Talk:St. Paul's Church

To add or not to add

In my editing haste I added all the churches from the St. Paul's Episcopal Church (disambiguation) page. At the time this seemed like a good idea, as these churches would most likely be called just "St. Paul's Church". While that might be alright for the Episcopal churches, if we follow the same procedure and add in all the Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran etc, this page would be unintelligible. I've gone back and undid these additions. In my opinion, strictly adhering to adding only items that contain "St. Paul's Church" as their title is the only way for this page to stay manageable. I'm leaving this comment for others to reflect on in the future, so the same mistake isn't made again. -France3470 (talk) 17:35, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

disambig St. Paul's Church

Moved from User:GeorgeLouis Talk Page
(begin part that was copied from User talk:GeorgeLouis)
Thanks for inquiring to my Talk page. I appreciate the chance to talk with you before your doing more edits like that. After reviewing the edit, I just reverted your big edit to the St. Paul's Church dab page. Your edit, among other things, deleted redlink entries that were entirely valid by MOSDAB rules (see MOS:DABRL subsection in particular). I am responsible for most/all of the NRHP entries in the dab page. Some of them fully conform to MOSDAB rules. Others are imprefect because their supporting bluelinks point to a statewide NRHP list-article, when instead they should point to a more specific county- or city- NRHP list-article which was broken out from the statewide list. I would appreciate your help in refining the supporting bluelinks, so that they point properly to the list-article showing the same redlink. Simply deleting them is unhelpful. Could you please read up on redlink policy, and supporting bluelinks, and then we can chat further?

Also, about the mention of NRHP listing for items that have articles, I think still mentionin gthe NRHP listing is useful for showing they are historic churches and suggesting why they are notable. It's not a big deal, just something helpful for readers, no strong reason to keep the NRHP mention in those items. The NRHP mention is needed for the redlink items, though, as part of the supporting bluelinks.

About the St. Paul's churches in India and in other countries, I recognize that the entries do not comply fully with MOSDAB guidelines. But I imagine those are real churches and notable ones, and I think it would be better to just leave them in place, or to do the work to make them valid. E.g. by looking for a list-article of churches in India and adding them to that. I look forward to chatting further with you. --doncram (talk) 16:59, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I looked at that section and could not understand how all those red links could be considered valid. But I will admit that particular section is hard to understand. Also, mentioning the historical nature of these churches in a DAB page seems to fly against the principle of paring the entries to a bare minimum. What am I missing here? GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:29, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi GeorgeLouis. fwiw, I think you did an excellent job at St. Paul's Church. I would have done it virtually exactly the same way. If you have questions, you might want to ask at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) or Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation, as other editors often have opinions different from those above. Keep up the good work. Station1 (talk) 19:39, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Station1. GeorgeLouis (talk) 20:59, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, Station1 has been the one editor who has, in my view, been acting against the purposes of WikiProject Disambiguation and WikiProject NRHP (which seek to develop disambiguation to serve readers and to develop articles about NRHP places, respectively). Station1, not a member of either wikiproject, has been editing in a difficult way, simply deleting entries rather than fixing them, and this has caused contention. Some of the contention now, playing out recently at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#random attacks on nrhp disambiguation. It's your choice, but I hope your own interest is in helping to serve readers, and not in joining into contention that does not.

What is more productive, in my view, is improving some of the nonU.S. and U.S. entries in the St. Paul's Church dab page, as i have done in several edits.

As i already meant to suggest, you are not wrong to to feel that paring back entries is generally approved of; it is my opinion, and not policy, that keeping the NRHP mentions is helpful. The outright deletion of entries that could be fixed seems clearly unhelpful to me though, and is not supported by policy. Regards. --doncram (talk) 08:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I was the one who originally tagged the page for cleanup in the first place. And came here at GeorgeLouis' suggestion to provide my two cents. I have no intention of picking sides. When I tagged the article my concerns were not the NRHP redlink items. I personally feel that these should remain on the page. They are notable and will with time generate their own page. Boleyn's July edits addressed what I considered the most concerning issues, outside links etc. There are however a number of other outstanding issues I can see with the page in its current edition. 1) The US links need sorting, by state. Redlinks should appear at the bottom of the section, and not remain mixed in, this is a matter of hierarchy that is the crucial to making Dabs clear and easy to read. 2) The India links concern me. They are all redlinked, and in there current state are unpurposeful. In my opinion, they're just creating clutter. Dabs are for navigating the 'pedia, not providing an exhaustive list of everything with that title. Google does that already. talk, I see you argue for there inclusion, which I'll add does go against the preferred guidelines of WP:MOSDAB. However if you feel strongly that they belong there perhaps you should invest some time in creating the pages youself or at least adding a mention of the church on the city page. Turning redlinks into bluelinks shouldn't be a challenge if indeed the items are notable. I'll see what I can do about these issues. Have a nice day. -France3470 (talk) 15:03, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

