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Is the new link to WMATA's express bus to BWI particularly encyclopedic? I consider timetables as going beyond the bounds of an encyclopedia. I consider the role of these articles as providing factual information about the service, but leaving links to timetables and such to the transit providers themselves.
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot15:34, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion was listed at Wikipedia:Move review on 24 December 2014. The result of the move review was Withdrawn, in favor of new discussion.
The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
– I really like WP:USSTATION, which was overdue and a good WP:NATURAL alternative to mandated parenthetical disambiguation. I'm proposing moves for one line of the Washington Metro to start with, and I plan to move on to the others if this is successful. As far as I can tell, only Waterfront needs further disambiguation; see, for example, Waterfront Station (Vancouver). --BDD (talk) 16:27, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - This should include ALL Washington Metro stations, not just a select few. How about "metro station" as the suffix? This would be in line with naming conventions for train station, railway station, railroad station, tube station (in London) and metro stations in other sytems worldwide. This would also result in clarity when Union Station (WMATA station) is renamed Union Station metro station, not the very awkward Union Station station, which is at Union Station (Washington, D.C.) railway station.Secondarywaltz (talk) 19:11, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Re Union Station, by WP:USSTATION a second "station" shouldn't be added if "Station" is already part of the name. And WP:USSTATION#Disambiguation already recommends disambiguating by system if there are two stations with the same name in the same city (Union Station (WMATA) would be the way to do it). But I think we should do first things first: if we establish consensus for this, we can move on to others.--Cúchullaint/c21:04, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I made most of these articles, and fought against the initial rename from "(Washington Metro)" to "(WMATA station)", but that made sense. And try as I might to find issue with this proposal... it does seem to make sense. My only suggestion is that, when these are all done, "Metro Center" does not require the 'station' identifier. Support. --Golbez (talk) 21:27, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
Also, I moved a bunch of stations on the Yellow, Red, and Blue Lines as well to conform to this apparent new naming convention. Please comment. Epicgenius (talk) 23:32, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I knew that, so I didn't move the above linked articles. I agree they shouldn't be moved in the first place, but if they don't all have the same naming format, then it is just inconsistent, and the S-rail templates create a whole lot of redirects. Epicgenius (talk) 12:33, 5 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
– These Washington Metro (WMATA) stations were all moved recently in an attempt to implement the new WP:USSTATION naming conventions, but due to an editor noticing "Station" on signs he derailed the process to treat that as part of the official names, which it is not. The convention says to use lowercase station when it is used but is not part of the official station name. Neither the official station list nor the individual pages about the stations ever use "Station" as part of their names; and most guides that add "station" use lower case (e.g. these for L'Enfant station). For background, see the move review at Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2014 December#Greenbelt Station, in which the consensus from the previous closer and others seems to be to have a new discussion to fix this. The last 5 entries above each correspond to other multiple-RM discussions that were closed citing Greenbelt as precedent, so by extension this discussion will apply to a bunch more WMATA stations moved in those. Dicklyon (talk) 17:11, 7 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I don't necessarily disagree, but what a waste of time! Productivity could be better used in improving the articles rather than juggling names again. Oh! You really have to list all the WMATA stations here, since the last time was a disjointed mess and some will require specific disambiguation. Secondarywaltz (talk) 17:32, 7 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The disambiguation has been worked out. The current question is simply whether or not to capitalize station. And yes, all of the WMATA stations should be part of this RM. There is no need to have 6 parallel discussions again. --Scott Alter (talk) 20:10, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose These are proper names, and they do have official usage (at least on pylons), even if that's less common. Lowercase looks a bit odd, like we're resorting to descriptive titles, which would be unnecessary. But as I've said before, we've already done the most important work by moving away from the old, contrived approach of forced disambiguation. If a bunch of editors agree with me, cool, but otherwise, I don't want the closer giving this comment too much weight. --BDD (talk) 17:55, 7 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: It seems to me that the names may be descriptive names, meaning e.g. "the station at Greenbelt"--that the stations aren't unique entities themselves but instead pieces of the overall rail system and of the places they serve (see proper name). Jason McHuff (talk) 06:18, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support While it is a waste of time on these individual articles, this RM is setting a precedent for all of the US station articles, as well as shaping the WP:USSTATION guidelines. We should get it right this time to establish the actual naming convention. If "Station" is part of the official name, then "Station" should be capitalized. Otherwise, "station" should be lowercase. Other than some pylons containing "Station," there is no other evidence that "Station" is part of the proper name for WMATA stations. (Ex. for New Carrollton Station, see pictures of different pylons here and here, with evidence for other stations in commons:Category:Washington Metro stations. The pylons outside of the stations seem to always have "Station," while the pylons inside of the stations do not have the word.) Therefore, "station" should be lowercase for these articles. --Scott Alter (talk) 21:45, 7 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the Washington Metro moves necessarily need to set a capitalization precedent. Consistency across all station articles may be desirable, but consistency within each system is probably more important. --BDD (talk) 23:51, 7 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
