Talk:Port Stephens, New South Wales

Requested move 07 June 2015

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. While the Australian body of water appears to be more notable than the place in the Falklands, and evidence of that primacy has been demonstrated, it has not been established that the body of water is the primary topic. For it to be the primary topic it should be demonstrated that the article on the body of water is far more often visited or search for than any other potential meaning of the primary term, including the council. DrKiernan (talk) 08:21, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

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Port Stephens, New South Wales → Port Stephens – recent undiscussed move of page to incorrect and unnecessary disambiguation by editor who has been making bulk, undiscussed moves – AussieLegend (✉) 09:40, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

• Just to clarify, I didn't open this discussion here. Port Stephens was moved to Port Stephens, New South Wales without discussion, a move that broke several links and turned valid links in 150 articles into links to what was then turned int a disambiguation page. I subsequently requested that the undiscussed move be reverted and somehow this discussion ended up here. I've only just discovered it. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:32, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

@AussieLegend and Eldizzino:This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:37, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

• Other items with that base name exist. Eldizzino (talk) 14:38, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
• One item has existed for 8 years and has been managed with a hatnote at Port Stephens. There has never been any confusion over the two and the move was a move for move for the sake of moving.. --AussieLegend (✉) 15:15, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
• There are more than two. Whether there has been no confusion is not provable. The assertion that the move was done for the sake of moving is not proven. The 8 years argument is lame, since it can have been bad for 8 years. In fact, if there had been a dab page during the last 8 years, one would have been able to see all items much earlier. Eldizzino (talk) 18:55, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

The other items have only been recently added. In the past eight years there has never been any discussion about moving either article or creating a disambiguation page so that, at the very least, indicates there has been no confusion. The assertion that the move was done for the sake of moving is supportable. The editor who moved the page has moved hundreds of pages without any prior discussion or justification other than unnecessary disambiguation. That is the very essence of a move for moves sake and these moves have been discussed by other editors at WP:AWNB due their concerns. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:32, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

• oppose this is a redirect. The target is a disambiguation page. Rolling over the disambiguation page with a redirect seems like a poor idea. If you wish to discuss the naming of the article, please make a request to move the article, and not the redirect. -- 70.51.202.183 (talk) 04:38, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

@70.51.202.183: This is only a redirect because I moved the article to Port Stephens (New South Wales), which is the conventional disambiguation for an Australian non-settlement article, before this discussion was opened. The article was already correctly named and was moved here without discussion. I shouldn't really have to discuss to move the article when there was no consensus to move it in the first place. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:32, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Then this should be speedily closed, since it isn't attached to the page you are actually wanting to move, so whatever that page is, this is unrelated. -- 70.51.202.183 (talk)

Unfortunately, somebody else chose to open this discussion in my name. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:39, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

• Comment which article do you wish to move, Port Stephens Council or Port Stephens (New South Wales) ? -- 70.51.202.183 (talk) 04:40, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

I wanted the article that was moved here without discussion, and which is now at Port Stephens (New South Wales) back to where it was before it was moved without prior discussion. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:32, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Why didn't you post the discussion on the talk page of the article you wanted to move then? You borked this discussion by attaching it to the redirect instead of the article. -- 70.51.202.183 (talk) 07:29, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

@70.51.202.183: As I have explained more than once, including when I added it to the nomination,[1] I did not open this discussion. It was opened in my name by another editor 5 hours after I had already moved the article from this page.[2] I didn't bork anything thankyou very much. --AussieLegend (✉) 10:39, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. The disambiguation is needed. Rreagan007 (talk) 01:32, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Why? It has not been needed for the past eight years. What has changed and why shouldn't the disambiguation be at Port Stephens (disambiguation)? --AussieLegend (✉) 10:32, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

*Oppose With the benefit of hindsight, this page should have been established as a disambiguation when the second article, (Port Stephens, Falkland Islands), was established in 2007. That it wasn't, should not be taken as a reason not to redress. On the world stage, both are relatively insignificant places and as neither is heads and shoulders over the other one, e.g. Sydney vs Sydney, Florida, then to have the Port Stephens article as a disambiguation page is appropriate. TT1245 (talk) 07:19, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

