Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Taiwan stations)

Feedback

Feedback for the proposal is welcomed. Thanks. Szqecs (talk) 08:43, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• I think you should add the RfC template, since you might have trouble getting people to look at this otherwise. I think it's fine; there's nothing particularly controversial about it. Jc86035 (talk) 11:23, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Thank you for taking the time to prepare this page. It looks excellent. Does "Xxx station" should point to the disambiguation page mean that we should create a redirect at that title? If so then I would take that further and say that the dab itself should have that title, unless that conflicts with a naming convention for its other entries. Certes (talk) 12:18, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

  Yes. This is already established in WP:DABNAME. I've rephrased it. Szqecs (talk) 12:43, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• Why is a discussion like this being held in user talk space? If you intend formalising it as a WP:RFC, please move it to project talk space - such as Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Taiwan stations), or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stations. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:28, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

  I'm following the standard procedure laid out in WP:PROPOSAL, which starts with requesting early-stage feedback before RfC. Szqecs (talk) 14:40, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

RfC on promoting this page to a guideline

The following discussion 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.

---

On implementing Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Taiwan stations). RfC relisted by Cunard (talk) at 03:30, 23 September 2018 (UTC). Szqecs (talk) 06:10, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

• Comment - seems perfectly fine. Any controversies I'm missing? TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 00:17, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support as guideline, striking comment above. TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 18:41, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
• Comment: Is it necessary to denote the type of station (HSR/TRA/MRT/LRT/gondola) where no disambiguation is required? Useddenim (talk) 18:52, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

  Yes. The point of having naming conventions is so titles can be as consistent and have as few exceptions as possible. Nearly all HSR stations have a TRA counterpart with the same name. Dingpu MRT station needs disambiguation from Dingpu railway station, Xinpu MRT station needs disambiguation from Xinpu railway station, Beimen MRT station needs disambiguation from Beimen railway station and so on. Szqecs (talk) 17:48, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 19:53, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
• Relisting comment: Changing this page to a policy or guideline requires more participation. I added this to Template:Centralized discussion. Cunard (talk) 01:09, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Promoting "Naming conventions (Taiwan stations)" to policy (wording at CENT). Policy is a bit too heavy. What's wrong with {{Subcat guideline|naming convention}} that the rest of them use? – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:15, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

  I have renamed the section from "RfC on implementing this policy" to "RfC on promoting this page to a guideline" and updated the wording at Template:Centralized discussion. It is very unlikely that this page will be promoted to a policy because the naming conventions at Category:Wikipedia naming conventions are all guidelines aside from the Wikipedia:Article titles policy.

  Pinging prior participants: Szqecs (talk · contribs), Timtempleton (talk · contribs), Useddenim (talk · contribs), Iazyges (talk · contribs), and Finnusertop (talk · contribs), to inform them of the change.

  Cunard (talk) 03:30, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

• Neutral in that case. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:50, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support. I only have a very limited knowledge of Taiwan railways, but this looks sensible. Thryduulf (talk) 09:39, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support with no objections. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 11:37, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support Looks fine, and makes sense to be a guideline. – BrandonXLF ^(t@lk) 15:05, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support sure why not. feminist (talk) 05:44, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support Very sensible. Alex Shih (talk) 07:15, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
• Qualified support. A methodical approach helps both readers and editors, and this guideline is clearly well thought out. Certes (talk) 10:51, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

  Edited to add "Qualified", because using generic terms ("metro" rather than "MRT") as discussed below would improve this proposal. Certes (talk) 10:03, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

• (Summoned by bot) Support I'm only here because Legobot posted on my talkpage, I guess this makes sense. ^Semi_Hypercube ✎ 21:49, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
• Strong oppose, previous mass move should be reversed per the article title policy. No one looking for Siaogang station is going to think to put MRT in the middle of it, and there's no reason they need to because the name is not ambiguous. Of all the examples listed in the proposed guideline, it seems that only one (Chiayi HSR station) is disambiguated by an opaque acronym in the middle, and for all the ambiguous cases I've seen there are better ways to disambiguate. However looking at the associated categories, it does seem to document an existing naming practice. But that existing practice comes from a mass move that occured in Dec 2017 after a a requested move with one support that only really touched on how "Station" was upper case (though unclearly linking WP:CONSISTENCY, presumably in reference to consistent use of lowercase, rather than the inserted acronyms) and another comment concerned about the large number of page moves based on a userspace essay (now proposed as a guideline). I think the proposed (and existing) naming practice goes against wider consensus on article titling and should not be encouraged (and in fact, reversed).

The proposal values documenting (presumably with the intent of enforcing) an arbitrary consistency at the expense of three other considerations for article titles: Naturalness, recognizability, and conciseness. This is obvious because the prose in many of these articles omits the acronym in the middle and often leaves it completely unexplained. I do not believe the proposed guidelines encourage the use of commonly recognizable names; will readers (especially those for whom English is not a primary language) know the difference between an MRT and an LRT, or what the letters even stand for? I do not believe these guidelines promote the use of article titles that are "precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that" given that in many instances the inserted abbreviation does not serve to disambiguate.

I'm not even convinced that, for those instances where stations need disambiguation, the proposal follows the disambiguation guideline. I don't think adding an abbreviation in the middle of an article title is "equally clear", I think it is more confusing, and looking at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (US stations) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Canadian stations), disambiguation by system or line is parenthetical not by inserting an abbreviation into the middle of the station name. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK stations) has similar guidance on disambiguation (though one particular line is conventionalized with an acronym in the middle, the Docklands Light Rail though it denotes the line itself not the type of rolling stock used like LRT). In a number of cases that Szqecs brought up in response to Useddenim's question about using station type when no disambiguation is required, they point to a number of stations that, in fact, would be better disambiguated by the location of the station or line rather than its type: Dingpu MRT Station → Dingpu Station (New Taipei City) or Dingpu Station (Taipei Metro) (which was actually the original name of the article before it was moved in 2017) while Dingpu railway station → Dingpu Station (Yilan County) (which was the original name until it was moved in 2009) or maybe just stays as it is; Xinpu MRT station → Xinpu station (New Taipei City) or Xinpu Station (Taipei Metro) (which was the original name until it was moved in 2017) while Xinpu railway station → Xinpu station (Tongxiao) or just stays the same; Beimen station is left as an exercise for the reader.

I also worry that this is instruction creep. In all these cases our existing policies like WP:AT or WP:DAB or common sense extensions of guidelines like Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Canadian stations) already provide a consistent naming convention that does not introduce opaque and confusing acronyms into article titles. Our existing policies can handle this; I do not see what real (rather than hypothetical) problem this proposed policy is trying to solve nor do I think it will result in a real, positive difference. TL;DR I believe the proposal contradicts wider consensus as documented in existing policies and guidelines on article titles and should not be adopted. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 08:16, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Wugapodes makes some good points there, and I could equally support an alternative proposal if it were as clear and logical. Do we know how English speakers in Taiwan actually refer to these stations? Certes (talk) 11:09, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

I am an English speaker in Taiwan

Rail service	Name	Comment
Taiwan Railways Administration	Foo railway station	This is what I say, and it is common on Wikipedia
Taiwan High Speed Rail	Foo HSR station	People say 'high speed rail' station, but that is a bit lengthy. Signs generally spell 'HSR' and when you arrive at a station the announcement says 'Welcome to HSR x station'.
Rapid transit systems	Foo MRT station	I say 'MRT', as do signs. However, on official websites they are referred to as 'metro' services and I am equally fine with using 'metro' since it is a more well known term.
Light rail services	Foo LRT station	Light rail is introduced only recently and I have no idea what people call it. The government and the operator uses 'LRT', but it is an abbreviation and consensus is against using abbreviations unless well known. I am equally fine with 'light rail'.

