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Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (US stations)

Latest comment: 1 month ago by Oknazevad in topic "Common" vs. "proper" name
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Capitalized 'Station' names for Minnesota station articles

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Latest comment: 1 month ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I would like further input from other editors on a potential station name issue in Minnesota. You can find the discussion at Talk:SouthWest station.

In short, station articles in Minnesota are universal with a lowercase 'station' but the local transit agencies seem to use a capital 'Station'.[1] This subject of this article in particular seems to have used a capital 'Station' since opening as a bus park-and-ride roughly 25 years ago. I'm not sure if it is a regionalism or style guide reason for the local transit agency to use capitalized proper noun 'Station' but I would appreciate input from a wider audience who is familiar with usage from around the United States. -Eóin (talk) 04:48, 28 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Eóin: I agree, I've gone ahead and boldly moved that station to SouthWest Station per that being the proper noun WP:COMMONNAME in use by reliable third party sources. I would support capital-"S" Station for any other similar cases in Minnesota. PK-WIKI (talk) 23:33, 7 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

"Common" vs. "proper" name

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Latest comment: 1 month ago4 comments2 people in discussion

The naming convention on this page currently states (bold emphasis mine):

Generally, U.S. station articles should be titled by their common name, followed by "station" if not already part of the name.
In cases where the word "Station" is part of the proper name, it should be capitalized. [...]
In cases where "station" is not part of the proper name, or is not usually capitalized in sources, it should be in written in lower case per MOS:CAPS. [...]

WP:COMMONNAME is the guideline that prefaces the section, but "proper name" is not defined in context, and MOS:PROPERNAME is not linked to.

It's unclear what is meant by "proper name" here and how/if it differs from the defined "common name".

I took the usage of "proper name" to be synonymous with "common name" in this context, and WP:BOLDly changed instances of "proper" to "common" to clarify this discrepancy. That edit was immediately reverted with the edit description "that's not the intent of the wording" and an invitation to discuss on talk page, which I'm doing now.

What is a station's "proper name" and how does it differ from its "common name"? PK-WIKI (talk) 15:22, 3 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Note the examples already in the guideline. Some stations include the word "Station" as a proper noun, such as New York Penn Station or Washington Union Station, so those should be capitalized in the title and body text as fully part of the name. Others do not, but the word "station" is included in the title as a form of natural disambiguation, typically to distinguish the station from from the namesake town, neighborhood, or other feature, such as with Oradell station from Oradell, New Jersey, or La Grange Road station from its namesake roadway. It is a matter of common name in that using a construct like "Penn station" would be wrong as that's not what the station is actually called, so it needs to be specified in the guideline. Indeed, that specific point was discussed during the hashing out of the guideline and was incorporated with the term "proper name" for that reason. As such, your edit does change the purpose and meaning of those points and needs to be reverted as the changes are not in line with long-standing consensus. (Though as a note, when someone reverts an edit you made, you are supposed to start the discussion without restoring your edit. See WP:BRR for an essay on what's considered best practices.) oknazevad (talk) 22:40, 7 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
New York Penn Station article is titled "Penn Station" because that's the station's WP:COMMONNAME. The common name in that case is a proper noun, yes. But the article is simply titled with the common name in use by reliable third party sources... be that a proper noun, common noun, made-up word, whatever. The station's WP:OFFICIALNAME should not be considered.
The current version of the guideline can be read to imply that a "proper name" should be considered above/independently of the WP:COMMONNAME. I don't think that meaning is intended, as that goes against the article naming WP:CRITERIA, hence my edits. The guideline is meant to state that the common name should be used... and if the common name happens to be a proper name/noun, that name should be capitalized. Or:
> "In cases where the common name includes the word "Station" as a proper noun, "Station" should remain capitalized in the article title."
I don't think my previous edits do change the meaning of the guideline. But perhaps something like above would be clearer?
PK-WIKI (talk) 23:29, 7 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
I think that's a fine change. Keeps the point while tying better to the general guideline. Great work! (Though I would have kept New York Penn Station as an example; the guild one wasn't updated to reflect that article's page move, itself something I wasn't keen on, but the fact that "Station" is capitalized is still a valid point. If anything it's a good example of using an integrated place name as natural disambiguation as the "New York" serves to distinguish it from the other Penn Stations like Newark and Baltimore.) oknazevad (talk) 16:30, 8 October 2024 (UTC)Reply
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