Talk:History of Halifax, Nova Scotia

Sackville?

Why is the community of Sackville not mentioned in regards to the history and status of the HRM? Last time I checked, it's a part of the HRM, and has been since the HRM was formed in 1996. It looks like it may have been incorrectly lumped in with Bedford. Sackville and Bedford are two distinct communities, and are commonly regarded as separate.

Someone should update this page to reflect the inclusion of Sackville, in the proper format, and with the proper history. 142.177.154.74 (talk) 03:53, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Needs More Non-Military Content

Lots of good content here but a little too war-dominated. Even though Halifax has been an important military base, there are lots of important non-military periods and themes that should be noted.Dan Conlin (talk) 19:36, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to adopt a merger plan outlined at the bottom of the discussion. In merging the two pages, I was surprised to see how much text was simply duplicated – it could not stay like that indefinitely without the two versions slowly drifting apart in terms of quality. Resulting article requires heavy copyediting. Citobun (talk) 14:00, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

---

This may be controversial, but hear me out. I propose that Halifax (former city) be merged into History of Halifax, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Geography of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Communities in the Halifax Regional Municipality for the following reasons:

• Subject overlap – Wikipedia policy suggests merging pages to avoid significant subject overlap: "'Flammable' and 'non-flammable' can both be explained in an article on flammability." The "Halifax (former city)" article comprises three sections: History, Geography, and Neighbourhoods. These subjects are duplicated in History of Halifax, Geography of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Communities in the Halifax Regional Municipality respectively. Much of the content is identical.
• Ease of maintenance – Why maintain two separate accounts of the same historical events? Merging these articles can help improve article quality by better focusing editor efforts. In fact, some content is duplicated three times, between Halifax (former city), Halifax, Nova Scotia, and specialised subject articles such as History of Halifax. In some circumstances if an editor makes a change he/she must do it three times to ensure the articles are all up to date.
• Halifax-related content is scattered among numerous articles – But none of them are particularly high quality and could benefit by merging and concentrating content together. Articles such as Halifax, Nova Scotia and its sub-pages have a lot of room to accommodate expansion. Because the Halifax content was diffused among different pages for so long, and hence more difficult to manage, Halifax coverage on Wikipedia is noticeably lower quality than that of comparable Canadian cities. The Halifax, Nova Scotia article is smaller in size and arguably poorer quality than Moncton, Hamilton, Saskatoon, Regina, St. John's, etc.

I expect the counter-argument to be that with the 1996 municipal amalgamation, the communities that comprised the former city of Halifax did not cease to exist. But those communities will still have a presence on Wikipedia in the form of articles such as North End, Halifax, Halifax Peninsula, Fairview, etc. The specific communities that comprised the former city can easily be listed in the History of Halifax and/or Communities in the Halifax Regional Municipality articles. Upon merging, I propose that the Halifax (former city) link then redirect to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Citobun (talk) 04:33, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't have a problem merging some of them. But I don't believe you can merge Halifax (former city) with Halifax, Nova Scotia. Because the Halifax (former city) article is the article for the old community. While the smaller neighborhoods have articles, what was the city would not and it really should. Just like Dartmouth would still have its own article. The other ones should definitely be merged. I would take most of the History from the history article and put it in the former city article. And in the Halifax, Nova Scotia article I would use summary style for the time period before the 1996 amalgamation and leave the Halifax, Nova Scotia article to cover the time period since then. I would merge the other two articles into the Halifax, Nova Scotia article. -DJSasso (talk) 14:06, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