Szqecs (talk) 05:26, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Szqecs. That sounds convincing. It might be better to use the generic term "metro" rather than the less widely understood "MRT". One day, Marketing might decide that MRT sounds outdated and rebrand the system as KwikMoov, and we wouldn't want to have to rename all the articles. Similar considerations apply to HSR and LRT. Certes (talk) 09:23, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

• No one looking for Siaogang station is going to think to put MRT in the middle of it, and there's no reason they need to. You don't need to. You linked Siaogang station yourself without putting 'MRT' and it links just fine.
• because the name is not ambiguous. Then maybe we should rename Kostroma Power Station to Kostroma Station because it is also unambiguous. Just because there isn't a second topic with the same name doesn't make it unambiguous.
• will readers (especially those for whom English is not a primary language) know the difference between an MRT and an LRT, or what the letters even stand for?. Do people generally know what 'tube' in Holborn tube station means? I chose MRT because stations are specific to the place, so they ideally follow the conventions of the place. But I am okay with using 'metro' instead of 'MRT'.
• looking at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (US stations) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Canadian stations), disambiguation by system or line is parenthetical. Which goes against WP:NCDAB: 'Natural disambiguation that is unambiguous, commonly used, and clear is generally preferable to parenthetical disambiguation.' I have seen proposals to get metro stations in Paris to not use parenthetical disambiguation because of this.
• better disambiguated by the location of the station or line rather than its type. How did you figure that? How would you, for example, disambiguate Zuoying HSR station and Zuoying railway station? They are both in Kaohsiung and Zuoying HSR station has 3 lines in one article. Based on you arguments, it would be named Zuoying station (Taiwan High Speed Rail, Taiwan Railways Administration and Kaohsiung Rapid Transit). Szqecs (talk) 17:59, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Redirects aren't an excuse for not following WP:AT; just because William Jefferson Clinton redirects to Bill Clinton doesn't mean we should ignore WP:COMMONNAME and have the article at William Jefferson Clinton. In fact, if you read the policy at WP:NAMINGCRITERIA you would notice that it says "The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles" which is the crux of what you quoted.

Just because there isn't a second topic with the same name doesn't make it unambiguous. That's literally what the word unambiguous means though. If there isn't a second topic with that name, that is the definition of unambiguous; it does not have two meanings. If there is a second topic with the same name we disambiguate it so that the article titles are not ambiguous, if there is only one topic for a given name we don't disambiguate it because it is not ambiguous.

Kostroma Power Station is a power station in Russia, my comments are in relation to a proposal about transit stations in Taiwan. I believe you are smart enough to see how these are not in any way comparable. Just in case, a quick glance at a Google Ngrams comparison of the rates of use of "power station" vs "train station" show that in contemporary usage "train station" is an order of magnitude more common than "power station" and so would, in my opinion, fail the naturalness and recognizability prongs.

The London Tube is a transit system that serves a city of 8 million people in England, a country where 10% of our readership comes from, has an annual ridership of 1.3 billion people, and is historically notable for being the first underground transit system. So yes, I'm willing to venture a guess and say a good portion of our readership probably knows what the "tube" in Holborn tube station means. Even if they didn't, unlike HSR, MRT, or LRT which denote a generic type of transit not specific to these systems, "tube" denotes a common name for the specific system (so common it's bolded in the first sentence of London Underground, the first link on the DAB page the Tube, and used multiple times in the article Holborn tube station).

You are quoting NCDAB out of context (and incorrectly). The full sentence is "When there is another term (such as Apartment instead of Flat) or more complete name (such as English language instead of English) that is unambiguous, commonly used in English (even without being the most common term), and equally clear, that term is typically the best to use." I have already pointed out why I don't believe these are commonly used in English or equally clear. I actually used those exact words: I don't think adding an abbreviation in the middle of an article title is "equally clear" (quotation marks original).

How did those proposals on renaming Paris stations go? Do you have any to link to?

Based on you arguments, it would be named Zuoying station (Taiwan High Speed Rail, Taiwan Railways Administration and Kaohsiung Rapid Transit) Are you just being purposefully dense here? That's obviously absurd and doesn't look like any other suggestion I gave. Quite honestly, I don't care how it should be disambiguated because I don't think it is something that should be decided here because I don't think we should have a policy on this. That's my whole point. But, because WP:IAR doesn't exist and we must have every edge case accounted for, here are some suggestions off the top of my head:

1. Based on the first sentence of each article, one's a metro and railway station while the other's only a railway station. Name on Zuoying metro and railway station and the other Zuoying railway station and hatnote the both of them. Or the first could just be Zuoying metro station and the other Zuoying railway station. These insertions could even be parenthetical.
2. Pick one of the lines as the primary title to do a parenthetical DAB (I don't care how, but one idea is to use the line with the largest annual ridership since that would likely be the one people would know best), redirect the others.
3. Both are on the West coast line, the HSR one is also orange and red lines. I don't know, pick one of those as a parenthetical dab.
4. Instead of shoving an acronym in the middle, put it at the end as a parenthetical, and/or spell it out (see WP:ACRONYMTITLE which though referring to whole article names as acronyms still articulates the reasons why these acronyms still aren't great).

And for future reference, please don't be so obtuse as to mischaracterizing my arguments as supporting something so patently absurd as Zuoying station (Taiwan High Speed Rail, Taiwan Railways Administration and Kaohsiung Rapid Transit). I gave your proposal enough courtesy to spend over two hours looking through categories, a dozen page histories, and multiple guidelines on naming train station articles; you didn't even accurately quote WP:NCDAB which you linked to. Given just how absurd your characterization of my points were and how you ignored a large number of the other ones, it's very hard for me to assume that you understand policy writing is hard. Asking for people to review your policy proposal is a serious imposition; you are asking for a lot of time from people to evaluate why this represents a serious enough problem for us to add another page of rules to the already 500 rule long list of rules of which most people haven't read a single one. Neither this policy page nor your comments here have convinced me why Taiwan rail stations represent such a problem for our existing policies that we need to write, maintain, and enforce an entire new set of rules. New policies and guidelines are not trivial things, they implicate actual human work. Superfluous ones can be actually harmful to the project, leading to editors wasting time wikilwayering over obscure and contradictory policies and guidelines instead of just using clue and building an encyclopedia. That's why I don't find the unanalyzed "consistency" argument sufficient. Consistent doesn't mean good, nor does it mean regimented or identical. We had consistency before your move request, so consistency wasn't a problem. We manage to have consistent naming conventions for a wide range of article topics without explicit policy pages, what problem is so big with Taiwan railway stations that our existing policies don't work? Unless and until that question is answered, I will be opposed. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 06:30, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