As I pointed out at WP:AWNB, based on page views, google searches etc, the NSW body of water would seem to be the primary topic. In the past 9030 days there were 238 views of Port Stephens, Falkland Islands,[3] while there were 1,350 views of Port Stephens (now Port Stephens (New South Wales)).[4] That means at least 1,112 people did not move on to the Falkland Islands article. In other words, they were looking for the NSW body of water. In addition to that, google searches for both places show far more hits for the NSW Port Stephens. That's just for a start. --AussieLegend (✉) 13:29, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

:*Comment Statistics tell part of the story, but as the saying goes there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Obviously it is an article that is dear to your heart which is fine, but from an outsider looking in, neither are from a global perspective, significantly more notable than the other. To be a primary topic, one article should be far and away the dominant article, or the name from which all other article subjects derive their name. Have gone back over a few months data in case recent events had created any anomalies, but 4:1 seems to be a consistent split, with 1,200-1,500 hits per month. TT1245 (talk) 23:24, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with being "an article that is dear to [my] heart". It's common sense based on years of editing Wikipedia and reference to our guidelines such as WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:COMMONNAME. When people are coming to Wikipedia they are clearly looking for the NSW body of water so those "outsiders" are seeing the NSW body of water as the primary topic. Those same outsiders are clearly looking for the NSW body of water when they search Google.[5] The NSW body of water also meets the first of two major aspects related to determination of what is the primary topic: A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term. That there is a consistent 4:1 split in the number of hits pretty much seals it. Note that I haven't even considered the page view stats of Port Stephens, New South Wales.[6] Even it has more page views than the Falkland Islands version. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:31, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. Port Stephens should be a disambiguation page considering the extent of the other content under that name, and this title should use brackets. The Drover's Wife (talk) 10:35, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
• I can't work out what "oppose" and "support" mean in this discussion, and don't feel like trying to trace the history of the articles to work out exactly what the original status was. As this is the only conversation about naming the related articles, the status quo result should be whatever state had existed for years before the last month or so flurry of moving articles about Australian places, all of which seem to be getting justified by reference to the existing compromise naming conventions which achieved consensus many years ago. In general, articles about settled places should be named <place>, <state/country> and articles about LGAs named for the LGA with "council"/"shire"/whatever as appropriate. The bare, unadorned "name" could be a redirect to the (assumed) primary topic or a disambig page which demonstrates no need to determine and resolve a primary topic. Therefore to me, the existence of this discussion demonstrates that Port Stephens should become a disambiguation page (if it wasn't already). --Scott Davis ^Talk 11:59, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

The history is that the article was originally at Port Stephens, but was moved to Port Stephens, New South Wales without discussion. I requested that this be reversed at WP:RM but it was opposed, so I moved the article to Port Stephens (New South Wales). After that had happened, another editor opened this discussion here. The discussion now really relates to moving Port Stephens (New South Wales) back to its original location, which is the status quo. "Oppose" would therefore oppose a return to the status quo, while "support" would support it. I haven't seen any evidence that the NSW body of water is not the primary topic; available evidence would suggest that it is, justifying a return to the status quo. An appropriate disambiguation page would be Port Stephens (disambiguation) regardless of the determination of a primary topic. --AussieLegend (✉) 12:31, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

