Talk:Little Falls and Dakota Depot

article name/move

An editor made a contested move of this article from "Little Falls and Dakota Depot" to "Starbuck depot". It was contested by my statements and request to the editor not to make moves like this, at their Talk page, because of other moves they had made, but then they went ahead and made this moves and others. I repeat here: please use the wp:RM to make moves which are likely to be disputed/controversial.

Anyhow, about the name for this station, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as "Little Falls and Dakota Depot", so that is a reasonable candidate for a name for the place. There is no sourcing in the article supporting "Starbuck depot" as being an official or even unofficial common name for the place. This source in the article does use "HISTORIC N.P DEPOT" and "DOWNTOWN STARBUCK" and "STARBUCK DEPOT", in describing the place being renovated by the Starbuck Depot Society", which might be used to argue for "Starbuck Depot" as the name for the place, but that is not the same as "Starbuck depot". The latter comes across as informal/casual and made up, and is inconsistent with Wikipedia's general treatment of places by formal proper noun names. --Doncram (talk) 19:24, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• For those curious, the discussion may be found here: User talk:Mackensen#Stop with moves of railway stations. Three other editors concurred (in general) with the moves and disputed Doncram's assertions. Mackensen (talk) 19:53, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 3 August 2018

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: not moved as there is no consensus on whether or where to move this page. Bradv 04:30, 28 August 2018 (UTC) (closed by non-admin page mover) Bradv 04:30, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

---

Little Falls and Dakota Depot → Starbuck station – Per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (US stations), which is the standard guideline for article titles concerning railroad stations in the United States. This guideline enjoys wide consensus and has underwritten hundreds if not thousands of page moves on this project for the last several years. "Little Falls and Dakota Depot" is one of several names used on the registration form for the National Register of Historic Places (the other, "Northern Pacific Depot", is even more ambiguous). It is not a WP:COMMONAME for the station, but rather a descriptive named used in one official document. While the NRHP process is important, the names it produces are not always suitable for article titles. This is one such case. "Little Falls and Dakota" refers to the company which originally built the station. The station is located in Starbuck, which is how contemporary timetables, including those of the Northern Pacific Railway, referred to it. The current title is confusing, especially considering that another Northern Pacific depot, "Little Falls", was some 68 miles away on the same branch line. Mackensen (talk) 19:38, 3 August 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk | contribs} 20:40, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

• Do not move:

The name for a place should be supported by documents. I don't see any documents supporting "Starbuck depot" as the name for the place. I particularly dislike how that term comes across as informal and made up, i.e. as if it is projected to be the local name for the place, as believed by an editor from far away, who happens to prefer informal names. You mention contemporary timetables: could you please provide those?

The place was in fact formally listed as "Little Falls and Dakota Depot", and the article was created at this name by User:McGhiever in 2015 and this name has served fine.

About guidelines, I am not familiar with the evolution of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (US stations) as a guideline, but guidelines can conflict, and sources are what matter more, and I don't see that this guideline dictates absolutely what must be done here. You cannot go around just making up names. --Doncram (talk) 19:53, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