(end part that was copied from User talk:GeorgeLouis)

Well, it looks like I jumped into the middle of something. DonCram, can you provide a blue link to the Wikiproject NHRP? Also, just what is an "SIA"? Yours in Wikidom, GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:43, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

The NRHP wikiproject is at Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places (shortcut wp:NRHP) and its talk page shortcut is wt:NRHP. I didn't see SIA mentioned here. But a "Set Index Article" or "SIA" is wikipedia jargon for a type of list-article that is very similar to a disambiguation page, but which allows extra information to be added and should conform to general list article standards (such as including sources, which are not allowed on dab pages). See wp:SIA for some more info. There's confusion among almost all editors about what SIAs are or should be, reflected recently on the talk page there. Hope this helps. --doncram (talk) 19:09, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I went through France3470's edits and thot, one by one, that they each made sense. However, I further noticed that the sum of the edits removed two redlink NRHP ones, one in Pennsylvania and one in Virginia, which I think must have been by accident. I restored those and will fix their formatting. But also I noticed the effect of France3470's edits in the U.S. section was to remove many places listed on the NRHP as "St. Paul's Church". What seemed to have happened is that France3470 updated the entries in the dab page to show the current article names (which is proper by dab page rules) where they now include a word like Lutheran or Episcopal. Many of the NRHP-listed ones however also are known as "St. Paul's Church", in fact they were listed on the NRHP that way, which is why they are here on the dab page. France3470 also added other Episcopal church ones. But later when France3470 removed all the Episcopal and Lutheran ones, the NRHP ones which have two names all got lost. I will spend some time restoring them individually. I believe that France3470 was editing in good faith, but the effect was partly to lose the appropriate inclusion on this list of places having name "St. Paul's Church". --doncram (talk) 19:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't every St. Paul's Episcopal/Lutheran/Catholic/Reformed Church also likely be called St. Paul's Church for short somewhere? Station1 (talk) 21:14, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps. I wouldn't mind having all of them listed here, if that is what you are suggesting, though France3470 went the other way in deciding what to do. But, at least the Lutheran and Episcopal ones that are specifically known to also be known as St. Paul's Church should certainly be listed here. --doncram (talk) 01:39, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

All the edits, since my chaotic ones (apologies, I didn't intend in the slightest to create so much disorder),seem fine. All the re-additions seems appropriate as well. You, Doncram, were correct in assuming I'd deleted them by mistake. The added descriptions are particularly helpful for the two lost NRHP as they explain why these instances appear on the page and not the 50 odd others that could be. I am no expert on HRHP listing and more then happy to let you other knowledgeable individuals banter and make decisions about this until hearts content. I do however intend to have a look at the other items. My brief glance at the England items, revealed a few things that can be changed. For instance the currently redlinked St. Paul's Church, Herne Hill, London can be linked to Herne Hill as the church is mentioned at the page. I want to have a look again at some of the India links and establish if there are indeed notable, and if so create articles or mentions in other articles. Feel free to continue to make edits of your own. -France3470 (talk) 21:20, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Good, glad to have that sorted out. I finished going through, and found there were just four places where the NRHP name is St. Paul's Church and the article name is now different. And i fixed the 2 redlink NRHP ones. So i am all done with the NRHP ones i think. Also good to make an effort on the English and India ones; i'll keep at it a bit as well. --doncram (talk) 01:39, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Grouping of red links

It has been stated on this page that red links should be grouped instead of being mixed in with blue links. Is there a source or an authority for this? Questioningly, GeorgeLouis (talk) 20:35, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