I have a slight preference for Port Stephens being the disambig page (with a redirect from Port Stephens (disambiguation)), but no real issue with Port Stephens being the article about the body of water as it had been for years with no problems. If a bold pagemove generates significant dispute, it was probably wrong. --Scott Davis ^Talk 12:50, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. The article belongs at Port Stephens, New South Wales. Port Stephens is neither available or nearly as recognizable as Port Stephens, New South Wales. Virtually always, reference to this location is either in a very local context or in parallel with mention of "New South Wales" or "NSW". Use of parentheses is very odd looking and clearly against policy. Today's title, Port Stephens Council is plain wrong, with the article about a populated location, not about a government department/service. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:58, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Port Stephens was available and was the location of the article until it was moved a week ago. That it is not available now is only because an editor turned it into a disambiguation page after moving the article. The disambiguation page should have been created at Port Stephens (disambiguation). Clearly, our readers find Port Stephens recognisable as, according to the available evidence, at least 1,100 searched for that term in the last 9030 days when trying to find the article. Use of parentheses is not against policy at all. The naming convention only mentions settled areas, not bodies of water. It has long been the convention to locate articles about geographical features (lakes, rivers etc) at either non-disambiguated names or to disambiguate the name using parentheses. See Pacific Ocean, Tasman Sea, Port Jackson, Lake Macquarie (New South Wales) or Hunter River (New South Wales) as examples. You can also check entire categories such as Category:Lakes of New South Wales, Category:Oceans, Category:Ports and harbours of New South Wales, Category:Rivers of New South Wales, Category:Rivers of Queensland, Category:Rivers of Victoria (Australia) and so on. Since the "Name, State" format is used for settled areas, redirecting Port Stephens, New South Wales to Port Stephens Council is entirely appropriate, as the LGA article is the only article about a settled area. --AussieLegend (✉) 04:46, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Port Stephens is not a suitable location because there are multiple important "Port Stephen"s. It is also less desirable than Port Stephens, New South Wales because the latter is much more recognizable. "Search for" is a poor criterion for any decision, because few readers search for things on Wikipedia. Even less type urls. Readers arrive via links, including google search result links, which do not count to internal searches. A better question is "what is a meaningful title?".

We may be having some confusion between us. This is the article about the settlement? The article about the harbour is elsewhere. Geographical features get parenthetical disambiguation. Place names, as in settled places, get the comma format. The geography article "Port Stephens (New South Wales)" is titled according to simple convention, but it remains problematic as it is titled ambiguously with this article (readers should not be required to be conversant with out arbitrary conventions). What to do with the geography article's title I think needs a separate discussion.

Port Stephens Council is not a good title because this article is not about a council. LGAs are only of passing interest to people in the real world, Wikipedia should not structure articles on LGA boundaries, unless the articles explicitly cover local politics. Even putting that aside, the name of the LGA is not "Port Stephens Council". --SmokeyJoe (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 05:43, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

"Port Stephens is not a suitable location because there are multiple important "Port Stephen"s." - Available evidence (presented above and not refuted) supports the NSW body of water being the primary topic.

"because the latter is much more recognizable" - I've already refuted this in my previous reply. "Clearly, our readers find Port Stephens recognisable as, according to the available evidence, at least 1,100 searched for that term in the last 9030 days when trying to find the article."

"few readers search for things on Wikipedia" - Really? Do you have evidence to support that? If it were the case we wouldn't need disambiguation pages at all. In any case, the page view stats contradict that opinion. Of course, if we accept your claim that means that, during the last 90 days, 4,340 people found the NSW body of water at Port Stephens, while only 983 looked for it at Port Stephens, New South Wales, proving Port Stephens is more recognisable than Port Stephens, New South Wales by a ratio of 4.4:1.

"We may be having some confusion between us. This is the article about the settlement? The article about the harbour is elsewhere." - I have clarified that in multiple locations, including in my reply to your previous post.

"Port Stephens Council is not a good title because this article is not about a council." - You are correct but there is no other suitable article, as I explained in my first reply to you.

"LGAs are only of passing interest to people in the real world, Wikipedia should not structure articles on LGA boundaries, unless the articles explicitly cover local politics." - An LGA is a settled area containing a number of suburbs and tens of thousands of people. In NSW, LGA boundaries are the city boundaries. If, for example, Raymond Terrace was declared a city, the city would become the "City of Port Stephens" and the borders would be the borders of Port Stephens Council, not of Raymond Terrace. The city would contain all 43 suburbs in the Port Stephens Council LGA as well as Port Stephens (and I'd like to say what a pain in the arse it is having to type [[Port Stephens (New South Wales)|Port Stephens]] instead of just [[Port Stephens]]).

