Talk:University of British Columbia Okanagan/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Requested move

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.

The result of the move request was: no move. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 22:42, 8 October 2010 (UTC)



UBC OkanaganUniversity of British Columbia Okanagan — Using abbreviation for the title does not follow Wikipedia's naming convention and Manual of Style. Relisted. Arbitrarily0 (talk) 15:37, 29 September 2010 (UTC) 206.87.8.163 (talk) 02:25, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

  • Comment I used to live in Kelowna, where I always heard it called UBC Okanagan. However, in reference to the IP's comment above, I have never seen commas or dashes used in the campus's name, so I would think University of British Columbia Okanagan would be a better page title if it would have to be moved.Bcperson89 (talk) 17:16, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
    Per WP:COMMONNAME, we should use the name most commonly used (ie, "I always heard it called UBC Okanagan") "instead of a more elaborate, formal, or scientific alternative." -M.Nelson (talk) 22:49, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
WP:COMMONNAME suggests using common names, but unlike the examples given on that particular section, both UBC Okanagan and University of British Columbia Okanagan is known to the public. --206.87.13.148 (talk) 08:06, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. While the official name is "University of British Columbia's Okanagan Campus" (or is it "UBC's Okanagan Campus"? or is there no punctuation?), the WP:COMMONNAME is certainly "UBC Okanagan"; Google search etc can prove that. The avoid abbreviations policy cited by OP says that acronyms are "generally avoided", with an exception for COMMONNAME ("unless the subject is almost exclusively known by its abbreviation"), which I think is the case here. -M.Nelson (talk) 22:49, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Comment:I would agree with that logic if the main University of British Columbia article were at UBC as well, but it isn't. Many universities in Canada are commonly referred to by their acronyms, but the article titles are at the full names (for an example of a satellite campus, the common name of University of Toronto Scarborough is certainly "UofT Scarborough", but that's not the article title). I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the proposition that the article remain at the acronym name, but I just think we need to be consistent. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 12:51, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm not all that familiar with U of T Scarborough, so that comparison doesn't do too much for me, but if that's the standard then I agree we should be consistent. I've found that when comparing UBC Okanagan to UofT/University of Toronto or UBC/University of British Columbia, "UBC Okanagan" seems to be used in much more of an official capacity than the other acronyms (not sure if that is the case with Scarborough or not). -M.Nelson (talk) 15:23, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
That would have to be the distinction we'd make, I suppose. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:39, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
Of course Google and other search engines will return more results for UBC Okanagan than University of British Columbia Okanagan. Shorter query means higher probability of the matching results. Google test is not a valid proof when the lengths of two queries are significantly different. --206.87.13.148 (talk) 08:22, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
Comment: Universities in British Columbia tend to use unofficial abbreviated names on their official publications. M.Nelson said that Google returned more results for UBC Okanagan than its official name, but the same thing happens to Simon Fraser University (the 2nd largest university in Metro Vancouver). Simon Fraser University is commonly referred as "SFU", and SFU is used everywhere including the title for its official website[1], their publications, bus destination signs and many more. If you go to Google and search for "SFU", it returns 9,660,000 results, while searching the official name, "Simon Fraser University" only returns 1,210,000 results. Despite the number of results Google returned, I would certainly disagree using "SFU" as the title for Wikipedia article as it certainly does not follow rules for WP:ABBR and WP:DEFINITE. I do not think WP:COMMONNAME applies as the subject has to be almost exclusively known by its abbreviation. Indeed, Google returned almost eight times more results for unofficial name than its official names, but people who knows SFU understand that it is abbreviation of Simon Fraser University. I believe the same logic can be applied to UBC Okanagan. People know UBC Okanagan stands for University of British Columbia Okanagan (Indeed it is long, eh?) and vice versa, unlike Laser, where most people don't know it's original name (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation thx Wikipedia). If this logic does not apply to this article then, shouldn't Simon Fraser University be renamed to SFU, University of British Columbia to be UBC and University of California, Los Angeles to be UCLA or UC Los Angeles. It is just not consistent to have UBC Okanagan as the title. --96.50.151.38 (talk) 03:35, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Comment: The reason for the move request is not based on OTHERSTUFF, but based on WP:DEFINITE and WP:ABBR. I believe OTHERSTUFF can be applied to my comment above, but does not make sense towards the move request itself. --96.50.151.38 (talk) 04:54, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
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.

Let's actually discuss what the article title should be and stop moving it incessantly

ABCDE22 has moved this page at least 3 times in the last 36 hours. That needs to stop. We should discuss where it should reside here. At least two points spring to mind: first, "The" (as in "The University of BC") should not be in the article title. Second, "campus" should not be capitalized as it's not a proper noun. We should also try to stay away from parenthetical disambiguation if we can. Currently I'm favouring University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus but University of British Columbia, Okanagan might work too (which follows the format Berkeley uses at University of California, Berkeley). U of T also just drops the comma and uses University of Toronto Scarborough (and the same for Mississauga). It's worth noting it's called "Okanagan campus" at the official website and also at https://www.ubc.ca/our-campuses/, which would make for University of British Columbia Okanagan.

So... thoughts? —Joeyconnick (talk) 19:45, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

  • I am sorry that I have changed this page title for so many time. I am really confused. Maybe "University of British Columbia Okanagan" is the right choice.ABCDE22 (talk)