But you invoked these closes to upper case station explicitly as precedents in your others RMs such as at Talk:Pentagon_Station#Requested_move_23_December_2014; and you did that even though you originally (correctly) proposed to follow USSTATION and use lowercase. The fact that you let yourself be moved away from the correct result shouldn't have such huge negative repercussions, but it does. So we should try to recover. I don't see why you oppose that. The agreed convention is about whether station is part of the official name, not about whether it appears on pylons. The assertion that Station is part of the proper name is vacuous. Dicklyon (talk) 01:43, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I waited what seemed like forever, but it seems it will never be closed. And the pile of multi-RMs that should have depended on its outcome all went ahead without it. Shall I just cancel the review request? Dicklyon (talk) 22:52, 7 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anyone could reasonably call that disruptive, given that we have a new discussion going that's more to the point. Go for it. --BDD (talk) 23:51, 7 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and closed that one as withdrawn; I'd be just as happy if an admin wants to close it some other way, but leaving it open was beyond pointless. Dicklyon (talk) 01:38, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This is a new idea that should be pursued at WP:USSTATION if you care. That is, the present RM discussion is just about correctly implementing the recent consensus on a new USSSTATION naming convention; if you want to overturn or modify that new convention, this is not the place. Dicklyon (talk) 06:31, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Station" is preferable unless further clarification is needed. Some of the Washington Metro stations serve other rail lines as well, such as MARC and VRE. (Maybe only those two.) And almost all of them have bus service as well. --BDD (talk) 17:18, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
True, and Amtrak also stops at some of them too. I know the Amtrak-vs.-commuter rail line issue has come up regarding shared stations, and I'm guessing e.g "New Carrollton Amtrak/MARC/Metro station" isn't desirable. As for buses, I don't think the bus portions of the stations are that notable and are generally a secondary function of them, being built because of the station. Jason McHuff (talk) 22:53, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"X station" is for the most part not that ambiguous. There are many more stations with unique names than there are with ambiguous names. But if there are two or more stations with the same name, that is when disambiguation is required as per Wikipedia:USSTATION#Disambiguation. There is no need to add the system for disambiguation when there is little ambiguity in the first place. --Scott Alter (talk) 20:10, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Article title-wise maybe not, but it seems that local station names are ambiguous to readers in what (could it be a police station or a postal station?} and where in the world they refer to. "Greenbelt station" on it's own isn't clear, but "Greenbelt Metro(rail) station" clearly refers to a) a place on the Metro system, and b) a place in the DC area. And that "Greenbelt station" is a informal name--that when people refer to it without rail system context, they would use "Greenbelt Metro(rail) station". Jason McHuff (talk) 22:53, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support—Wikiproject Railways insists on downcasing "station". WP has a huge number of article titles thus downcased. End of story. Tony(talk) 08:50, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OpposeWeak Oppose per BDD, if "Station" is part of the name, Wikipedia should mirror that. Scott Alter's links are slightly confusing - one of his pictures includes a pylon where "Station" is clearly capitalized, so "New Carrolton Station" would indeed appear accurate (regardless of if "Station" is missing on another pylon - what would be good counter-evidence is a lower-cased "station" somewhere). SnowFire (talk) 22:57, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody disagrees that if Station is part of the name we capitalize it. The question here is whether finding "Station" on a pylon means it's part of the name, when official station name lists do not include it, and typical books such as guide books don't treat it as such either. Nobody would put lowercase station on a sign, since signs are typically done in title case, but they do routinely put it in books (see for example "Greenbelt station" in books. Dicklyon (talk) 23:03, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough that usage might be different elsewhere, but... a brief check of the web seems inconclusive here. The WMATA website uses capitalized "Station" in running text in a news article, while this WaPo story uses "Station" capitalized in a picture caption, but lowercases it in the article. I'll downgrade to a Weak Oppose, but I'm not seeing a strong case for either side. SnowFire (talk) 00:04, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