"Place names, as in settled places, get the comma format." - which is why this redirect goes to the settled area instead of the body of water.

"is titled according to simple convention, but it remains problematic as it is titled ambiguously" - I agree. Port Stephens, which is much more in line with our convention (which I demonstrated with multiple links) makes a lot more sense. People looking for Port Stephens look for the NSW body of water, not the electoral district, the LGA, or some remote place in the south Atlantic that most people now know only because of the Top Gear Patagonia Special.

"Even putting that aside, the name of the LGA is not 'Port Stephens Council'" - That's incorrect. --AussieLegend (✉) 06:49, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

• Disagreed that there is a primary topic.
• Do not accept your page view stats as evidence of what people search for. Page view stats reflect what page people arrived at.
• Few people search for things on Wikipedia, no evidence at hand but I've seen the subject addressed. Google will let you search Wikipedia, but that is a google search of Wikipedia, not a Wikipedia search. But the real basis is that few people type things any more, the vast bulk of traffic is link-following. Titles should not be used aas amateur search tools. Real search engines are much more sophisticated and don't need such clumsy help.
• Port Stephens, New South Wales is a suitable title.
• LGA boundaries are only city boundaries if you define cities by their LGA defined boundaries. That's too circular to be useful. The city of Sydney is most certainly not bounded by an LGA boundary. Local government is to a large extent a reality unto itself at odds with the real world, and Wikipedia is not a local government publication.
• Pain in the arse for editors to type is a very poor reason to compromise the product. If typing is an issue, there are a myriad of tools available to assist. One trick I use is to edit in microsoft word, using abbreviations for common things, and using autocorrect customisations to spell things out in full, correctly spelled every time.
• Clarify one more time. Where do you want Port Stephens to point to? I read that you want the settlement to be located at Port Stephens. Whatever, I don't agree that there is a PrimaryTopic, because outside NSW, there are many people who think they know another Port ::::*Stephens, and there is no good reason for them to have to be educated about this Port Stephens.
• Are you really asserting that the name of the LGA is "Port Stephens Council". The first reference, for example, calls it "Port Stephens". Every result for a google search of LGA16400 yields something containing "Port Stephens" and without "Council" appended. Where do you get this preference for "Port Stephens Council"? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:27, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

"Do not accept your page view stats as evidence of what people search for. Page view stats reflect what page people arrived at." - I've really already addressed this, with specific reference to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, which I quoted from: A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term. Page views are indeed one of the ways in which we determine what is the primarytopic. While it may be inconvenient to examine the page views, they clearly show that many more people arrive at the body of water than at the Falkland Islands article. That is very relevant, since they very clearly do not move on to any other "Port Stephens" article.

"Few people search for things on Wikipedia, no evidence at hand" - Without evidence, this is just your opinion.

"Google will let you search Wikipedia, but that is a google search of Wikipedia, not a Wikipedia search." - Regardless, if you do a Google search, which is another accepted method of helping determinethe primary topic (See Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Determining a primary topic) the results are overwhelmingly to the NSW body of water.

"Port Stephens, New South Wales is a suitable title." - Not for a body of water. As explained several times on this page, geographical features are disambiguated with parentheses. I've provided numerous links in support of that position.

"LGA boundaries are only city boundaries if you define cities by their LGA defined boundaries. That's too circular to be useful. " - In NSW, since 1993, only LGAs can be declared as "cities" by the Government, under the Local Government Act 1993.[7] That's a fact of law. However, it's not at all relevant to this discussion.

"The city of Sydney is most certainly not bounded by an LGA boundary" - Sydney, which is not relevant to this discussion, is a unique case in NSW. It contains multiple LGAs, some of which are cities in their own right.

"Where do you want Port Stephens to point to?" - I don't want it to point anywhere. The body of water article should be there, where it has been for 11 years.