It's another issue area, a sore point. For dab pages about places, it seems appropriate to order the items by geography, i.e. by country then by state then by city or town. There are many geographically-organized dab pages and there has been consensus in multiple discussions at WikiProject Disambiguation that geo ordering is okay. I believe that geo organization is allowed, or not explicitly disallowed, in wp:MOSDAB. I worked for a while to get it explicitly mentioned in MOSDAB but there are some editors who have opposed that, and I believe the explicit modification in MOSDAB got reversed. What is your view? Do you think readers might know where a place is, and find it convenient to look it up in one understandable, geo-ordered list? That is what I think. I do not think readers are likely to know whether a place has an article or not, so as to know where to look it up. And I think a complex dab page, with 2 kinds of orderings, is harder to understand (as well as harder to maintain). --doncram (talk) 20:43, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes. See MOS:DAB#Order of entries. Within each section, articles come first (item 3), then links to longer articles in which the topic is just mentioned (item 4b). Of course, there can always be the odd exception where it makes sense. Station1 (talk) 20:58, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

In terms of ordering. I always follow go by MOS:DAB#Order of entries and sort within the 'types' by name, ie alphabetically, with redlinks always at the bottom. In this page instance I was ordering by the place name, as opposed to church name as in theory the church name should always be St. Paul's Church. Having the redlinks in the middle of the text, purely from a visual point of view breaks up the writing in a way that makes it harder to read as a list. Not such a good thing for a page which is supposed to navigate. But as a graphic designer, I could of course be biased towards ordering by 'colour'. That being said there aren't any real instances of this anymore in the US part of the dab as they are all sorted by section, and each section appears to be only blue link or only redlinks. -France3470 (talk) 21:10, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, I propose getting rid of the red links entirely. We can move them to the talk page, and they can be moved back by any interested editor once he or she finds or writes a WP article to link them to. Yours faithfully, GeorgeLouis (talk) 00:33, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

That's not okay for the redlinks that have a supporting bluelink and meet terms of MOS:DABRL. For the other redlinks, I think they should all be checked for whether a supporting bluelink could be added, by following the suggested procedure in MOS:DABRL to click on the redlink and then click on "what links here". If an appropriate article is found, then compose the proper supporting bluelink, like i just did for the church in Bern, Switzerland. I have not found appropriate articles corresponding to the India ones that i have checked though. At this point i think your moving the section of all the redlinks in India to the Talk page, would be okay/good (assuming that each of the redlinks has been checked and no appropriate supporting bluelink found). That is better than simply deleting it, because i do rather expect they are all valid article topics. It would probably be a help for future editors to have them listed on the talk page. --doncram (talk) 01:26, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and moved all the red linked India items here to the talk page. I am though (slowly) creating pages for them, as they are indeed notable. The information is difficult to find, albeit very interesting, which is perhaps why there are no articles in the first place. -France3470 (talk)

Two DAB tags

Is there any way of hiding one of the two DAB tags at the bottom of the page? GeorgeLouis (talk) 00:30, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid not, as "church-disambig" is being used instead on the normal "disambig" tag.-France3470 (talk) 01:24, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

The {{disambig-cleanup}} tag may be removed, once someone deems this article to have been cleaned up. That will remove one of the two DAB tags. --doncram (talk) 01:29, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

India red links

As discussed above under 'Grouping of red links', the India red links have been moved here until pages for them are created or blue links can be found for them.

• St. Paul’s Church, Diu, found article under different title, now added
• St. Paul's Cathedral Church, Calcutta, found article under St. Paul's Cathedral, Kolkata, doesn't appear to go by church and hence doesn't belong on this dab

• St. Paul's Church, Ambala, notable, quite a few sources including a number of mentions in published books [1] [2]
• St. Paul's Church, Agra, non-notable, cannot find reliable sources with any details of the building, merely name drops of it
• St. Paul's Church, Amritsar, non-notable, cannot find any sources mentioning any details
• St. Paul's Church, 24 Parganas, non-notable, couldn't find any information, despite trying multiple potential names
• St. Paul's Church, Vagaikulam, found virtually no information on it under the name of St. Pauls. A number of references suggest that this may be the former name (in a long line of others) of the Church of Our Lady of Snows in Tuticorin [3]. Not convinced this would warrant it inclusion on this page.