• The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for. I have no idea what people are likely to search for and neither do you. I am likely to search US or USA but the article is nevertheless titled United States.
• "train station" is an order of magnitude more common than "power station". Then how come station is a disambiguation page and does not redirect to train station for being the primary topic?
• "tube" denotes a common name for the specific system. HSR and MRT are also common names for the specific systems.
• Based on you arguments, it would be named Zuoying station (Taiwan High Speed Rail, Taiwan Railways Administration and Kaohsiung Rapid Transit) Are you just being purposefully dense here? That's obviously absurd and doesn't look like any other suggestion I gave. You said better disambiguated by the location of the station or line rather than its type. They are both in the same location and you are against acronyms, so this is exactly it.
• Name on Zuoying metro and railway station and the other Zuoying railway station and hatnote the both of them. Or the first could just be Zuoying metro station and the other Zuoying railway station. These are terrible ways to name them for reasons you wouldn't care. I don't know, pick.... I don't care how. You spent two hours and didn't even look into the subject matter of how they are actually referred to. I then wonder how you can be so involved in this.
• I don't think we should have a policy on this. Well you are alone buddy. There are naming conventions for rail stations in a few countries already and users here support having them for obvious reasons. Rail stations have more in common than otherwise, and are mostly stubs. It is easier to find a particular one if the titles are consistent.
• We had consistency before your move request That is not true. Taipei station was named Taipei Railway Station while most TRA stations were named x Station, some were x Station (TRA)
• what problem is so big with Taiwan railway stations that our existing policies don't work? Many. A lot of them have ambiguous names and there are not many English sources to establish WP:UCRN. So no, existing policies don't work. What do you think any explicit conventions are for? Szqecs (talk) 08:29, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. From the start I was hesitant to endorse this proposal, as I feel that it is too rigid and pedantic. As Wugapodes argues, there's no need for any special naming for Taiwanese stations beyond the accepted guidelines already developed for the United States, Canada, Britain, etc. Useddenim (talk) 20:50, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. I've never been a fan of the pattern which incorporates "type" (MRT/LRT/tube/whatever) into an article title. A station is a station. I do agree that there should be a standard guideline which applies to stations in Taiwan, even if that guideline is a restatement of USSTATION or CANSTATION, with whatever country-tailoring might is necessary. Although people might refer to stations as a "high speed station" or a "metro station", that usage shouldn't dictate an article title. Mackensen (talk) 12:53, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Although people might refer to stations as a "high speed station" or a "metro station", that usage shouldn't dictate an article title. This directly contradicts WP:UCRN without any clear reason. Szqecs (talk) 11:52, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
    • The reason is that it's difficult to prove that usage, and you run up against the consistency prong of WP:CRITERIA. Mackensen (talk) 11:17, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
      • The reason is that it's difficult to prove that usage. I can prove that Taipei main station, Kaohsiung main station and Taoyuan HSR station are official names, so they are definitely used.
      • run up against the consistency prong of WP:CRITERIA. The alternative that you suggest, x station (disambiguation) (USSTATION or CANSTATION) fails more criteria.
        • Recognizability: Taichung station (TRA) is less recognisable than Taichung railway station.
        • Naturalness: no one searches with brackets and wikilinks usually hide the disambiguation word.
        • Conciseness: Hsinchu station (HSR) is longer than Hsinchu HSR station. Beimen station (Taipei) is longer than Beimen MRT station, and so on.
        • And as far as consistency goes, the aforementioned system introduces more ambiguous stations, some with other states, some with different cities, some with different systems. I don't see how it is more consistent. Szqecs (talk) 16:41, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
• Support creating a guideline for Taiwanese stations, but oppose some of the conditions. I agree with Mackensen and others that titles of the type "Xxx station" would be better here. As written, the guidelines don't do much to alleviate confusion between, say Chiayi railway station (a conventional heavy rail station) and Chiayi HSR station, both of which could reasonably be called "Chiayi railway station". In this case, better titles may be "Chiayi station (TRA)" and "Chiayi station (HSR)", for example.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:56, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
  • That is what I thought originally. But it turns out that people here refer to x TRA station as x railway station unless it is high speed. Also 'TRA' is not that well known. Based on recognizability and naturalness criteria of WP:CRITERIA, the current system is preferable. Szqecs (talk) 23:54, 23 October 2018 (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.

Merging naming conventions for stations

Hi. I am proposing a merger of all naming conventions for stations. Please give your opinion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains#Merging naming conventions for stations. Thanks. Szqecs (talk) 15:18, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Revisiting the guidelines - some issues with defining proper names and using common names

I understand how this naming convention works when we have several stations of the same name, Foo railway station, Foo HSR station, Foo MRT station, Foo LRT station, etc. all sharing the name "Foo" and having to distinguish among them. However, as it is written, this guideline (1) runs counter to the policy using common names and (2) ignores the fact that "station" is more often than not treated as part of proper name in TRA station naming conventions, both officially, in various websites outside Wikipedia such as Google Maps, and in English print media and other publications.

For example, "Houtong Station" is commonly known in English as "Houtong Station." That is the name plastered in English lettering onto the side of the building, the name that appears on maps, in blogs, and news article. Locally, (and I say this as a resident of Taiwan who came across this naming convention while researching a hiking trail from Houtong Station, the station is known as "Houtong Station." It is not necessary to add railway as TRA is the only method of accessing the station. And the lead paragraph is inaccurate in that "Houtong" refers to the entire village instead of the station.

"Houtong railway station" is not the common name. It is a name trying to create consistency across different countries when none such consistency exists in the real world. In fact all the TRA stations have English signage with Chinese "XX車站" and English "XX Station" (S capitalized as a proper name). The exceptions are "Taipei Main Station" and "Kaohsiung Main Station" where "main" is nowhere in the Chinese name. The current naming guideline would make sense if the station names stood by themselves (e.g. the signs reading "XX" only) like in many countries, but this is not the case in Taiwan. --Jiang (talk) 14:09, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Jiang, you make a good point. Useddenim (talk) 15:26, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

My attempts to correct the lead section and move "Taipei main station" and "Kaohsiung main station" were reverted. I thought these would not be controversial. Even more so than the others, these two are "proper names" and should be capitalized per WP:PROPERNAME. Please refer to Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(US_stations)#Naming_convention and Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Canadian_stations)#Naming for analogous guidelines on when to capitalize. "Taipei Main Station" and "Kaohsiung Main Station" are the official names of the said transit centers and sources consistently capitalize those terms. If we follow the logic that these are not proper names, then San Francisco International Airport should be moved to "San Francisco international airport" and Montreal Central Station should be moved to "Montreal central station". --Jiang (talk) 14:15, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

runs counter to the policy using common names. This has been discussed before. In Mandarin, people say XX火車站, 捷運XX站, 高鐵XX站. In English people say X MRT station and X high-speed rail station. And I have definitely seen a sign that says X Railway Station before. Basically the type of station is generally used as part of the name, and it is used as natural disambiguation, which is preferable to parenthetical disambiguation (WP:ATDAB). "station" is more often than not treated as part of proper name. No it isn't. The announcements don't say 'The next station is X Station'. In fact all the TRA stations have English signage with Chinese "XX車站" and English "XX Station" (S capitalized as a proper name). UK stations also write X Station on them, but Wikipedia doesn't follow regardless. Signs and an online encyclopedia serve different purposes. "Taipei main station" and "Kaohsiung main station" were reverted. I thought these would not be controversial. Even more so than the others, these two are "proper names" and should be capitalized per WP:PROPERNAME. These stations are just Taipei and Kaohsiung on TRA. Adding 'main station' is just a description as part of the name. Ythlev (talk) 17:09, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Taipei Main Station and Kaohsiung Main Station do not refer merely to the TRA station but the entire transit center and major city landmark, which in the case of Taipei, includes to the TRA station, the HSR station, and the Taipei Metro station all in the same building that is connected by underground passageways to shopping complexes, the Taoyuan Metro (airport mrt) station, and the Taipei Bus Station. When a station is serviced only by TRA, people use XX車站, XX火車站, and 台鐵XX站 interchangeably, with XX車站 / XX Station being the most common short form and the official form used by TRA itself. When a station is serviced by multiple transit systems, XX車站 in Chinese and XX Station in English invariably refers to the entire transit system and complex, not just the ticketed and platform areas run by the Taiwan Railways Administration, with TRA XX Station or XX Railway Station or XX Train Station used when needed to distinguish TRA from other systems.