No one's proposing a move to "Starbuck depot" so I'm not sure why you're bringing that up. I'm sorry if you don't like the name "Starbuck station" but WP:IDONTLIKEIT isn't a good reason to oppose a move. Literally every timetable the Northern Pacific (and, for that matter, the Little Falls and Dakota) listed this station as "Starbuck", and with reason. The most important thing about a railroad station is where that station might be found. See, for example, this 1953 timetable. You'll want to look at the Morris branch, Table 19. While USSTATIONS does not command an outcome (no guideline can), it suggests one. The name is hardly "made up." You're right that guidelines can conflict. Which guidelines are in conflict here? Mackensen (talk) 20:00, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I would also note that the name "Little Falls and Dakota Depot", which is only a proper name in the context of the NRHP, is ambiguous with every depot ever built and/or operated by the Little Falls and Dakota Railroad, in addition to the depot at Little Falls, Minnesota, itself. It's a terrible name for an article, particularly for one which (a) is about a station in Starbuck, Minnesota and not Little Falls, Minnesota and (b) was owned by used by a railroad not named the Little Falls and Dakota Railroad for most of its existence. Mackensen (talk) 20:04, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Umm, this article seems to be the place in Wikipedia providing basic history about the Little Falls and Dakota Railroad, which ran from Little Falls, Minnesota to the Dakota border. This surviving station exemplifies the railroad, which was built as an apparently independent line, but with secret support of one of the major railway companies. As explained in the article, this was the critical station, which won the economic battle vs. a rival. Its historical name is descriptive and good. The previously-existing station at Little Falls was a major point on a bigger railway line, the Northern Pacific, and is not notable as exemplifying the Little Falls and Dakota railway line. The station at Little Falls, instead, is known for its design by architect Cass Gilbert, and is quite properly titled Northern Pacific Railway Depot (Little Falls, Minnesota) in Wikipedia. Its Wikipedia article and its history, i.e. the NRHP documentation about it does not even mention the Little Falls and Dakota Railroad. In the absence of a separate Wikipedia article about the railway (note Little Falls and Dakota Railroad is a redlink from the article) this is our coverage of that railway, and it is certainly good and proper for the name of the railway to appear in the article's title, even besides the fact that it is the documented historical name for the place. --Doncram (talk) 16:18, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

"Little Falls and Dakota Railroad" is the name which the NRHP used to document the station. As I've demonstrated and no one has refuted, it has no provenance otherwise. That Little Falls and Dakota Railroad is a redlink does not mean that this article should serve as a substitute, nor should it govern the title of the article. Mackensen (talk) 16:44, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

The basic principle which applies is the use of Reliable Sources, which is more fundamental than guidelines and any Wikiproject's practices.

The 1953 timetable you linked does not present the term "Starbuck station". It does not purport to give the name of any station on any of its lines, in fact, it just lists city names. If it covered a route to New York City, it would mention "New York", not Grand Central Terminal or Pennsylvania Station. It is your presumption that the common name for any railway depot is to take the city name and append "station", I guess. Instead, we should consider actual official names and common names that are used in sources, as is done in most title discussions/move requests.

I'm sorry, I did misunderstand your proposed move was to "Starbuck station" rather than to "Starbuck depot", because I mistakenly assumed you were sort of trying to make an effort to use sources available in the article. To quote myself from above section, "This source in the article does use "HISTORIC N.P DEPOT" and "DOWNTOWN STARBUCK" and "STARBUCK DEPOT", in describing the place being renovated by the Starbuck Depot Society", which might be used to argue for "Starbuck Depot" as the name for the place" (although that is not the same as "Starbuck depot"). Instead, you want to use something different, not supported in sources? --Doncram (talk) 20:56, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

It does in fact call out Chicago as "Union Station"; proper names for railroad stations are uncommon but that's a classic example. Moving on, reliable sources are one of several criteria for determining an article title. Let's go over them:

Recognizability: "Starbuck station" as in, that railroad station which is in Starbuck, is far more recognizable than "Little Falls and Dakota Depot".

Naturalness: if a reader is looking for an article about a railroad station which was in Starbuck, they will probably start with Starbuck, not the name of a company which disappeared after 1900.

Precision: As discussed above, "Starbuck station" precisely identifies its subject. So does "Little Falls and Dakota Depot", but see also the looming disambiguation problem.

Conciseness: Two words is shorter than five.

Consistency: This is where the USSTATIONS guideline really comes into play, by setting out a consistent, predictable naming scheme. Adopting whatever name is used by the NRHP documents doesn't accomplish this goal, because there is no consistency between them, as anyone who works in this field knows.