• NO! - Absolutely not. Halifax (the city) and HRM (or whatever brand-style you're riding with) is not/was not the same thing, and vise versa. Halifax (the city), pathetically downgraded to community status in a very sloppy and confusing merger, is by land-mass only a tiny slice of the much larger municipality in-which it is now nested. Not only is it independently rich in history, it remains today as a very specific and significant geographical map-point (i.e. a former major city) with an economy and population greater than any other said-community in the Maritimes, Atlantic Canada, or virtually anywhere east of Quebec. We absolutely need the article for situations when we are specifically referring to and linking to the populous, modern urban centre of Halifax... in a manner that cannot possibly be confused with some frivolous little jerked-off rural location hundreds of kilometres astray, yet still within its extremely ambiguous name-boundary. There is absolutely no good reason to squash this article, or to continue squashing other articles in its theme. It's bad enough, and confusing enough that both a city and a county had shared a common word (Halifax) in their name, but it's even worse that a newly created municipality had to come along and hijack that county along with its confusing name-structure, and carry that awkward insanity into another millennium. We are talking about three entirely different things here... don't be so jolted by a single ambiguous word in their names. And with that said, I should probably mention that I was personally born in the city of Halifax at least thirty years prior to the existence of HRM or roll-out of any such amalgamation, and take great offence to anyone who insist that I was born in HRM... a blanket statement which can very easily be construed as meaning something completely untrue, or perhaps even belittling. Let's be precise and correctly start linking the birthplace of Haligonians born prior to the 1996 amalgamation to this article, and stop foolishly throwing darts at huge, billboard-sized maps while wearing blindfolds. 142.68.144.146 (talk) 10:10, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I guess this merger proposal was ill-timed, given Gloria McCluskey's ongoing crusade against a 20 year old amalgamation. I don't want to get into a discussion about the merits (vs. "awkward insanity") of HRM but I want to point out that this isn't an issue in the countless other cities that have a similar setup. If Halifax (former city) remains, I think it should simply detail former municipal boundaries and annexation history – political history. The bulk of the general history should be merged to History of Halifax to reduce subject overlap and make maintenance easier.

When people click on a link that says "Halifax, Nova Scotia", they expect to see the "populous, modern urban centre of Halifax" – not a "former city". For people outside Halifax, the "populous, modern urban centre" means the urban agglomeration on the east coast of Nova Scotia – not half of this urban area based on decades-old, now-irrelevant municipal boundaries. Nobody will confuse this with a "little jerked-off rural location" and the nuances of the municipal structure are clearly elucidated in the Halifax, Nova Scotia article anyway. Changing the birthplace of Haligonians contradicts the principle of least astonishment. William Lyon Mackenzie is listed as having died in Toronto, not Old Toronto. Should every Torontonian born before 1998 be linked to Old Toronto instead? What about residents of all the consolidated city-county systems in the U.S.? Just keep it simple, most people outside Halifax do not care about the inane nuances of municipal administration. They want to click on a "Halifax" link and learn about a city which did not cease to exist in 1996. The city didn't disappear and start over. The history is the same, hence this maintenance nightmare of overlapping subjects. Halifax, Nova Scotia is the common name of Nova Scotia's largest urban centre (which happens to include some rural areas) and should therefore be the commonly linked-to page for this subject. Citobun (talk) 03:53, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

• NO! - Absolutely not. Halifax (the city) and HRM The article for Halifax, Nova scotia is very misleading given that the article should be "Halifax Regional Municipality " Halifax the old city and Halifax the Regional Municipality are two different things in the real world . Halifax the Regional Municipality is larger than Prince Edward Island . To merge will cause the reader to be confused in the whether Halifax is that community or Halifax the larger municipality . In 1996 the community name did not change it was the way the municipal government was changed .The area HRM occupies common name is Halifax Region or Halifax Regional Municipality . The H/\LIF/\X is a logo of the Halifax Regional Municipality not the name of the municipality 24.222.199.234 (talk) 03:39, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Judging by the writing style, I suspect this IP may be a sockpuppet of Matthvm, whose many accounts were banned in the past here (August 2006), here (January 2007), here (July 2009), and here (May 2015). Citobun (talk) 10:11, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

NO. While largely out of the debate on these issues, I have to say I think this would be a mistake. There were four municipal units that were amalgamated, Halifax City did not annex the other three. HRM is a new government of which the former city is a part only. WayeMason (talk) 14:08, 9 August 2015 (UTC) Let me add after thinking about it that I perhaps all the HRM wide articles could be merged into the main Halifax, NS page and all the city of Halifax articles could be merged. Maybe have a History of Halifax (City) page and put all the historic ones in there? WayeMason (talk) 22:09, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Do you think the "Halifax (former city)" article should also be merged into the hypothetical "History of Halifax (City)" page? Citobun (talk) 07:40, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes that might do it. Keep history of Halifax (city) and put the old "Halifax (former city)" in there. Geography of Halifax and Communities in the Halifax Regional Municipality could go into the Halifax, NS article, which has become a horrible dogs breakfast of badly edited and unreferenced stuff. Needs a really aggressive edit to bring it in line with Wikipedia policy. WayeMason (talk) 22:45, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I like this plan. It eliminates most overlap (or at least, the main overlap problem between Halifax (former city) and History of Halifax) without the former city of Halifax "disappearing" within HRM coverage. So to recap, here is the new proposal:

Subject	Article	Content
The history of the former city of Halifax	History of Halifax (former city)	New article formed from merger between Halifax (former city) and History of Halifax
The history of Dartmouth	History of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia	Article already exists
The history of Bedford	n/a	Accommodated within Bedford, Nova Scotia
The history of Halifax County	n/a	Accommodated within Halifax County, Nova Scotia
The history of HRM	n/a	Owing to relatively short history of HRM, can be accommodated within Halifax, Nova Scotia

Geography of Halifax, Nova Scotia and Communities in the Halifax Regional Municipality probably merged into Halifax, Nova Scotia. Then Halifax, Nova Scotia needs copyediting and more references. Any more comments? Citobun (talk) 09:17, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

That would be my preference. -DJSasso (talk) 14:26, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I think this works, including Citobun's notes. I also would suggest the template Template:Annexations_of_the_Halifax_Regional_Municipality be deleted or substantially re-written, as it is hugely misleading. So is Template:Mayors_of_Halifax,_Nova_Scotia. Either all annexations and all mayors go on the templates, or alternately, History of Halifax/Dartmouth/Bedford/County could be created. Template:Halifax,_Nova_Scotia could be expanded. I know this is all beyond the scope of this merger proposal discussion but these problems all have the same root cause and effects. WayeMason (talk) 23:32, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Sorry it's taken me so long to complete and close this merge. Still on the to-do list. Citobun (talk) 10:05, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 18 October 2022

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. (closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 17:40, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

---

Community of Halifax, Nova Scotia → History of Halifax, Nova Scotia – Per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRECISION. To my knowledge, there is no formally defined entity named the "Community of Halifax, Nova Scotia", and almost the entire page concerns the history of the former city and the present Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM). It makes little sense to name this page after an undefined "community" when it is in fact a history article about two clearly identifiable municipalities. I know there is a political and semantic dispute over historical outlying communities within the HRM getting short shrift (both on Wikipedia and in real life), but Wikipedia is meant to make sense to the general (uninformed) public, not just to make the locals happy. Carguychris (talk) 16:54, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

• Move to History of Halifax, Nova Scotia. An existing primary redirect, and better than the current title or proposed title. 162 etc. (talk) 20:08, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  I would support that as well. Carguychris (talk) 20:26, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  Modified the original request accordingly. That title is better. Carguychris (talk) 22:04, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you, everyone! The reason I moved the page and changed the title is because although Bedford, Cole Harbour, Dartmouth, et cetera have their own community pages; the community of Halifax does not. When the places (cities, suburbs, towns, and villages) of the County were dissolved, those respective places kept their own geographical boundaries, and were all reintroduced as communities within the Halifax Regional Municipality. The former City of Halifax was no different. It is a community of the Municipality; and I thought it was appropriate for the community to have its own page. Also, there is a page that contains the history of the Halifax Regional Municipality--therefore it would be redundant to have another page for the former City of Halifax, when the City of Halifax does not exist anymore (since 1996). There just was an obvious lack of community-specific information for the community of Halifax itself--just random community and neighbourhood information with false, inappropriate, opinionated, and outdated information for many of the Halifax community wikipedia pages in general. If a majority of the wikipedia community feels as if the change are inappropriate, there will be no hard feelings--I won't block it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Shandstorm (talk • contribs) 22:37, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  That's all well and good, but this page is almost entirely about the history of the former city and the HRM as a whole, and thus it should be named accordingly. I don't quite understand why you think a "community" page separate from the main article about Halifax, Nova Scotia, is warranted, but if you're convinced one should exist, I suggest that it should be a separate spinoff article rather than a misnamed history page. Carguychris (talk) 23:01, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with the proposed name change to "History of Halifax, Nova Scotia". That's what this article is currently about. I started reading it a few days ago and thought that it didn't really have any content about Halifax Community. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 02:17, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

  After more thought, I agree that the information should be removed--and the page should be about the History of Halifax Regional Municipality. However, it is my extremely-strong recommendation that this page should be named History of the Halifax Regional Municipality.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Shandstorm (talk • contribs) 14:25, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Despite my original proposal, I now oppose using "Regional Municipality" due to WP:COMMONNAME, for the same reason I would oppose History of the United Mexican States or History of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan—only residents and unusually well-educated foreigners know that these are the formal names of the present-day countries of Mexico and Jordan. I suspect that even most Canadians from outside the Maritimes don't realize that the HRM is a thing. Also, please sign your comments. Cheers. Carguychris (talk) 15:12, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

• Agree with move to History of Halifax, Nova Scotia per 162 and Mr. SB. Hwy43 (talk) 01:38, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
• Support per proposal Red Slash 18:13, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.