Almost never will a station be referred to as XX on its own without including the word "station" in either Chinese or English as these station names are often the name of the locality and that causes confusion (exceptions are when you are on the train itself and use of the word "station" would be redundant in context or if there is no analogous place name making the station name unique, such as Xinzuoying).

When you board the flight to San Francisco International Airport, the sign on the boarding gate and the wording on your boarding pass says you are flying to "San Francisco", not "San Francisco International Airport". Does that mean "international airport" is merely a descriptive term and that the article should be moved? Perhaps you have a point for Taipei Metro stations in that "station" is not always part of the name being used, but note on the list of Taipei MRT stations, there is Longshan Temple - Ximen - Taipei Main Station - Shandao Temple (notice that the station is "Taipei Main Station" not "Taipei" on the MRT system).

When in doubt, refer to published sources: here's Amcham Taipei's magazine using Taipei Main Station as a proper name to refer to the overall complex and not the TRA station: "trains travel between Taipei Main Station and Terminal 2" "those airlines' counters at the Taipei Main Station before boarding the Airport MRT" "the Taipei Main Station outlet of Breeze Center". Or if you prefer to go to larger publications with extensive style guides and professional editing teams, the New York Times writes "when it went off the tracks near Xinma Station in Yilan County about 4:50 p.m. local time." (notice the capitalization of Xinma Station) or the SCMP "commuter train exploded and burst into flames near Songshan Station on Thursday night." --Jiang (talk) 13:32, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

XX車站 / XX Station being the most common short form. I'm pretty sure people say XX火車站 more often. When in doubt, refer to published sources. How about BBC? 'The Puyuma Express 6432 service came off the tracks close to Xinma station'. 'Taiwan's leader, Tsai Ing-wen, arrived in Xinma on Monday morning'. Or Aljazeera:'five had flipped onto their side near Xinma station'. Most countries except the US treat railway stations as locations, unlike airports. It is an international convention. It allows for expressions like 'A, B and C stations are closed' whereas treating them as proper does not. Ythlev (talk) 16:11, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Here is Wikipedia's guideline on this: 'there is usually no good reason to use capitals' (WP:NCCAPS). 'Only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia' (MOS:CAPS). I just gave two major sources that don't. Ythlev (talk) 16:19, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

"I'm pretty sure people say XX火車站 more often." I'm pretty sure they don't, and I live in Taiwan and 90+% of my daily social interaction is probably with Taiwanese people speaking Mandarin. But this is besides the point as the MoS asks us to look at English usage. In all the sources you and I have linked, they refer to the station as "XX station" or "XX Station". None use the form "XX railway station" so I do not see a justification for having all TRA station articles reside at "XX railway station" instead of "XX Station"/"XX station". Of course, there are certain sources that do use "XX Railway Station" (such as the Taipei Times, with "railway" and "station" each capitalized as if part of a proper noun) but this is far from prevalent as other Taiwanese English-language media such as the China Post, Taiwan News, and Central News Agency all use "XX Station" (again with "station" capitalized as a proper noun. Travel guides such as Lonely Planet use "XX Station" (station capitalized) for TRA stations and "XX MRT station" (station in lowercase) for MRT stations.

There are three separate issues here: (1) status of "Taipei Main Station" and "Kaohsiung Main Station" as proper nouns, (2) status of all other TRA stations as proper nouns "XX Station" instead of "XX station", and (3) common name of Taiwan's train stations in English being "XX Station"/"XX station" instead of "XX railway station."

WP:NCCAPS states that proper names should be capitalized. The status of Taipei Main Station and Kaohsiung Main Station as proper nouns as a matter of basic English grammar should not be in doubt, and can be compared to Montreal Central Station, Nuremberg Central Station, and Helsinki Central Station. As for the others, US GPO manual, WP:CANSTATION, and WP:USSTATION says to capitalize "Station" if part of a name. Similarly, in Japan station names are always pronounced with 駅 in Japanese and "Station" in English, hence this convention on Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Japan-related_articles#Train_and_subway_stations.--Jiang (talk) 18:20, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

All of the sources we mentioned refers to the names in sentences where there is context. It is in Taiwan, so no ambiguity with other stations with the same name. It is a train derailment, so it can't be a power station etc. Titles have no context, so needs to be a bit more precise. Does the guideline for Canadian stations say how to determine if a name is proper and part of the name and when it isn't? Because any name can be proper if you say it is. As far as Wikipedia is concerned, NCCAPS says it should only be capitalised if consistently capitalised in sources, which I've shown is not true. Ythlev (talk) 14:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't see your point about context. If "XX Station" is served only by TRA, there is no need to disambiguate because it will refer only to the TRA station. If "XX Station" is served by more than one transportation system, in common usage it refers to the place that services all of those systems, not just TRA. There is no need to insert the word "railway" as, even though "XX Railway Station" is used interchangeably with "XX Station", "XX Railway Station" is not the common name.

WP:NCCAPS states that "Do not capitalize the second or subsequent words in an article title, unless the title is a proper name" (emphasis added). As a matter of English grammar, a proper name denotes a particular and unique place. In English, "King's Cross" can be used to refer to a particular railway station in London. For example, "Kings Cross and Euston were emptied after two separate fire alerts were sounded...". In contrast, "Taipei" on its own is never be used to refer to a specific railway station; in common English language the specific place is always referred to as "Taipei Main Station", or less commonly "Taipei Station," "Taipei Train Station" or "Taipei Railway Station". This does not include cases where the mention is entirely descriptive: "Taipei's main train station" or "the Queen's representative in Australia" (vs. "the Governor-General of Australia").

Per English convention and MoS applying to other mass transit stations, in cases where the word "Station" is part of the proper name, it should be capitalized. Here, it is not only part of the proper name, but the common name and the official name.

The complete sentence you quoted is "This convention often also applies within the article body', as there is usually no good reason to use capitals." Some different conventions apply to article bodies than article titles. For example Governor-General of Australia is capitalized as a proper name in the article title, but the BBC does not capitalize it in its articles.--Jiang (talk) 11:25, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

If "XX Station" is served only by TRA, there is no need to disambiguate. What service serves Xiangshan station? In English, "King's Cross" can be used to refer to a particular railway station.... You can, but it is almost always ambiguous to do so. Kings Cross is the name of an area. The station is still referred as King's Cross station/Station. The station is not titled 'King's Cross' or 'King's Cross (station)', it is London King's Cross railway station, which by no means imply people generally omit the word 'station'. On the other hand, BBC's sentence 'Taiwan's leader, Tsai Ing-wen, arrived in Xinma on Monday morning' contradicts your 'never' statement. Is Hong Kong station a proper name? The word is even less omitted here. Your analogies for airports and Governor-General are not convincing because these names are almost always capitalised whereas the word 'station' is lowercase in most countries, especially on Wikipedia. 'Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.' Ythlev (talk)

Some different conventions apply to article bodies than article titles. For example Governor-General of Australia is capitalized as a proper name in the article title, but the BBC does not capitalize it in its articles. The word governor-general itself is not a name. The BBC article writes 'Australia's governor-general', no different from writing 'Australia's people'. Ythlev (talk) 14:16, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Here's a different one from the BBC more clearly using the phrase as a title for an office: ""Mr Cosgrove will become the 26th governor-general of Australia."--Jiang (talk) 14:49, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Well, given that Xiangshan station needs disambiguation, I'm not opposed to using natural disambiguation. But is an exception to the rule. Why does Houtong railway station need to tell me if it is a train station, bus station, or space station? The overarching policy is WP:UCN and WP:CONCISE. Per WP:PRECISION, "Houtong Station" already unambiguously refers to a particular place. There is not need to specify that it is a TRA station or that it is in New Taipei City.