Now, getting back to the sourcing question. Obviously many modern sources will adopt the NRHP name, for want of an alternative. But what about contemporary sources? Here's a newspaper clipping from 1892 referring to "Starbuck, a station on the Little Falls & Dakota division." This would be after the Northern Pacific leased the Little Falls & Dakota but before the formal merger. Browsing through Newspapers.com there are countless others like that. Depot and station are interchangeable in American English, the use of one of the other does not in general signify a proper name, nor does the NRHP habit of employing title case for what are clearly descriptive names. Mackensen (talk) 21:15, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. A newspaper may have referred to it as "Starbuck, a station on the Little Falls & Dakota division" in 1892 but that doesn't mean "Starbuck station" is what we must call it now, or even that it was the most common name then. Historic properties often have multiple names, but the name on the federal register is usually the best documented. If there is a more common name, such as Starbuck Depot, current sources will be better than old ones. Jonathunder (talk) 21:35, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• @Jonathunder: I find this assertion contradictory: "the name on the federal register is usually the best documented." If we're to prefer current sources over old ones, then what was the name in the federal register based on? Nomination forms don't discuss the name of a particular property in any great detail; the describe its character and history. They do not provide evidence that the name they give is a proper name, nor do they claim to. The title describes the property being preserved. We're not obliged to accept these names uncritically, and we wind up with perverse outcomes if we do. Mackensen (talk) 22:02, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
• The problem you run into here is that railroad stations, particularly those which closed before the current area, basically don't have names unless they were important. On timetables they're named after the city they're in. Where a company had multiple stations in a city they're named after the street, or maybe the neighborhood. Contemporary accounts will refer to these places as "stations" or "depots." If a city was served by multiple railroads people would refer to "the Northern Pacific depot" or "the Burlington depot." NRHP forms reflect this usage, but we need to recognize that it's descriptive and not transform it into a proper name (it might be a proper name for internal NRHP purposes, but that shouldn't govern us here as we're a broader project). USSTATIONS recognizes this, and prescribes a common format for naming articles that otherwise don't have a proper name. The problem with adopting NRHP names into this scheme is that you wind up with a system where almost no closed station is at a natural name. These articles, with their current names, are very difficult to find unless you already know what you're looking for. Mackensen (talk) 22:08, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

On not having names unless they were important, that's likely true. The ones that were preserved and placed on the NRHP are important now so usually will have names. Those may be idiosyncratic, which is why mass moves are often bad. In any case, just a little searching shows that this place is now called the Starbuck Depot locally, and is part of the Starbuck Depot and School Museum. 22:30, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

We're conflating two very important issues: the name of the station prior to its closure (station qua station), and the name of whatever business occupies the place now. That the building is now occupied by the Starbuck Depot Museum might point to that being a correct name for the article, if the article is primarily about the museum. If it's primarily about the station, then that name may not be appropriate. It does sound as though we're agreement that the original name, "Little Falls and Dakota Falls Depot", is unsupported and inappropriate. If names are idiosyncratic the fault lies not in the stations but in the NRHP listings, and that points toward adopting a systematic approach, not embracing the idiosyncrasies. Mackensen (talk) 22:39, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support move to "Starbuck station" (or another title beginning with "Starbuck", if others prefer) per Mackensen's arguments. Jc86035 (talk) 05:24, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

  Comment @Mackensen: I think if there is less real-world use of "Starbuck station" then the article should be "Starbuck depot" instead. Jc86035 (talk) 03:14, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

  @Jc86035: Depot and station are synonymous; historical societies like to use "depot" for whatever reason but unless there's a demonstrable proper name (as opposed to random capitalization; see WP:NCCAPS) it makes sense to use station consistently. Mackensen (talk) 03:19, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