-France3470 (talk) 05:47, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Added notes to the above -France3470 (talk) 22:04, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Hiding links instead of moving them

I joined the DAB cleanup team to, well, clean up DAB pages. I don't intend to get into any edit wars. I've checked some of the links and find that they do not go to any reference to the church on the target page, so instead of deleting them, I have simply hidden them from view, which, I hope, will simplify there being reanimated when a decent target page is identified. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 04:17, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for opening a discussion section. I reverted your edits hiding entries by commenting them out. The topic has been discussed before at WikiProject Disambiguation's talk page, amidst some of the discussions on NRHP items. Commenting out entries prevents other editors from seeing the links, and undermines efforts to correct ambiguous links elsewhere. Note, there may be ambiguous links currently, or in the future created, that link to "St. Paul's Church". The tools available to fix ambiguous dabs on a page rely upon there being dab pages with live links. If an article about a city in Pakistan gets an ambiguous link to St. Paul's Church, we want for the dab fixing tools to be able to find the entry showing a more specific name for the Pakistan church. Then, the entry here can be improved by a supporting bluelink to the Pakistan city article. Deleting the entries by commenting them out undermines the building and fixing process.

Also, here, there are a couple editors actively working to create the articles. Commenting out items prevents other editors from being able to check "what links here" and otherwise work with the live link. So, I hope you don't mind my reversing your edits.

On a small point, your edit changed the display for one supporting bluelink from "a church in Bern" to "Bern". Since the link is to a list of churches in Bern, I think on principle of avoiding reader surprise, that the short phrase "a church in Bern" is better. --doncram (talk) 14:17, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, clicking on "what links here" for this dab page shows many pages linking here, including List of churches in Pakistan. I am not sure if the St. Paul's Church it mentions in Rawalpindi area of Pakistan is the same as the St. Paul's Church, Karachi, listed on this dab page, but either way this a perfect example. What would fix the situation is to revise the Pakistan list page to revise the Rawalpindi entry or to add a separate Karachi entry, and then add a supporting bluelink to the Pakistan entry on this dab page. (Actually Karachi is in Sindh province while Rawalpindi is in Punjab province, so adding a Karachi entry to the Pakistan churches list-article is what is needed, in addition to revising the Rawalpindi one).

It may be a good general rule, that a good dab cleanup should involve, first, examining the incoming links and adding/refining entries on the dab page page. This may yield many proper supporting bluelinks and help in article development elsewhere. --doncram (talk) 15:08, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, it is pretty clear that somebody has taken WP:ownership of this page and is not the least bit interested in getting rid of the useless red links, so I am bowing out because I refuse to be upset any further by invisible people on the other end of the Internet, which, as you might recall, is a "series of tubes." Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:26, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately this is a pattern. Please don't be discouraged. I've reinstated your edits, except I've left in Tarsus because the church is briefly mentioned and pictured at Tarsus, Mersin, and -- a very minor point, more of a preference -- I've left the formatting for the Bern church pipe as it was because the bluelink does not point directly to the Bern article but rather to a list of churches in Bern. Station1 (talk) 23:12, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Hey, GeorgeLouis if that is directed at me I am sorry you feel that way. This dab page has been developing pretty well, with actual development of related articles elsewhere, and I thought it was being a productive discussion.

There is a general issue here though, about what should be the etiquette for "cleaning up" dab pages, compatibly with other editors' efforts. I may open discussion at a more central location. --doncram (talk) 00:47, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Pakistan Churches

It light of all the disagreement that seems to be arising from this page, I've gone ahead and tried to make a stab at the Pakistan churches section. (I hope we can all put aside our different opinions, and keep at it to finish the cleanup on the page. It think it would be to everyones benefit.) I've basically gone and done what doncram suggested earlier. I've fixed the link on the "List of churches in Pakistan" (which it itself requires serious cleanup, the page is a mess and chaotically organized), linking the item to its proper redlink name "St. Paul's Church, Rawalpindi" and have added it in to this page. It should make notability requirements, there are a few sources avaliable and I have a feeling there are many more out there in other languages. I may or may not start an article for it. In terms of the Saint Paul Church (Karachi), I see this now links to St Paul’s Parish, Azam Basti, which is something I had originally thought of doing. Further research however has led me to believe that this isn't the correct decision. As far as I can see "St Paul’s Parish, Azam Basti" isn't a Church, but a parish as its title suggest. The wiki does not have an article on the church associated with that particular parish, so I think perhaps this link should be removed, at least until the article on the church is written. In light however of having to remove St Paul’s Karachi, I've gone ahead a started work on the article St. Paul's Church, Manora (in Karachi) which as far as I can see is a much more appropriate fit to the former redlink. There are plenty of sources and the church seems quite important. I'm going away but I'll have the article done by Monday, and added to this page. Until then I'll just leave things as they are. No point in stirring the pot over something I fully intead to fix by the end of the weekend. Feel free to comment, I'll check here before I do anything. -France3470 (talk) 20:27, 27 August 2010 (UTC)