For Xinma Station, as I have stated before there are exceptions in the example of "Xinzuoying" which will unambiguously refer to the TRA station attached to the Zuoying HSR station because it is a unique name. In Xinma's case, the train station has a unique name not shared by the locality. "Taipei" was what I brought up, which refers to the city, not the station.

I'm not arguing that the UK station naming conventions need change. Instead, there is certainly no consistency across the whole world, and while one usage might be prevalent in the UK, another usage is prevalent in Taiwan. When we are met with two different conventions, we should look specifically at how Taiwanese train stations are typically referred to as in English and go for the most common usage. Different transport systems and different localities have different naming conventions. Although we don't have to follow "official names" in article titles, "common names" are very much influenced by "official names." Here you have the same publication, the SCMP, capitalizing "Taipei Main Station" but not capitalizing "Hong Kong station": "MTR Airport Express line from Hong Kong station back up and running" vs "The hotel sits atop Taipei Main Station, where the island-wide bus network, high-speed rail, metro system and airport train all converge to form the urban transport..."

The lede of these articles no longer make sense as the Chinese don't match the English: "Xinma (Chinese: 新馬車站; pinyin: Xīnmǎ Chēzhàn)".--Jiang (talk) 14:49, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Taiwanese people don't speak English, so there is no typical usage. Main stations may be consistent in capitalisation, but not others. Here SCMP uses lowercase. Different transport systems and different localities have different naming conventions. BBC and Al Jazeera don't use the supposed conventions for Taiwan because the international convention is more common. Why would Wikipedia be different? Ythlev (talk) 15:15, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Most articles use {{Adjacent stations}}, which rely on consistent article patterns. Every exception needs an additional entry and makes the using the template less meaningful. On the other hand there is zero benefit to blindly following WP:CONCISE. You would need to consider every name to see if there is any kind of station in the world with the same name, not to mention having to make a ton of moves. Ythlev (talk) 15:15, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

I just came across a Taiwanese source which writes 'Xinma railway station'. Capitalising the word is not a convention in Taiwan. Ythlev (talk) 15:26, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Places that use 'X railway station' on Wikipedia include Poland, Australia and NZ, Ireland, Southeast Asia, Italy, Spain, Kenya, Morocco and plenty more I'm sure. As another side note, the metro map of Seoul Metro lists Seoul Station while most stations don't have the word 'station'. By your logic it is a proper name, but on Wikipedia, the word is lowercase (Seoul station). Ythlev (talk) 15:45, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

"Taiwanese people don't speak English, so there is no typical usage." I think the nationality or origin of the speaker is irrelevant. We look at common usage in English, whether it be English-language media in Taiwan or English-language media elsewhere. Given that English-language media in Taiwan have a heavy Taiwan-focus, and there is not a lot of international focus on Taiwan except for cross-strait issues, you are obviously going to get a disproportionate amount of Taiwan-based sources referencing Taiwanese train stations compared to sources based outside of Taiwan.

“I just came across a Taiwanese source which writes 'Xinma railway station'. Capitalising the word is not a convention in Taiwan." Not really. This same source was using "railway station" as a description and consistently capitalizes station names: "a man appearing to suffer a mental illness suddenly began to brandish a knife on the platform the Songshan Station" "The decision comes after Puyuma Express No. 6432 derailed at Xinma Station, Yilan County on Oct. 21". I do recognize that there is inconsistency across multiple sources. But that just means that there are different style guides and different home country conventions providing a different set of guidelines. For example the BBC always renders NASA as "Nasa" in its articles. It doesn't mean one is obviously correct over the other. There is value in consistency across a defined set of articles, but there is no point in forcing a consistency that does not appear in the real world.

As for the inclusion of "railway" in the title, the fact that there are a couple rare and isolated cases where a TRA station shares the same romanized Chinese name as a completely unrelated metro station is not reason enough to override WP:CONCISE and WP:UCN for every single Taiwanese train station. Just because there may be a handful of city and towns in the world with the same name does not mean every single city and town article on Wikipedia needs to be titled "XX, country name" to force city and town articles to be consistent on Wikipedia.

I do think "Seoul station" as a major city landmark should reside at Seoul Station. Given your logic it should be at Seoul railway station instead? --Jiang (talk) 17:01, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

I do think "Seoul station" as a major city landmark should reside at Seoul Station. Then perhaps you should read up on why it was moved to lowercase. there is no point in forcing a consistency that does not appear in the real world.. All things equal, more consistency is better than less consistency. Imagine if articles on people use that person's favourite typeface. What is the point in being not consistent without clear benefits? the fact that there are a couple rare and isolated cases where a TRA station shares the same romanized Chinese name as a completely unrelated metro station is not reason enough to override WP:CONCISE and WP:UCN. Perhaps you should check out WP:PRECISION. 'Leeds North West (UK Parliament constituency)' is used in favour of the much shorter 'Leeds North West' for consistency (WP:CRITERIA: the title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' title). See also Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(events): 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami (There —are no other "Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami" articles in Wikipedia, but the year is a useful identifier). Based on these two guidelines, there are plenty of reasons to override CONCISE. One extra word to better identify the topic is perfectly acceptable. Ythlev (talk) 17:59, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 1

This discussion seems to be going around in circles; however, I personally favour Jiang.
@Dicklyon: you've looked at this question before, in broader context. Any thoughts? Useddenim (talk) 23:31, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

A couple of thoughts. I agree that saying XX railway station instead of XX station seems rather arbitrary, and maybe inconsistent with the advice of commonname; but I can live with it if enough editors think that makes a better convention (commonname doesn't trump the other WP:CRITERIA). On capping, I don't agree that Seoul station needs to be Seoul Station. Sure, n-grams show more caps than not, but certainly not near "consistently", and look at actual uses in books that are being counted there, e.g. in the Lonely Planet Seoul guide. You see more caps, but those are in headings and titles. In sentences, they don't cap it, because it's not a proper name. Also note that the caps usage in books jumps a bit in 2004, which is when the article was created with capped Station. This "unreasonable effectiveness of Wikipedia" is something we should try to avoid. Here is another good book example of usage. The fact that it's capped in maps, timetables, titles, headings, and blogs has no bearing on whether it's consistently capped (in sentences) in reliable sources. In news, it's mixed as in books; clearly the lowercase is acceptable, so we should use it. Dicklyon (talk) 04:51, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

if enough editors think that makes a better convention. As I said, station articles in most countries use this format. Ythlev (talk) 05:52, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps they do. And for other countries not. I'm OK either way. Dicklyon (talk) 05:55, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps consider that there are different conventions when something is used within text and when it is used as a title, such as the "Governor-General of Australia" example I used above where we could cap it as a proper name of a government office, but not cap it mid sentence. --Jiang (talk) 16:12, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Then perhaps you should read up on why it was moved to lowercase. The discussion there seemed not to make a difference between Seoul Station and obscure single-platform stations in the Korean countryside. I don't have a position of whether the "s" in obscure Korean stations needs to be capitalized as I don't have enough personal knowledge on the topic. But to quote SMcCandlish in the move discussion, Seoul Station is indeed a "evocative, metaphoric label" like Grand Central Terminal and the term "Seoul Station" is used not merely as description of a place called Seoul (no, that's reserved for the entire municipality) but a particular building, transport hub, and shopping complex. "I work two blocks form Seoul Station," never "I work two blocks from Seoul."

