Talk:Boylston Street subway

Requested move 14 December 2018

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. 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.

Moved as proposed. After extended time for discussion, participation appears to have ebbed, leaving a slim consensus favoring the proposed move, particularly in light of a well-reasoned and well-evidenced basis in policy. bd2412 T 20:17, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

• Boylston Street Subway → Boylston Street subway
• Tremont Street Subway → Tremont Street subway

– In these contexts, "subway" is a generic term for the tunnels, and is commonly lowercase in sources, so per WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS we should use lowercase here. Dicklyon (talk) 03:52, 14 December 2018 (UTC) --Relisted. Paine Ellsworth, ed.  ^put'r there  16:47, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Relist note: members of WikiProjects Greater Boston Public Transit and Trains have been notified of this move request. Paine Ellsworth, ed.  ^put'r there  16:54, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Evidence

• n-grams for Boylston Street subway show predominantly lowercase subway in books.
• n-grams for Tremont Street subway also show plenty of lowercase subway

Refining the Tremont Street case by Google book search for books in recent decades, by capitalization in sentence context (unlike the n-grams, which count occurences, including titles and headings, not sources; for some, seeing the capitalization requires going back to the search snippet):

Lowercase subway

1. 2010
2. 2005
3. 2004
4. 2002
5. 2002
6. 1997
7. 1997
8. 1997
9. 1997
10. 1995
11. 1992

Uppercase subway

1. 2005
2. 2004
3. 2003
4. 1997
5. 1997
6. 1995
7. 1994
8. 1993

Mixed case in the same book:

1. 1997
2. 1993

Guidelines

• WP:NCCAPS says "lowercase unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized"
• MOS:CAPS says "only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia"

Survey

• Support as nom in light of evidence from books and our guidelines at WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS. Dicklyon (talk) 04:07, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose: "Boylston Street Subway" and "Tremont Street Subway" are proper names as should be capitalized as such. That was not always the case - the earliest documentation just calls it the "subway", and several of my older book sources (ending with Change at Park Street Under, published 1972) do not treat them as proper nouns. (Even as early as 1918, however, city reports used the uppercase style.) Since the 1966 NRHP documentation popularized the uppercase version, most significant sources have used it - in contrast to most NRHP-listed places, where the proper noun usage is less common. A 1981 official system history, all uses in the defining reference book (the 1997 Tremont Street Subway: A Century of Public Service), and most other recent histories use the uppercase "Subway".

The MBTA also uses "Central Subway" - almost always capitalized - when discussing the larger tunnel system formed by the Tremont Street Subway, Boylston Street Subway, Huntington Avenue Subway, and a few smaller sections. See legal action, planning staff report, environmental documentation. That capitalization indicates that the MBTA considers the names of its infrastructure segments to be proper nouns. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 04:40, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any evidence that the popularity of caps increased after the 1966 NRHP listing. Those listings don't tend to have much popular effect the way Wikipedia titles do. And I'm pretty sure we don't much care how the MBTA caps "Central Subway" or anything else; there's no evidence that their style is to reserve caps for proper names, as ours is. And your "environmental documentation" link clearly shows "Tremont Street subway" without the cap; the other two links in that bunch don't mention the Tremont Street subway, so don't bear on the question. Dicklyon (talk) 02:09, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose per Pi. Even Dick’s “evidence” shows Tremont Street Subway is more commonly written that way than his preferred version. Calidum 20:20, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

  As you may know, the n-grams include all occurences, including those in titles, headings, citations, and such that are more often in title case. So I went through and tabulated all the books that I could find since 1990 using our title in a sentence, and segregated them by case. So now it's much more explicitly clear that this title is most often not treated as a proper name by reliable sources. And even if it was capped in a small majority (which it's not), that would still be way short of the criteria from our guidelines as quoted above. Dicklyon (talk) 02:05, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support per Dicklyon's survey and reasoned arguments, and WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS. Opposers, first, please explain why you're disregarding the guidelines, in particular "only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia". WP's practice is not based on whether the PR office of the current owner (MBTA) decides one morning that they'll use caps—which is typical for advertising "boosterism" and signage. Second, please explain what you understand by "proper noun" and "proper name". Tony (talk) 05:13, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support per NCCAPS, MOSCAPS. Signage capitalizes almost everything (and in many cases does capitalize everything, even "in" and "a" in mid-sentence). WP has its own style guide. It doesn't just randomly veer around mimicking signs. This move is consistent with years and years of station, line, and stop moves. Descriptive appelations like these are not proper names (Boyleston Street itself is, and so is Grand Central Terminal; see the difference?).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:33, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
• Comment. I'm not sure what to make of the multiple confrontational comments above. I think it's clear folks think that this is a proper name, based on current and past usage. That's not an unreasonable point of view and there's no call for it to be treated so disrespectfully. Relying on sources' capitalization to determine whether something is a proper name, and then saying that other sources' capitalization is not dispositive because we don't know what their manual of style says, strikes me as trying to have it both ways. I think it would be better if we paused this and came up with an actual naming convention for railroad infrastructure. Doing this article by article produces inconsistent results and raises the temperature in the room (for some reason). I would be willing to help draft such a guideline. Mackensen (talk) 00:56, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

