shooting" (without the second comma) instead of "2024 Florence, Kentucky, shooting". I've said before that there's a vast collection of articles already in this format - e.g. "2017 Sandy, Utah attack", "2016 St. Cloud, Minnesota mall stabbing", "2020 Springfield, Missouri shooting", "1993 Aurora, Colorado shooting", "2019 Aurora, Illinois shooting", etc. ...The extra comma does technically make grammatical sense, but looks odd to most Americans. Genuinely, it seems to be a regional thing. For most U.S.-based editors, the version of the title with one comma is perfectly fine. Most Americans tend to think of the "XCity, YState" format as a full name, and not as a grammatical qualifier or explanation (as opposed to MOS:GEOCOMMA). It's an definitely interesting debate though, as both sides have a point (well, a comma in this case).

However, the comma thing is definitely way less relevant than the fact that we should absolutely add "Kentucky" to the title (the main focus of the move request), and someone can do a second move-request about "whether or not to have the 2nd comma" afterward. Paintspot Infez (talk) 22:08, 10 June 2026 (UTC)

• Again, policy does not favour this move and your reasons don't stack up. Consistency is the opposite of what you say - to omit the state name, per virtually all other cases where there is no ambiguity. And why should someone be astonished when looking at an article on a subject that only exists for this US city and not for the Italian one? WP:RECOGNIZE says that the title should be familiar to people already familiar with the subject. Well clearly if you know about it then you will know it's in Florence, Kentucky, not Florence, Italy. And WP:CONCISE also tells us we should not make the title longer than it needs to be. This RM ha zero merit, irrespective of how many supports there are.  — Amakuru (talk) 06:44, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

• Comment: There exists 2011 Florence shootings. Raskuly 🐰 04:43, 14 June 2026 (UTC)