As it stands, there is no standard naming criteria on Wikipedia for Taiwan station names, so prevailing policies such WP:UCN, WP:CONCISE, and WP:PRECISE should be the basis of the existing title. If enough people think there should be a separate naming criteria as permitted under WP:PRECISE, then let's take a look at the criteria at WP:CRITERIA, comparing "XX railway station" with "XX station" (let's not complicate the discussion with the capitalization issue just yet as that is a matter of English grammar on proper names):

1. Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize. - BOTH. Unlike "Leeds North West" which fails in recognizability, "XX station" is clear on that it involves some sort of transport system involving trains. Due to recognizability issues, the guideline for UK parliament constituencies makes sense, as would a guideline renaming all Taipei Metro stations to take the form "Zhongxiao Fuxing (Taipei Metro station)".
2. Naturalness – The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English. - "XX station" is more natural as it is the more common name.
3. Precision – The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects. (See § Precision and disambiguation, below.) - BOTH in almost all instances. We have many more instances of a train station in Taiwan sharing the same romanized name as a train station in Mainland China than we do of a TRA station in Taiwan sharing a name with a non-railway station.
4. Conciseness – The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects. (See § Conciseness, below) - "XX station", for reasons explained at length above.
5. Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Many of these patterns are listed (and linked) as topic-specific naming conventions on article titles, in the box above. - As of now, there is no general consistency among Wikipedia articles on whether train station articles must take the form "XX railway station." Most articles I've come across don't. Off the top of my head, Burlingame station is not at "Burlingame railway station." IMO it makes sense to have consistency within the same transport system, but not across different transport systems. For example, it is less consistently common to use the form "XX station" in referencing Taipei MRT stations than it is for TRA stations.

--Jiang (talk) 16:12, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

"XX station" is clear on that it involves some sort of transport system involving trains. No, there are bus stations and power stations. How about we remove the word 'bus' in Taipei Bus Station? And how do you explain the '2011' in 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami not being necessary but still added? These extra words definitely make the names more recognisable. Most articles I've come across don't. Then you haven't come across many. I already gave a long list of stations, one in each country, in the form of 'x railway station'. it makes sense to have consistency within the same transport system, but not across different transport systems. Why not? Why are you picking this criteria and say it does not make sense while others do? Ythlev (talk) 17:43, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

The guidelines suggest, "The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize." That's enough said. Nowhere does it say that the title must completely and unambiguously define the nature, characteristics, or key attributes of the subject. That's what the lead section is for.

Taipei Bus Station is the actual name of that particular building and transport hub serviced by multiple long distance bus companies. It's also the common name and the official name. We are not arbitrarily inserting the word "bus" in the article title in the same way we are inserting "railway" into these TRA station article titles.

I don't see a problem with inserting the year into particular events such as the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. The year is as much as part of the descriptive identity of the subject as the location. If you look at common references to that earthquake and tsunami, you'll see that just about every reference will use both year and location to define it.

Then you haven't come across many. That's irrelevant to this discussion. Sticking to discussing the guidelines, my point earlier is that consistency does not exist on Wikipedia like it doesn't exist in the real world. The consistency argument does not really apply here. We have a consistent naming convention for earthquakes, as they are often not proper names and inherently require Wikipedia to select an arbitrary naming convention, but we do not have one for train stations.--Jiang (talk) 18:09, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

just about every reference will use both year and location to define it As part of the name? Not this one. I could argue that the year is mentioned in the lead anyways, so why not omit the year like some sources do. The year is as much as part of the descriptive identity of the subject as the location. 'Descriptive identity' huh? A railway station being distinct from a light rail station is also pretty descriptive to me. Why must it be omitted? consistency does not exist on Wikipedia. Well if by consistency you mean 100% then there is no consistency for any kind of article, not even earthquakes. Then we might as well scrap that criteria. The idea is that if over half are consistent then we aim to make the other half consistent unless there is a good reason not to. If most countries use this format, it represents a worldwide view that the naming scheme makes more sense and is exactly when consistency does apply. Ythlev (talk) 19:24, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

@Ythlev: Following that logic, are you going to insist tha WP:USSTATION and WP:CANSTATION change to Xxx railway station, or have WP:UKSTATION and the remaining commonwealth countries switch to Xxx station? Useddenim (talk) 03:45, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Commonwealth countries? It includes Morocco, Iran, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines whose language conventions are more American than British by the way. There may be specific reasons Canada and the US use that format. I don't live there; I don't know, so I don't insist that theirs change. However I don't see any reason to change to the less common format (on Wikipedia) for Taiwan. Maybe it is like not adopting the metric system where the US wants to be special. Ythlev (talk) 06:02, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

As for the "less common format," speaking of TRA stations, "XX railway station" is the "less common format". It's not what most often goes into a searchbox when someone is looking for the article.--Jiang (talk) 13:28, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

You're going to have multiple earthquakes at the same location. To make the name factually unique you either have to insert the year or you have to insert some appellation such as "the Great Tangshan Earthquake", or in the example you provided "the Great East Japan Earthquake".

Insisting on all railway stations in the world use a common naming convention is like insisting on all the Wikipedia articles use spelling and terminology from a particular variety of English. Theoretically it is possible, and it makes perfect sense if you're a consistency freak, but what's the point? Wikipedia is not a newspaper and it is not it a book - it wasn't intended to be that consistent. There is huge personal preference and familiarity bias on issues such as this. We can argue that the real "consistency" on Wikipedia is that articles largely follow the "common names" policy, so we shouldn't deviate it and create inconsistency across topics unless there is a very good reason to do so.--Jiang (talk) 13:28, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

articles largely follow the "common names" policy A Google search shows that 'x railway station' is quite common. Let me ask you this. You can search for sources for the most common name for every station and name accordingly, or you can search for the most common naming scheme for railways in general and name accordingly. Why do you only pick out stations in Taiwan to use a certain format and not in other countries? Why don't you bring this up at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Trains? Ythlev (talk) 13:58, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

...because I don't believe there needs to a rigid naming policy applied to all railway stations in the world. The naming policy should be country-specific, because like English usage and many other things, it varies in the real world. Wikipedia did not do a survey on whether American spellings are more common than British spellings or Canadian spellings or Australian spellings and demand that all articles, regardless of subject, follow that variety of English as the "most common spelling" and use it accordingly. We choose the spelling of the variety most associated with the article or choose no variety at all.