All of the usages in the Post story seem to be preceded with "the", which seems to say that the station is a thing and not a place. That "station" is being used as a noun (as in "Which station? The Greenbelt station.") and not part of the proper name. Jason McHuff (talk) 08:57, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above, it isn't all. The Post story also has "Metro track walkers exit the tunnel at L'Enfant Plaza Metro Station the day after an incident where a Yellow Line train filled with smoke, leading to the death of one woman." This appears to refer to it as a place with "Station" (although also "Metro"). The linked WMATA article also uses "Station." SnowFire (talk) 18:01, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Which further supports the idea that "L'Enfant Plaza Station" is not the official name. As with many things, there are some sources that over-capitalize and make up names; let's don't be like that. Dicklyon (talk) 20:41, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
My point above was that not all of the pylons include the word station. "Station" was not forgotten, but it was intentionally not included. (There are lots of more examples of images in the Commons categories.) Therefore, it is unlikely that station is part of the official name. Thus, "station" should be in lowercase as it is not part of the official name. As per Dicklyon's previous comments, it is extremely unlikely that "station" in lowercase would be printed on a sign, even if it were not part of the official station name. --Scott Alter (talk) 03:17, 13 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
From what I've seen of the pictures, signs and pylons inside the stations do not say "station"; people already know it's a station when they arrive by train or are inside. But outside pylons say "Station" because it's more important to let people know there's a station here than to say what its name is. Dicklyon (talk) 04:14, 13 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support as nom – I'm not a great fan of the new WP:USSTATION convention, as it tends to remove precision and leave titles more ambiguous, but if we are going to implement it we should pay attention to what it says about capitalizing Station only when it is part of the official station name. Guidebooks and official lists strongly support the idea that for all of these, station is not part of the official names (or if it is on some, nobody has found evidence to support that). The weak oppositions should not stop us from doing the work to get this right. The appearance of title-case signs and pylons is a complete red herring in trying to determine official station names. Dicklyon (talk) 04:59, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
What do you think of the idea proposed on the talk page there, of having articles at "X system station"? As I noted, it seems that "Greenbelt Metro(rail) station" addresses those issues and is what one would use without rail system context, and is therefore the "common name". The downside is what to do for shared stations if we don't want e.g. "New Carrollton Amtrak/MARC/Metro station". Jason McHuff (talk) 08:57, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I agree. That is where the naming convention should have been debated before stomping over all thse WMATA articles in bunches - then doing it again, and again in bits and pieces. First target should be Amtrak! Secondarywaltz (talk) 21:11, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It was indeed done there before these were moved, and the RM to move them proposed lowercase, but then things went off the rails and here we are still trying to fix it. Dicklyon (talk) 21:19, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose -- In fact, I can only support reverting to the previous naming convention of X (WMATA station), and this includes those that are shared by Amtrak, MARC, and Virginia Railway Express. -------User:DanTD (talk) 03:13, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, not many people care about the capitalization anyway. We should think about the hundreds or thousands of readers, not a consensus of a dozen editors. Epic Genius (talk) 22:50, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Let's get some more opinions on this matter before deciding. Maybe other editors will care, but I'm guessing that the vast majority of people will not blink an eye over the capitalization of something that can be considered as part of the name. Epic Genius (talk) 03:19, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. It is certain that the vast majority of editors will not care enough about the capitalization of "station" to comment here. But then one who doesn't care will show to say so. Always happens, doesn't it? Dicklyon (talk) 04:11, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, also per WP:NOTBROKEN. As far as WP:USSTATION goes, see WP:OTHERSTUFF. Seriously. A small number of people interested in minutia such as whether the S in station should be capitalized are the last ones who should be making such decisions. --В²C☎21:21, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As you well know, I care about title stability. Moves involving capitalization changes between two titles both meeting title policy equally are pointless and contrary to title stability. These proposals are disruptive. --В²C☎17:35, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If you actually care about article title stability, then this should be an important RM to you. The titles of these articles are currently not stable, hence the discussion. This is also setting precedent for the station naming guidelines, which in turn provide stability of other station article titles. --Scott Alter (talk) 21:09, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
They're not stable because people won't apply existing title policy in this area, including WP:TITLECHANGES (don't change titles there is a good reason). Change "Station" to "station" to comply with a new convention with dubious authority is not a good reason.
