Talk:Central Station

Untitled discussion by 94.173.122.171

Should the stations actually called "Central" be put at the top of the list, since most visitors to this page will be looking for those? 94.173.122.171 (talk) 15:12, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Requested move 22 December 2017

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. wbm1058 (talk) 12:43, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

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Central Station (disambiguation) → Central Station – Most links to Central Station are not about the broad concept of central stations but refer to a specific topic listed on this dab and should be disambiguated. Certes (talk) 16:08, 22 December 2017 (UTC) --Relisting. bd2412 T 18:14, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Supporting evidence: I just checked incoming links to Central Station, which currently redirects to Central station, and changed them as follows:

• 17 to Central Station (film) (includes 15 links in one article)
• 15 to specific railway stations, including 6 to Central Station (MTR) in Hong Kong
• 11 to Central Station Records, a dance music label
• 5 unlinked
• 2 intentionally linked to the disambiguation page
• 1 to Central station, the broad concept (bypassing the redirect in case this RM succeeds)

That suggests to me that editors don't expect Central Station to be about the broad concept of stations that are central, and I doubt readers would either. If they do, it's the first link on the dab.

Changing the target of Central Station to be Central Station (disambiguation) would have a similar effect, but is not recommended as it would produce a malplaced disambiguation page. Certes (talk) 16:08, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

• Question. Are we leaving the "Central station" article where it is? If so, I don't think I have a problem with this. Bermicourt (talk) 17:25, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

This move would not affect "Central station", though I would welcome a separate discussion later as to that article's topic and scope. Certes (talk) 17:41, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

• Support and clean up the links. Comment. Sorry, but I now think this needs to take account of the "Central station" article which has morphed from an article on the concept of "central stations" to a list of stations incorporating the name "Central Station". That's because editors couldn't agree on what the term meant, how e.g. Hauptbahnhof should be translated and so on. So IMHO it's de facto become more of an article on "Central Station", the proper name, rather than "central station", the term. So some may argue that "Central station" should become "Central Station" rather than this dab page. But I'm not confident of getting agreement on the way ahead there in view of previous acrimonious debates. Thanks for cleaning up the links. That, at least, is progress. --Bermicourt (talk) 09:43, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

No links have appeared since yesterday's clean-up. This proposal would enable DPL bot to flag future links for attention. Certes (talk) 12:03, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

I've made a start on bringing the focus of "Central station" onto the concept of "central stations" as described in the literature. I hope to continue expanding this and, at some stage, to address what is effectively a list of stations called "Central Station" (or the equivalent) around the world. In particular we should separate or annotate those which are called "Foo Central Station" for reasons other than being a central station as generally defined. As a spin off, we then won't need to move the article title and this proposal can go ahead without impacting it. But all in good time! Bermicourt (talk) 14:45, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

On the assumption that "Central station" continues to be focussed on the concept of central railway stations (albeit with a list of relevant stations with "Central Station" in the name), I would support this proposal. --Bermicourt (talk) 16:42, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I've worked through the links to Central station and its redirects. I changed about 15 but that leaves over 100 good incoming links, so it's certainly an article with an audience. We may want to discuss certain redirects once we know the outcome of this RM. For example, Hauptbahnhof could be a separate article, and all links to Central railway station were meant for Sydney or Brisbane. Certes (talk) 17:31, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

• Support. Firstly, by facilitating correct linking it will improve the reader experience; Incorrect links will be nipped in the bud, and editor time will not be wasted. And procedurally, this reverses an undiscussed move 10:57, 8 September 2008‎ Arsenikk (talk | contribs | block)‎ . . (46 bytes) (+46)‎ . . (moved Central Station to Central Station (disambiguation): now a dab page for Central station) which now proves to be controversial (at least). Andrewa (talk) 19:55, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

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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 or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Where should links live?

Central station#Examples of central stations contains a list of central or main train stations. This page contains a similar section (which contains a number of partial title matches that should be addressed—see also MOS:DABNOENTRY). Do we need to have lists in both places? Could it live at just one page, either the DAB or the article? Could it be split-merged into a third set index article? Ibadibam (talk) 01:56, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Good question. Central station covers a number of topics, one of which is duplicated by this dab. The partial title matches may be justified: I recently fixed several links which led to this page and to Central railway station but were intended for specific stations. A set index wouldn't catch those errors. I don't think it's quite the same as the standard PTM example of Louisville Zoo. The term "Central station" seems to be used over quite a wide area, just as someone in Edinburgh would understand the destination of a train to King's Cross to be London. Certes (talk) 11:29, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

The links belong in both places. Lots of information belongs in several places in an encyclopedia! There are several ways of handling this:

• Sometimes, we just need to duplicate the information, and maintain it in both places. This is more likely to be appropriate when the information changes rarely and there isn't much of it, on the KISS principle.
• Sometimes the information is transcluded from another page. This is more likely to be appropriate when there's a lot of information and when there are many similar cases. It's generally more work in the short term. Infoboxes are an example.
• Sometimes the information is in one page and is wikilinked from another, often to a redirect and/or a page section. This is more likely to be appropriate when the wikilink can be phrased and positioned so its purpose is obvious to all. It's a compromise between duplication and transclusion.
• Sometimes the information can be kept in Wikidata. This is relatively new and complex and seems to me to have some teething problems, so it's a bit hard to say when it's appropriate, but hopefully it will become more common.

And there are probably others I've forgotten or have just never encountered!

In this case a wikilink to a see also section seems most promising to me, but there's no right answer. As long as all readers get convenient access to the information they want it's a good solution, and a perfect solution would see all readers (and editors) perfectly happy and that ain't gonna happen. It depends largely on who is prepared to do the work (both initially and ongoing) and what their personal preferences are, so if there's an active WikiProject it's generally appropriate for them to decide, and as editors come and go or even shift their focus the best solution can change. Andrewa (talk) 14:24, 12 January 2018 (UTC)