Talk:North Station (disambiguation)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:North Station which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 22:13, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge with South Station (disambiguation)

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 no consensus, so the page stays as it is Bandy boy (talk) 14:10, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

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All entries on these lists fail WP:PTM. Nominator has been unable to verify that any of them, save for the two in Boston, are actually referred to as "North Station" or "South Station". These pages don't stand as disambiguation pages, but merging them into a new article, such as List of train stations with cardinal direction identifiers, is preferable to deleting the pages altogether. Ibadibam (talk) 23:56, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - PTM says "Add a link only if the article's subject (or the relevant subtopic thereof) could plausibly be referred to by essentially the same name as the disambiguated term in a sufficiently generic context—regardless of the article's title." I think it is quite plausible that any the stations listed here could be the intended target of a "North Station" search. Indeed the only readers likely to see this page are those who went to our North Station article and did not find what they are looking for. Merging with South Station (disambiguation) helps no one. And there is no danger of either page growing out of control, as they are restricted to rail road stations. We just had a time consuming, inconclusive move discussion at Talk:North Station, please lets not do this again on an issue so trivial.--agr (talk) 01:46, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I need your help, then. I've been trying to find evidence for each of these stations that they're referred to as "north station" or "south station" in a generic context. There aren't any misdirected links either to North Station or to South Station, and I'm having trouble finding sources. From your !vote, it seems like you may have information that would help justify the need for this page. Please share it. Since the words "north", "south", and "station" are generic components of the page title, PTM suggests they're a poor basis for disambiguation, unless we can back up the usage. Hence the proposal to listify. Ibadibam (talk) 20:43, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
    • The criterion in PTM is "could plausibly be referred to." That is a very weak standard. I think the recent, impassioned move discussion at Talk:North Station amply shows plausibility. There is no need to repeat it all again here.--agr (talk) 11:49, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
      • "Could plausibly be referred to in a generic context" (emphasis mine). Which is why "Baltimore Zoo" doesn't appear on Zoo (disambiguation), even though it could plausibly be referred to as "the zoo", and why Beijing South Railway Station shouldn't appear under South Station (disambiguation), even though it could plausibly be referred to as "the south station". A set index list is by far the better choice for this case. Ibadibam (talk) 16:17, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
        • Your example makes my point. No one is likely to go to Zoo (disambiguation) to find "Baltimore Zoo", while it is quite plausible that someone might enter "South Station" looking for Beijing South Railway Station.--agr (talk) 18:40, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
          • I don't see the difference that makes the one more plausible than the other. Both "the zoo" and "south station" are references to a place from a local context, not a generic one. Queries from a generic context would be expected to be minimally specific, e.g. "Beijing South", "Beijing South Station", or "Beijingnan". Per PTM, disambiguation is necessary for such an article only when those outside the local area would identify it as the south station. As there is still no evidence that this is the case for these list members, this appears to be a set, not an ambiguous title. Ibadibam (talk) 20:18, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
            • There are over 100 times as many zoos in the world.--agr (talk) 21:04, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
              • That's it? Ibadibam (talk) 21:11, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
                • It means no one could reasonably expect the search term "the zoo" to bring up their local zoo. --agr (talk) 10:19, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
                  • Nor could they reasonably expect "south station" to bring up a local train station, simply because it has "south" in its name. It's just as generic, per the guideline. This is precisely the kind of case WP:NOTDAB is meant to cover. Ibadibam (talk) 18:01, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. I can assure you that the Stockholm North Station is just called North Station (Norra station) locally and on the Dutch Wikipedia, the word "Noordstation" is redirected to Station Brussel-Noord, not to Boston North Station. Boot Blues (talk) 20:21, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
  • That makes sense for those wikis, because in the communities that speak those languages those terms may be primarily associated with those stations in a generic context. But that doesn't hold for English. That the words "Norra station" and "Noordstation" have the same meaning as "North Station" doesn't mean they need to be disambiguated together, since those stations are not actually referred to by the English words "North Station" in a generic context (unless you have evidence to the contrary). Ibadibam (talk) 20:44, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
    • North Station is not a proper noun in the sense I think you are refering to. It is more of a description. When talking about Paris Gare du Nord in English, you call it Paris North Station, and when you talk about Boston North Station in Swedish, you call it Boston Norra. Boot Blues (talk) 22:17, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
      • Gare du Nord's English name is "Gare du Nord" or "Paris Nord", at least according to Wikipedia. As for North Station, there's no Swedish article, but four of the five interlanguage links are called "North Station" or "Boston North Station" ("North Station, Bostana" for Marathi). Only Spanish translates it. Both "Gare du Nord" and "North Station" look like they're being treated as proper nouns, at least on Wikipedia. Ibadibam (talk) 00:08, 25 October 2013 (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.