Talk:McKenzie Lake (Madawaska River)

Why move to McKenzie, Lake Ontario - nomenclature

@Maury Markowitz:, (non-judgmentally ) is there a reason why the article was moved from the previous McKenzie Lake (Moore Creek) to the current McKenzie Lake, Ontario? Yes, I'm a little slow to pick up on this, since you made the move last July. Per the Canadian Manual of Style, settlement article names take the form Settlement name, Bigger divison, and names for geographic features like lakes and rivers take the form Lake name (Bigger geographic unit). When I created the article, I decided to use the lake outflow (a common approach when disambiguating lakes) "Moore Creek" for "Bigger geographic unit" instead of say "Nipissing District", as the lake is also in Hastings County. Regards, --papageno (talk) 02:15, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

@Qui1che: The issue is about the "Bigger divison". Moore Creek is not the "parent" of the lake, either physically or logically. Physically, the creek is only about 1m wide, and I didn't even know it had a name until I saw this article. Logically, McKenzie isn't "part of" moore creek any more than Lake Ontario is "part of" the Niagara River. At that level you have "Great Lakes" but there's simply nothing similar for McKenzie.

One might be inclined to put it into the more generic layers like South Algonquin, but then you have to ask what are people actually using this for? The name is added to make it unique and easily distinguishable. So imagine someone in Austrailia types in "mckenzie" and gets a list of results. One of those is "McKenzie Lake, Moore Creek". Well where the hell is Moore Creek? But "McKenzie Lake, Ontario" is a lot more obvious, they've hear of Ontario even down under. It's the principle of least surprise. Maury Markowitz (talk) 18:07, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

@Maury Markowitz: Thanks for your reply, and sorry for the delay in mine. Actually, I think this discussion does have two parts, but I think we can come to an agreement rapidly on one of the parts. Lakes, like other physical geographic features, always take the nomenclature Name (Something), not Name, Something, which is used for settlements like cities and towns. That is, the "Something" goes between parentheses, not after a comma. You can reference the Geography section in the Canadian Manual of Style and the Naming section at Wikiproject Lakes. You can also check out the way the various articles are named at McKenzie Lake (disambiguation): the neighbourhood in Calgary has the comma format, whereas all the lakes (bar this article) have the parentheses format when needed. [And as an aside I should admit that I have added articles on the other four lakes in Ontario with the name "McKenzie Lake".] Thus, this article should be named McKenzie Lake (Something). Might we agree on this point, before turning to figuring out what "Something" should be? Regards, --papageno (talk) 04:08, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

@Qui1che: Fair enough, I don't even pretend to understand the abuse of logic in the MOS. Would you like me to move it? Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:00, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

@Maury Markowitz: Great. And no, as I wrote and I'm sure you read, the next question is that "Something" should be. Ontario is out, as there are five lakes of the same name in Ontario, none prominent. The lake is in both Nipissing District and Hastings County, so Northern Ontario or Southern Ontario don't fit. It's in two counties/districts, so perhaps "Nipissing-Hastings" could work, but a little unwieldy. Watershed might work, maybe "Madawaska River Ontario", since there is more than one Madawaska River in Canada. Even without "Ontario" that could work. That's my first choice: "McKenzie Lake (Madawaska River)". What say you? --papageno (talk) 03:57, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

@Qui1che: Works for me! Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:17, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

@Maury Markowitz: OK, great. And caution: you accidentally moved the Talk page, rather than the article (which moves the associated Talk page too). I have now moved the article as well. This matter is now closed.  Done --papageno (talk) 20:14, 14 April 2020 (UTC)