  To the extent that there is disrespect shown for opinions, I think it's nothing to do with whether these editors think these are proper names, or prefer to capitalize them for other reasons. Rather, it's because they ignore longstanding consensus guidelines that are supposed to help us decide these things without those personal opinions being key to the process. Dicklyon (talk) 03:27, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

  So let's take the mystery out of it and establish a subject-specific guideline. Mackensen (talk) 04:25, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

  Not sure what you mean. Where's the mystery? What subject areas need a clarification or their own guideline? Dicklyon (talk) 04:38, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

  As I indicated above, I think a naming convention for railroad infrastructure (lines, branches, districts, subdivisions) would be useful. Pushing one through for stations, though in the short term traumatic, clarified many issues and settled that question. Maybe this is considered settled for UK articles, but most US editors didn't participate in those discussions. Mackensen (talk) 04:47, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

  Don't we already have site-wide naming conventions? Tony (talk) 05:55, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

  @Tony1: None that I'm conscious of, nor that has been linked here. None of the existing naming conventions apply to this class of articles. Mackensen (talk) 13:17, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

  We have WP:NCCAPS, referenced above. That "NC" is for "naming convention". Dicklyon (talk) 15:56, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

  Yes, and I'm saying that it's insufficient and unsatisfactory in this case. Guidelines still require discussion to determine how they're applied. Mackensen (talk) 14:47, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support as follows:

• Per NCCAPS, MOSCAPS: "only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia". [emphasis added]

• For Boylston Street subway, the ngram evidence shows that it does not meet the criteria for capitalisation.
• Tremont Street subway does not meet the criteria as follows:

• ngram data itself is inconclusive, noting the recent tendency to capitalise but the "most recent" (2008) that suggests a reversal.
• As pointed out, ngram data includes titles/headings etc, which have the potential to distort the occurrence of capitalisation in general prose.
• The survey of sources clarifies that it does not meet the criteria re consistency and substantial majority.

• Further, Onomastics does not support these as being proper-name noun phrases:

• Proper names are not descriptive - these are. The phrase tells us they are subways.
• A single referent does not make a name (appelative or "common" name) a proper name.
• Proper names generally are not modified by articles or other determiners. "The" may be part of a weak proper name but it is generally inseparable from the noun phrase (except where the noun phrase is being used attributively). Both articles have occurrences where the definite article is not consistently attached in cases which cannot be reconciled by its use attributively. This does not support them being proper names.
• There are orthographic conventions to capitalise words and phrases which are not proper names.

• "Example Street" is a noun phrase where both words are capitalised. "Example" is the proper name acting attributively to the to the appelative, "street", which is discriptive in nature. It is; however, an orthographic convention to capitalise road, street and like in road names that is overwhelmingly and universally practiced. Whether "Example Street" is a proper name is therefore moot.
• In "Example Street subway", "Example Street" is an attributive to "subway" and "subway" is descriptive of what it is. While not used as a proper name, "Example Street" is capitalised because it is derived from a proper name (and preserves the orthographic convention to capitalise "street" in this particular case). Capitalising part of a noun phrase IAW established orthographic convention (particularly an attributive noun or phrase) does not confer capitalisation on the whole phase or imply that the appelative to which the attribution applies is a proper name.

• Understanding this is complicated by "street" being capitalised as a universally accepted orthographic convention which is an exception to the general rule. As an example, Brownian motion serves to illustrate the general rule. "Brownian" is an attributive noun which is not a proper noun but capitalised because it is derived from a proper name (Robert Brown). Capitalising "Brownian" does not confer capitalisation of "motion" nor make the noun phrase a proper name, even though it uniquely refers to the concept attributed to Brown.
• In the case of "subway", there is no overwhelming, universal orthographic practice to capitalise it in cases such as "Example Street subway" as there is with "street" in "Example Street".

Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 01:40, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support per NCCAPS, MOSCAPS. CThomas³ (talk) 07:18, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
• I understand the tone of this move request much better having read over Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Style-related RM discussions and preceding discussions. This is classic canvassing. Such behavior is inappropriate; the disrespect shown toward other editors on that page is palpable. Clear attempt to stack the discussion toward one side not just for this discussion but other discussions. These sorts of antics don't help manual of style adoption. Mackensen (talk) 13:33, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

  Not clear what "antics" you see. Are you saying that it's less appropriate to have neutral notifications at WT:MOS than at various Wikiproject talk pages? Dicklyon (talk) 15:54, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

  Our guidelines and their talk pages are far better watchlisted, by a more diverse group of editors, than any wikiproject page.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:06, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

  Prove it. Because I always only see the same small handful of editors always working in lock step at these discussions. And at the MOS talk pages. Like clockwork.