  I think using "depot" would be less ambiguous, as "station" (especially on its own) seems much more commonly used to indicate a passenger station. Jc86035 (talk) 03:54, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support. NRHP titles, especially of train stations, are a mishmash, and rarely influence how the properties are referred to in common practice. I started this article under the NRHP naming for expediency; I support standardizing depot names on Wikipedia. Personally I would prefer Starbuck Depot because that is how most people would refer to such a building in the Upper Midwest (i.e. COMMONNAME). -McGhiever (talk) 16:44, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support NRHP names are anything but official and useful - they tend to be local names created for the nomination form. Because they're usually made up by someone focusing on a small geographic area, they don't reflect the kind of naming system that Wikipedia uses. USSTATION is an established guideline that clearly provides the proper article name for this station. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 18:14, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support As other editors have stated, these NRHP names often do not give the best representation for the article. The wide mix (you can see for yourself by clicking on any state on Category:Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places by state) of article titles should and can be improved with standard USSTTATION naming. —GFOLEY FOUR!— 21:18, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
• Comment: There seems to be kneejerk opposition to using the NRHP name, which for unexplained reasons is presumed to be random and wrong. Perhaps the commenters along those lines have had bad experiences in the past, but we are not here to evaluate the suitability of all other NRHP names for all other NRHP-listed places, and I would be among the first to say that official NRHP names are not always better than other entities' official names and are not always better than common names which might be established from local usage.

All this seemingly without anyone reading the NRHP nomination document, which in this case is a well-written, reliable source with lots of info and usage of historical documents discussing the various names used for the place. I do acknowledge that "Starbuck Depot" is one name discussed (17 hits on term) in the NRHP document, but "Starbuck station" gets 0 hits. Per the National Register's guidelines for nomination of historic sites, the listing name is intended to be the most representative and history-evoking name for a place. It is generally not taken to be some new current name of a commercial establishment in the place, when the place is notable for its long history under a historical name. Here, the history did include "Starbuck Depot" being a name, and it seems that in the many years since NRHP listing that this term has been revived and has legs.

Meanwhile there is no support -- not one source given in this discussion! -- given for "Starbuck station" ever being the name for this depot. It seems to be a fabrication, a violation of Wikipedia's guideline that we should avoid coining new terms, i.e. neologisms. We can't just make up stuff!

There is suggestion that the NRHP name for this place could be ambiguous.... which would be relevant if there were any other notable/historic place notable as "Little Falls and Dakota Depot", which could be handled by adding "(Starbuck, Minnesota)".

By the way "Starbuck station" seems ambiguous to me. What about gas stations and bus stations and radio stations in Starbuck, Minnesota, or Starbuck, Manitoba, or Starbuck, Washington or other places or roles associated with any other Starbuck? It doesn't sound like a train depot building to me. Googling, I find my way to Starbucks located in current or former gas stations, e.g. this one in Kansas and this one in Amman, Jordan.

I prefer the historical name (and !voted "Do not move" above), but using the also-historical and "Starbuck Depot" name which gets a lot of recent/current usage would also be okay, because it would be based in sources.

An absolute clincher for a decision here should be the fact that the Wikipedia article does not and cannot say the name of the place is what is proposed. This edit which inserted "Starbuck station" in bold into the lede was reverted by me, BECAUSE THERE IS NO SUPPORT FOR IT. One cannot cite the wp:USSTATION guideline in mainspace! And then another editor revised the lede sentence to current "The Little Falls and Dakota Depot, also called the Starbuck Depot, is a former railway station in Starbuck, Minnesota, United States." The proposed move simply cannot be accepted. If it is accepted, it cannot be implemented, except by putting the article at a name in contradiction to what the article says and will continue to say.

This is so basic that I don't know what most basic principle of Wikipedia to point to here, perhaps it is wp:RS or maybe it is the first of the "Five Pillars", i.e. that Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia, i.e. it covers knowledge not made up stuff. --Doncram (talk) 15:57, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

It's simply incorrect to assert that "Starbuck station" has no foundation. First of all, it's based on a guideline for naming articles. Second, as I demonstrated above, contemporary sources called the station "Starbuck", not a made-up descriptive NRHP name like "Little Falls and Dakota Depot". Of course they didn't call it "Starbuck station". They did, however, refer to "Starbuck", "the station at Starbuck", or the "Starbuck depot", with capitalization varying according to source and time period. We're not dealing with a proper name here, and locating an article at a descriptive name doesn't create a neologism. Mackensen (talk) 16:44, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Couple points:

• wp:USSTATION does not say what you think it does. I'm sorry I didn't go read it carefully before, and I still don't completely grok what is its purpose. Because it pretty much says to use the COMMON name, and gives proper noun names as examples. Common names are names established/used in sources, not invented by Wikipedia editors. The NRHP name is covered in NRHP nomination document as being historical, and the NRHP listing itself accomplishes some naming effect, like when a child is born and given a name. The building is notable now as the place of that NRHP name. Which would have been repeated in state historic society announcements and newspaper articles at the 2006 time of the listing (I am not finding online access to any announcements that way, but these always happen, so I expect that this is a matter of Google news etc. not making it easy to find local newspaper archives in Minnesota from then). In general, an NRHP name makes a wave, has a "coining" effect, as do other official namings or renamings of sports arenas or post offices or highway bridges, etc. What is not allowed is for Wikipedia to make up a name. wp:USSTATION doesn't accomplish anything, as far as I can tell, except perhaps to advise what to do when there is no common name at all for a place, i.e. what to do when a place is so non-notable that it doesn't deserve an article. This and other NRHP-listed places are listed because they are notable as special artifacts, historically preserved, evoking past history/events. And there is an official-type NRHP name chosen, which is not made up from whole cloth but is based on the review by historians/architects/professionals involved. Which is therefore one name to consider.
• About "we're not dealing with a proper name here", I just disagree. The Wikipedia article title is ratifying or creating the proper noun name for the place, in general usage, which is picked up in other websites like Pinterest and Landmarkfinder and so on. You seem to object to using any existing name for the place because that would be too formal, maybe, and yet you want to coin a new name which in fact becomes formal--it is the official Wikipedia name--just on your own.
• wp:USSTATION plus what we know about common usage, i.e. from sources cited in the article, supports either "Little Falls and Dakota Depot" or "Starbuck Depot" because those are names that are used. It does not support something that does not appear anywhere.

--Doncram (talk) 22:10, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

I think your assertion that

The building is notable now as the place of that NRHP name

gets things a little backwards. We're writing about a station which, among other things, is registered on the National Register of Historic Places. We're not documenting a name that appears in the NRHP. The name is a means to an end. The building, in its guise as a station, would be notable anyway, and as a station it was not known by the name the NRHP and only the NRHP calls it. Mackensen (talk) 03:22, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I meant it that way, and indeed it is a bit backwards, but I am trying to tell you that is what happens a bit in practice. I know from a long experience with many tens of thousands of NRHP articles. Of course, yes, on the most basic level, I agree and abide by the idea that a place is notable for its architecture or the persons associated with it or the events that happened there, which is merely documented by the NRHP documentation, which is secondary, and which should not be overstated, particularly when there is plenty of other sourcing about the architecture, the people, the events, whatever. However, for lesser known places, the NRHP listing/recognition does seem to be very important in establishing to the locals and anyone else that indeed a place is notable. It often is part of bringing a forgotten place back to life. And the NRHP listing is promoted in state and regional and local marketing, and in newspaper announcements and so on, and all NRHP names are echoed in several online websites including ArchiPlanet and the private website www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com and in state websites and elsewhere, and the NRHP listings are mentioned in the Wikipedia articles about the county and the town and in other website articles about the areas, so that generates some traffic / awareness of there being a NRHP place of the NRHP listing name, and So it is circular, the listing seems to generate a need for Wikipedia to explain what is the place of that NRHP listing name.