"quite common" does not mean "most common". The answer of which is "most common" is quite obvious and it's not even close. "Songshan Station" vs "Songshan railway station" & "Taichung railway station" vs "Taichung station". Moving out of Taiwan: Tokyo railway station vs. Tokyo Station.--Jiang (talk) 15:31, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

If you are comparing the number of results, "Clapham Junction station" has way more than "Clapham Junction railway station" and yet the article is named Clapham Junction railway station. The policy is 'use commonly recognisable names' not 'use the most common name'. Having the word 'railway' doesn't make it unrecognisable. Ythlev (talk) 16:19, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

With English variety, there is usually no qualitative difference. Whether you spell 'center' or 'centre' does not affect how well readers will understand the sentence. And the guidelines encourage using vocabulary common to all. On the other hand, 'railway station' is more precise and identifiable. Ythlev (talk) 16:35, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

it varies in the real world Does it? In all those countries I gave, 'x railway station' is more common than 'x station'? I doubt it. Ythlev (talk) 16:41, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

On the one hand you argue that the article need not be the most common name when more than one alternative is available, but on the other you argue that "x railway station" must be used because there are more railway stations on Wikipedia under the "x railway station" format than the "x station" format, i.e. it is the "most common" format and must be the better one. Saying that one is "more common" than the other in actuality confirms the fact that "it varies in the real world" as it confirms that both forms are being used. If it did not vary in the real world we would not be having this conversation.

Either option is in compliance with the MOS:COMMONALITY guideline as both "railway station" and "station" are widely recognizable terms. Given that the "x station" format is much more prevalent for TRA stations, looking at the article title criteria above, your argument seems to be based on "precision" and "consistency". However, the precision argument is unconvincing because (1) the number of TRA stations that share an identical spelling with an unrelated bus station, metro station, space station etc. is very limited in number and (2) the format "x railway station" itself lacks precision as (i) multiple stations in the Chinese speaking world share the same romanized name due to the nature of the Chinese language and (ii) within Taiwan there are two railway systems (TRA and THSR) with these systems having multiple differently located stations sharing the same name - that every station on the THSR system except the northern-most 3 (which share the same facility as the TRA station of the same name) and the southernmost 1 (which shares the same facility with a differently named TRA station). If we wanted real precision we should rename all TRA stations to be "TRA xx station" instead. As for consistency, it doesn't exist yet. Of course you can try to push for it but consensus is not there yet and there are plenty of articles using either format. And even if both precision and consistency favored "x railway station" we would have to justify the benefits over the costs to "naturalness" and "consistency." I really don't see the benefit of telling from the title that the vehicle serving the "station" runs on tracks instead of on water, air, wheels, or space - that's just getting into too much detail.--Jiang (talk) 13:36, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

it varies in the real world. It does, but not along country lines. Both forms are used in Taiwan, both forms are also used in those countries I gave, so why should ones in Taiwan change and not other ones? If you ignore the fact that x railway station is more common on Wikipedia, what benefit is there to removing information that could better identify the topic? unrelated bus station, metro station, space station etc. is very limited in number. For someone who knows nothing about Taiwan, would they know 'there is nothing named x bus station or x power station, so x station must be a railway station'? No. By removing the word you are making the topic less recognisable with absolutely no benefits. Ythlev (talk) 08:04, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Whether one form is prevalent than the other does vary along country lines. Neither of us are disputing that both forms are being used in Taiwan and elsewhere. As for why should ones in Taiwan change and not other ones?, I didn't say the others shouldn't change. We should look at each transit system case by case and use the criteria above to decide. As for what benefit is there to removing information that could better identify the topic?, I have already stated that it is more common, more natural, and more concise to omit than to include and both are equally recognizable. In addition, "xx railway station" is going to be redundant. When a reader comes across a train station article name mentioned within Wikipedia text, it is going to be obvious from the context in the wording that it is a railway station. For example, how is this not obvious enough? When a reader comes across the train station article itself, the lead sentence will be right in front indicating that it is a TRA station. The relative benefits of including "railway" in the title are outweighed by the relative costs. As for there being absolutely no benefits, please refer to the above where I outlined the article naming criteria so we don't keep going in circles.--Jiang (talk) 16:18, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Whether one form is prevalent than the other does vary along country lines. So in which countries is 'x railway station' more common than 'x station'? Ythlev (talk) 16:30, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

I personally don't know. But you stated earlier, "In all those countries I gave, 'x railway station' is more common than 'x station'?" and I take your word for it. --Jiang (talk) 16:38, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

'x railway station' is more common on Wikipedia and less common in sources. If "x station" is more common in sources, why have editors opted to use "x railway station" while you have such a problem with it? Ythlev (talk) 18:23, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

If that's the case and Wikipedia imposes a standard different from the real world, then I really think we need to rethink the titling for those articles instead of trying to propagate it further. If there's no overwhelming reason to deviate from a common name that is already short, natural, distinguishable and recognizable then we shouldn't.

Wikipedia has existed 17 years. If a particular form was used for most of its existence, question whether the format is part of a campaign by a dedicated group of editors with a special interest in the subject, or reflective of the preferences of the layman who would most require the article location be accessible.--Jiang (talk) 14:52, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 2

A few points:

• At least based on the Manual of Style, if not all of a name would be considered a proper name, the acceptability of decapitalization should usually take precedence over the commonness of capitalization.
• Even for airports, while Wikipedia might consistently capitalize them, some publications do prefer to use lowercase "airport" because it's not strictly necessary to capitalize it. I think there could be valid and guideline-based grounds for a page move proposing decapitalization of "Airport", although I don't think that's likely and I don't think it would be an improvement on the current situation.
• There is no standard convention for whether to include "MRT" or "metro" or similar qualifiers in articles, although most articles for Chinese and American rapid transit stations omit "metro"/"subway"; most articles for British, Indian, Singaporean and Malaysian rapid transit stations include "metro"/"tube"/"MRT"; and many others (including most articles for European rapid transit stations) use the system name as the disambiguator and do not include the word "station" in the title at all.
• The omission of any qualifier nevertheless seems to be overwhelmingly more common for rapid transit stations than for mainline railway stations, with exceptions including North Korea ("station"), South Korea ("station"), Japan ("Station"), Norway ("Station"), Denmark ("station"), Sweden (inconsistent), and certain "Union Stations", "Central Stations" and "Hauptbahnhöfe".
• I do think it would be better if the English Wikipedia could have a vaguely consistent naming convention for all railway stations and rapid transit stations. Thousands of articles have already been retitled to use lowercase "station", so it would not really be exceptionally disruptive to rename half of them again. However, at this point I would probably settle for leaving the relevant page titles as they are, since they are already lowercase (and so are probably in compliance with the MOS). Jc86035 (talk) 13:25, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

According to WP:NCCAPS, the capitalization will depend on an objective assessment of whether the article is a proper name. Within the same system you will have your run of the mill single-platform train station and you will have your major city station that is a transit hub, architectural landmark, entertainment complex, geographical area, etc. In published sources you'll see references to each kind vary on whether they treat it as a proper name. The fact that the station name takes the form "CITYNAME Station" does not disqualify it from being a proper name of a place/building. For example, Tokyo Station is often used as a geographical reference, e.g. "Tokyo Station is a good base for exploring Tokyo." or "The hotel is located in the Tokyo Station area." Sometimes you are referring to the building itself, so that would be a proper name on the basis of English grammar: "Hsinchu Station was built in 1913 using mixed baroque-style architecture." So why should "Union Station" be capitalized but "Tokyo Station" not? Determining whether a phrase is a proper name does not depend on whether the name of the locality is used in the name. --Jiang (talk) 16:18, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Nowhere in NCCAPS do I see that proper names must be capitalised. I only see "lowercase unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized". MOS: "only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized". Ythlev (talk) 16:36, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

First two sentences: "Do not capitalize the second or subsequent words in an article title, unless the title is a proper name. For multiword page titles, one should leave the second and subsequent words in lowercase unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized, even in the middle of a sentence." Proper names should always be capitalized. Question is whether something is a proper name, not whether proper names should be capitalized. Where there is doubt, NCCAPS also mentions dealing with variation in the real world: "When in doubt, reliable reference works for capitalization conventions and other style matters may be useful. Note that all style guides conflict on some points; the Wikipedia MoS and naming conventions are a consensus-based balance between them, drawing primarily upon academic style, not journalistic or marketing/business styles, and taking into account Wikipedia-specific concerns." --Jiang (talk) 16:45, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