"I read that you want the settlement to be located at Port Stephens" - I never said that and, as has been pointed out, there is no settlement called "Port Stephens".

"outside NSW, there are many people who think they know another Port Stephens," - We don't determine primary topic status based on that. We determine it based on verifiable evidence, like page view stats aided by Google searches per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.

"The first reference, for example, calls it "Port Stephens"." - The ABS has publicly stated (there's even a disclaimer on the website) that it doesn't cover the gazetted places. ABS data covers its Census Collection Districts, which mostly do not share borders with gazetted localities. Medowie covers only part of Medowie. Swan Bay includes parts of Swan Bay, Ferodale and other suburbs, Raymond Terrace completely ignores the northern section of Raymond Terrace. The ABS is not a guide to gazetted locations. LGAs sometimes share the names of their administrative bodies, and sometimes they don't. The administrative body of the City of Lake Macquarie is Lake Macquarie City Council. Port Stephens Council is both the name of the LGA and the administrative body.

We really need to get away from this reference to irrelevancies, ScottDavis has got it almost right below. --AussieLegend (✉) 15:50, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

• Support. Port Stephens was available and was the location of the article for 11 years. This article should be Port Stephens. The disambiguation page should have been created at Port Stephens (disambiguation). AussieLegend is quite right. This Port Stephens is the primary Port Stephens, and 3/4 links in the disambiguation page are from the same area. Luxure Σ 07:35, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

summary so far

I feel for whoever has to try to discern a meaningful outcome from this conversation. As I have been involved above, it can't be me even if I felt so inclined. As the discussions are becoming unwieldy, I shall try to condense it a little. I believe these facts are supported by the articles and references:

• There is an article about a Local Government Area at Port Stephens Council, which is the proper name for an entity that has defined responsibilities and geographic boundaries. That article is not directly related to this conversation.
• There is a body of water called Port Stephens in New South Wales.
• There is not a town called Port Stephens in New South Wales, however there is one in the Falkland Islands.
• There is a Wikipedia disambiguation page which lists all of the Wikipedia articles about any possible meanings of "Port Stephens" which was created on 7 June 2015.
• The article about the body of water was named "Port Stephens" when it was created in June 2004, and remained at that name for a few days short of eleven years.

Swinging into slightly less obvious statements,

• The accepted naming convention for wikipedia articles about natural geographic features in Australia is to append the state name in parentheses if it is required for disambiguation.
• The accepted naming convention for articles about towns, suburbs and other named settlements in Australia is to use a comma and the state name (if more than the plain name is to be used).
  • By induction, since there is no settlement in Australia named Port Stephens, there would not be an article at Port Stephens, New South Wales and whether that article name should redirect to an article about the LGA or the harbour, the disambig page or simply not exist is somewhat incidental.
• There should always be an article, redirect, or disambiguation page at the shorter, concise name
• This conversation is really about whether the article name Port Stephens should lead
  1. directly to an article about a body of water (as it did for eleven years)
  2. indirectly to that article via a redirect page
  3. to the new disambiguation page

--Scott Davis ^Talk 13:14, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

• "There is an article about a Local Government Area at Port Stephens Council, ... That article is not directly related to this conversation." What?!!! That has been very far from clear? Are we discussing the rename of a redirect?
• "since there is no settlement in Australia named Port Stephens". No, there is a settlement called Port Stephens. It may be a sprawling coastline of settlement, not very town-like, but it is a populated location, and so Port Stephens, New South Wales is appropriate. And this sprawled coastline of people is not a council. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:06, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

• If you read what I wrote in my responses prior to your first post here you will see that the initial move request had nothing do do with the LGA. It was always aimed at moving the body of water article back to Port Stephens where it had been for 11 years. Any confusion was the result of another editor opening this move request here 5 hours after the page became a redirect, instead of just letting the matter die at WP:RM. As for the populated area, its name is indeed Port Stephens Council. That is the name of the area and the body that administers it but that issue is irrelevant to this discussion. --AussieLegend (✉) 14:23, 15 June 2015 (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.