You repeat yourself that only a monolithic "NRHP" uses "Little Falls and Dakota Depot" as the name, which I believe is false because:

1) for other NRHP places there are always local newspaper announcements and other coverage about the place (which I haven't found, right, but I know exists)

2) Here is the Minnesota Historical Society calling it by that name (while note that state sites sometimes do choose to use different names than the NRHP name for a place)

3) Carmen Tschofen, writing in 2005, who I believe is a historian or historic preservation consultant or architectural historian or similar professional, wrote a study of this place, and did research using, among other cited resources:

• the Starbuck Times of May 20, 1954.
• Rollins, Douglas. "A Rose Cut Before Blooming: The Little Falls and Dakota Railroad Company", Unpublished manuscript, May, 1987
• Brown, Calvin L., :Historical Contributions. Concerning the Settlement and Development of West Central Minnesota, Stevens County and the City of Morris." Reprinted from the Morris Tribune., Morris, Minnesota, 1922-23.
• "History of Starbuck- Origin of the Town by Mrs. Constance Erickson." Starbuck Times, June 20,1935.
• Hedges, James B. "The Colonization Work of the Northern Pacific Railroad," in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 13:3 (December, 1926).

and 2.5 pages of other actual tangible sources, in their 37 page study of the place, in which they were also professionally charged with determining the name(s) of the place. You haven't read this source, I believe, much less consulted a single one of its cited sources.

and, yet, again, you provide zero usages of "Starbuck station" as the formal name for the place. What are your qualifications? That you personally have a good sense of what is the most natural name, in your view. Okay, thanks. I will respond less. --Doncram (talk) 04:15, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

So how about a move to Starbuck Depot? Could everyone live with that? Sources support it as a WP:COMMONNAME and it's within the conventions of WP:USSTATION. -McGhiever (talk) 04:32, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

It's an improvement on "Little Falls and Dakota Depot". I have real concerns about capitalizing depot, as I've explained above. When I see a usage like "The Starbuck Depot" I don't read that as a proper name; under WP:NCCAPS we'd decapitalize "depot" and wind up with "Starbuck depot", which as I've noted before is interchangeable with "station." I've been reading a lot of early to mid-twentieth century sources, primarily newspapers, and those words were used interchanegably, even when discussing passenger or freight operations. It would take some time but I'm happy to dig out examples. Makes querying for sources in Newspapers.com a chore. Pinging Jc86035 (talk · contribs), you'd raised that issue. Mackensen (talk) 10:54, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

I would be fine with "Starbuck depot", or "Starbuck Depot" if it is used in sources (although per MOS we would need to account for the over-capitalization of mid-sentence words in sources). Jc86035 (talk) 14:03, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

I'd support "Starbuck Depot" capitalized because it is in current sources given in the article. [1][2] Jonathunder (talk) 17:31, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

It should only be capitalized if it's a proper name. Starbuck Depot Museum is a proper name, but this article isn't about the museum, but rather the building which houses it (actually, it's about the railroad which originally built it, but never mind). The generous use of capitalization on [3] makes it an open question whether Starbuck Depot is a proper name. I wouldn't consider that a particularly good source for the name. Mackensen (talk) 18:31, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Well this source from the Starbuck Chamber of Commerce is unambiguous. And the museum's own website shared above ([4]) has "Starbuck Depot" across the banner on every page of the site. -McGhiever (talk) 16:25, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

@Doncram: The only document by Tschofen of which I'm aware is the NRHP nomination form. If that's the study you mean, I've read it. I've discussed it above. It provides zero evidence for anyone using the name "Little Falls and Dakota Depot" prior the site being listed on the register. As I said above, the purpose of this document was not to establish the name. Nowhere in this document is that name, or any name, discussed. Its purpose was to establish the historical importance of the building for the purpose of the NRHP and to give its history. It accomplished those goals. It is not a source for the name. Mackensen (talk) 10:54, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. It may have been a station, but it is not now. There may be logic in splitting the article into the former station (1882 to 1982), and the later depot (1986-current). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:05, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

It was a station for the majority of its existence, and its entire notability is as a station. And it's literally the same building, just restored - absolutely not logical to split it. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 06:29, 22 August 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 or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.