Oppose as proposed. If capitalize "Station" is not part of the proper name (I am neutral on this), then these are descriptive titles, and as descriptive titles, station is ambiguous. The titles should be made precise, as in Greenbelt railway station. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:14, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's a stupid and totally unnecessary convention, and contradicts policy. Adding the word "station" to the title even when it's not part of the station's common name? Ridiculous. That decision being so recent and involving so few editors means it should be taken with a grain of salt. --В²C☎17:37, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, if disambiguation is necessary. My objection is to the unqualified adding of "station" even when it's not part of the station's common name, even when there is no ambiguity. --В²C☎00:20, 7 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
So what should this article be titled? Greenbelt is the name of the station and Greenbelt is ambiguous. If you could call this article anything you wanted, what would it be? Most of the articles listed above in this RM are ambiguous if the word "station" were removed. Thus the guideline WP:USSTATION was created to provide conformity, precision, and natural disambiguation in the frequently required disambiguation. --Scott Alter (talk) 05:45, 7 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The current title is fine, and supported by usage in reliable sources like the Washington Post[2]. While Greenbelt alone is probably more commonly used, as you say that is ambiguous. This is a quintessential case of natural disambiguation. WP:USSTATION is misguided. Usage in reliable sources trumps anything a guideline like that says (and the guideline should be changed). --В²C☎16:02, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support—aside from all else, Wikiproject Railways has always downcased, so there are an awful lot of article titles thus. Why change now? Tony(talk) 13:09, 7 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I see an awful lot of WP:IDONTLIKEIT opposes above, but when it comes down to it, as Tony1 says, the proposed case matches longstanding convention for railway stations. See Banbury railway station, and London Waterloo station for example. The word "Station" is not part of the title, it is a descriptive noun. We could go to "Greenbelt (station)" I suppose, but the proposed title seems better per WP:NATURAL. — Amakuru (talk) 15:40, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well, then, they're both acceptable natural disambiguations. Here are some more for Greenbelt Station. [5][6]. I see nothing here that meets the WP:TITLECHANGES hurdle; no good reason to change from uppercase S to lowercase S. --В²C☎18:45, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at the history, you'll see that we're just trying to correct a stupid procedural mistake in an RM that was initiated as a first attempt to implement the new WP:USSTATION consensus guideline, but got derailed to the wrong case half way through. Fixing that bad precedent may not be among the typical reasons listed at WP:TITLECHANGES, but really ought to be fixed before it spreads. Please take a look. Dicklyon (talk) 05:51, 10 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
LOL. What a cluster. Okay, I understand your objection, especially given your predilection for lower case in titles. It's a legitimate reason to open the RM, I suppose. But it still amounts to deciding between titles that differ only in the case of letter - both of which have support in reliable source usage. So I think TITLECHANGES still indicates no change. If many of those that supported the original RM from parenthetic to natural disambiguation all indicated that they would not have supported that RM had the proposed move been to uppercase Station when they !voted, that would be different. But I see no evidence of such, not even from you. --В²C☎16:46, 10 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The WP:USSTATION guideline was written to take account of local differences: in some places, "Xxx Station" may prevail, while in others, "Xxx station" is used. In the previous RM, it was pointed out that in Washington, caps appear to be preferred, and we've seen nothing that seriously challenges that. This Google Books search suggests both are used and it seems to be a matter of publisher preference. This official list generally doesn't use "Station" in the names, but capitalizes it in "Union Station".--Cúchullaint/c13:21, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think your argument supports your stance. The previous RM just noted that the usage of station on signs was capitalized - not that it was the preferred usage for the entire system. There was no consensus and nothing seriously pointing out that "Xxx Station" is common local usage or the preferred usage, which is why this RM exists. You first Google search revealing that whether or not to capitalize is publisher preference suggests the official name likely does not include the word "Station." And regarding the official list, the reason "station" is included in "Union Station" is because station is part of the name in that one case, but is explicitly not mentioned in any of the others. "Union Station" is a proper name because the station is named for the railroad company (which is explicitly mentioned in WP:USSTATION for when to capitalize). The other stations are named based on their location/nearby landmarks, and do not include the word station. --Scott Alter (talk) 14:33, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The evidence I mention is from the proposal. The fact is, use on the stations themselves and in other official sources seems to prefer "Station", and third-party sources do not consistently de-capitalize. The previous RM did cover the capitalization issue; in fact it was originally a move to "Xxx station" but was updated when the signs on the actual stations were pointed out.--Cúchullaint/c14:44, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support this case adjustment per WP:USSTATION, or revert the previous moves of these articles the capitalized Station against the recent agreement. Editors above are not consistent in which would be preferable, but they mostly (except a few inexplicable "not broken" claims) agree that these titles either conflict with the recent naming guideline that they are trying to implement, or that they are not good names because that guideline was a bad idea. So we should either do this case correction in support of the guideline, or undo these recent controversial moves and go back to discussing what the guideline should be. Or both fix the case and then discuss the guideline. Simply doing nothing at this time will propagate confusion and uncertainty. 73.222.28.191 (talk) 20:49, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Because the above RM closed as "no consensus", can an admin please clean up the edits and move the articles from "XXX station" to "XXX Station"? Epic Genius (talk) 15:35, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]