Circling back to MOS:CAPS, "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia." I would consider something like a 3:2 or 3:1 ratio to be a "substantial majority." Majority means most, not all.--Jiang (talk) 17:06, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

OK fine, proper names are always capitalised. But if many sources don't capitalise, they are using a non-proper form of the name. There is no rule that just because something has a proper name that everyone has to use it. Ythlev (talk) 19:15, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

I've pored over about as much of this as I can take. I have to concur with Dicklyon on all that editor says, I think, and with most of Jiang's points (though mistaking signage for a proper-name indicator is a mistake, covered below). Mid-sentence use in sources isn't consistent (i.e., "Foo station" it is not treated as a proper name in the real world), so we default to lower case. First rule of MOS:CAPS. This will also be more WP:CONSISTENT with treatment of stations and lines site-wide; we have been over this matter many, many times before, and there is nothing magically special about stations and lines in Taiwan in particular. There is no special pleading case that can be made here. The very fact that this would-be guideline is trying to carve out exceptions instead of agree with the rest of the project has much to do with why the attempt to elevate it to a guideline failed. Another is WP:CREEP; we don't actually need country-by-country guidelines or even essays on how to title railway stations or lines, since it's the same question regardless of jurisdiction. Even for jurisdictions in which English isn't regularly used, the translation-related questions are not unique for Taiwan, for rail-related stuff, or for Chinese, but are going to be the same principles for Germany, museums, and German; for the Philippines, government agencies at Tagalog; for Honduras, political parties, and Spanish; etc. To the extent any form of Chinese presents Chinese-specific translation concerns, they aren't not topically specific, and we already have templates that deal with them. Next, we should not be using "Foo railway station" any time that "Foo station" is sufficient, per WP:CONCISE and our disambiguation rules (WP:DAB, WP:AT#DAB, which also apply to natural disambiguation not just parenthetic). Our titles should be precise enough to be recognizable, and no more detailed than that. Finally, WP:COMMONNAME does not apply to style questions like capitalization; if it did, nothing in MoS could ever apply to titles (yet it does, every single day), and pages like WP:NCCAPS could not exist (yet they do, and we rely on them). We already know that headings and things that operate like them (e.g. labels on maps, short image captions, table headers, etc.) in many publications are given in title case following the house style of that publisher; it's not dispositive in any way of how WP writes. We also know that bureaucratese over-capitalizes constantly; signage and the like have no impact on WP capitalization practices, either. See also WP:OFFICIALNAME: WP simply does not care how something "officially" is written; we are not controlled by whoever made that decision for some other entity in some off-site context.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:31, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

we don't actually need country-by-country guidelines ... Next, we should not be using "Foo railway station" any time that "Foo station" is sufficient. Then maybe you or Jiang should do an RfC at Wikiproject Trains. I proposed unifying titles for stations in all countries before, but it didn't have much support. Ythlev (talk) 07:27, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

The UK guys like their guideline, and that's fine with me. But most countries use something closer to the more concise US guideline. That's why we don't need a separate guideline for each country. Follow one of those. I'd prefer the more concise in this case, but not strongly. Dicklyon (talk) 14:14, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: Countries and places that use "x railway station" include Poland, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Southeast Asia, Italy, Spain, Kenya, Morocco and Iran, so I doubt it. Ythlev (talk) 14:21, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the recap. Now a point about "proper names" and "Chinese names." I understand their restricted role in the naming guidelines, but they are helpful in explaining in context of why, for the same subject, naming conventions may differ across systems and nationalities. The naming guidelines favor common names and proper name usage is determined by whether most or almost all reliable sources regard the common name as a proper name. However, common usage can be very much influenced by both "proper names" and local language names. Somehow, for example, if the authorities running a transit system, especially one that is not all that old, consistently used a certain convention, such as treating "XX Station" as a proper name, with "XX" and "Station" being inseparable units of the same phrase instead of "station" merely describing "XX," or having the word "XX station" be treated as a proper name in the local language, which rules don't allow "XX" to stand alone in a sentence as English permits, then common usage in English could be influenced to follow suit.

There is no rule in English grammar that says "If a station is named after a geographical place name then it cannot be a proper name" and there shouldn't be on Wikipedia. Now I don't understand why "Union Station" can be a proper name but "Tokyo Station" cannot. Or why having "Terminal" or some other generic term instead of "Station" in the name means it should be capitalized instead.--Jiang (talk) 14:25, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Maybe because the announcements say "Union Station" (I have no idea). And as I said, the US does not follow international conventions for a lot of things like using Celsius. Who knows why? For Tokyo, the announcements just say "Tokyo", so they are not inseparable. Ythlev (talk) 16:14, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Announcements are irrelevant to the naming conventions. We look at reliable sources instead. By on board announcements, all stations on the Taipei Metro should have the form "XX Station" because that's how they're announced but this runs counter to common usage in both Chinese and English in which "station" can be omitted when referring to these stations. On the other hand "station" cannot be omitted for TRA stations except when used in a descriptive phrase or for certain uniquely named stations. --Jiang (talk) 04:04, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't get how you determine whether the word can be omitted. Taipei Metro stations usually don't have the word omitted either, nor do most railway and metro stations worldwide. Ythlev (talk) 14:05, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I also don't get your point above. As I said, any name can be proper if you say it is, including Tokyo Station. But there is absolutely no benefit of doing so. If you were mentioning Tokyo, Shinjuku and Ikebukuro, are you going to write "Tokyo Station, Shinjuku Station and Ikebukuro Station" or "Tokyo, Shinjuku and Ikebukuro stations"? If the latter, are you still going to use uppercase? Ythlev (talk) 14:11, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Taipei Metro: "Zhongxiao Fuxing exit 4". TRA: "southbound platform of Keelung". One is common usage and the other doesn't make sense because the term is too ambiguous.

The English language allows shortening of proper names where the context is clear: "The program is credited with removing all nuclear weapons from the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus" - does this mean we should capitalize "Republic of China" as "republic of China"? "Riders received messages indicating “insufficient fare” as they came into Penn and Grand Central stations” - does this mean we should rename the articles to "Penn railway station" and "Grand Central railway station"? --Jiang (talk) 15:01, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Taipei Metro: "Zhongxiao Fuxing exit 4" I very rarely hear that, and definitely not for stations like Shilin. does this mean we should rename the articles to "Penn railway station" and "Grand Central railway station"? I don't see why not. does this mean we should capitalize "Republic of China" as "republic of China"?. No because it is the first word. And also the English language is not perfectly logical. If you want my explanation of why railway stations in particular are not treated fully proper, one, there are many of them and are often grouped together such as being served by same services. The "shortening of proper names where context is clear" apply to railway station way more than states. Very rarely is the expression "Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus" used. And they definitely have a lot less in common than railway stations. Two, stations named after geographical locations are intended to serve those places and are representations of the places. Keelung and Keelung station might not be strictly the same, but if one is travelling to Keelung by rail, is there a distinction? "The staff said the service is bound for Keelung but Keelung and Keelung station are different so they should have clarified that it is bound for Keelung Station" is just silly. Of course this is true for airports too, but they don't have the first property above. Ythlev (talk) 17:58, 16 May 2019 (UTC)