  I genuinely do not believe your claims of broader consensus are in any way true or valid. The discussions at MOS-related talk pages are always dominated by the same handful of editors. And that the lists that Mack mentions are blatant canvassing.

  I also say, plainly, that guidelines should follow and document article practice, not dictate it, as these move requests seem to be designed to do; the tail does not wag the dog. Finally, compliance with a guideline hammered out by a half-dozen editors on an obscure talk page does not inhertently make an article better; that mentality is actually detrimental to improving the encyclopedia as it alienates actual content-generating editors who'd like to edit but run into a wall of resistance in the form of overly specific guidelines treated as hard-and-fast rules. No wonder editor retention is so crappy. oknazevad (talk) 12:07, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

  PS, on the question of the move, I oppose, because I think the guideline is very poorly written, and that the idea that sources should be so overwhelming in their use to even permit caps is nonsense and the true case of gaming the system. oknazevad (talk) 12:07, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

  It's one thing to have neutral notifications. It's quite another to set up notifications for the explicit purpose of vote-stacking: to bring in editors who care about such things to balance the topic-area fans who often don't. Call it whatever you like, but that's not neutral. That's a deliberate attempt to create a voting bloc to sway move discussions. That's a far cry from the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Article alerts, which is bot-generated and includes things beyond move discussions. Mackensen (talk) 14:47, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. As I've stated above, I think it's unclear how to apply WP:NCCAPS to this type of article, which is why I prefer a subject-specific guideline, as was done for train stations (see for example . The canvassing surrounding this move discussion will make it difficult to determine consensus in this instance, and for any other instances going forward. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (US stations) for a good example. Mackensen (talk) 14:47, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support – Not consistently capitalised in RS, and so, per MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS, should not be capitalised. RGloucester — ☎ 15:03, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

• Please take a look at the sources Dicklyon listed - most mention the Tremont and/or Boylston tunnels incidentally or with a few sentences at most. Almost none are focused on rail transport or actually useful as sources for the articles. Meanwhile, of the four recent publications that cover these tunnels in extensive detail, three (Tremont Street Subway: A Century of Public Service, Streetcar Lines of the Hub - The 1940s, and Streetcar Lines of the Hub: Boston's MTA Through Riverside and Beyond) extensively use the capitalized case; the fourth (The Race Underground) does not use "Tremont Street [S|s]ubway" at all due to the style in which it is written. Almost every other reliable source with significant coverage in the past four decades - Trolleys under the Hub, Boston’s Main Line El: The Formative Years 1879-1908, dozens of Rollsign issues, Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district: 1964-2018, and this MIT thesis from 2017 - also uses the capitalized forms. That plainly shows that the reliable sources most relevant to these articles are consistent in using the capitalized forms. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 23:57, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Specialized-style fallacy. Wikipedia is written for a generalist audience, not for railway enthusiasts. Incidental usage is in fact the most significant form in cases like these...and certainly, your inclusion of examples in title case (headers, titles, and so on) isn't helpful. In any case, as MOS:CAPS says, we only capitalise things capitalised in a substantial majority of RS, and evidence has already been provided that that's not the case here. RGloucester — ☎ 00:20, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

No, I am saying that every single usage in these sources is in uppercase, not merely in the titles. This is not an obscure technical topic where the name in specialized sources is wildly different from more general sources - the only difference is that the technical sources are consistent. Nor is it a case where the specialized sources are overcapitalizing - most of these are prose works where capitalization is clearly only used for proper nouns. And you're completely missing my point - no evidence of reliable sources about these subjects consistently using lowercase has been provided. A handful of totally unrelated books - some of which have incorrect information about these tunnels - are not the reliable sources that are needed. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 00:47, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose, there are good points being made for both "sides", and realizing that the new canvassing list that's causing some controversy is in place and adding weight to the Support side, the upper-case editors have held their own, provided some good arguments, and have proven that this stable title is acceptable. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:07, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support, if only because the guideline dictates that consistency (which I suppose means a fairly obvious supermajority in authoritative sources, as well as uniform capitalized usage in those sources without unnecessary capitalization of other phrases which we wouldn't capitalize) is needed for capitalization to be kept. Jc86035 (talk) 11:21, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support per nom, and per Cinderella157. Binksternet (talk) 22:40, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. 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.

“Tram”

Why such prominent use of a furrinism? Qwirkle (talk) 04:25, 13 May 2020 (UTC)