Talk:Batavia

Batavia belongs here
I believe that Batavia needs to link directly to a dab page, not to History of Jakarta, as it does presently. Now this is what I see:
 * A great many of the links for Batavia--perhaps even a majority of them--do, indeed, refer to the colonial name of Jakarta.
 * However, redirect decisions are not made based upon the number of links, but rather, on the principle of least astonishment. So the question is, what does the average person expect to see when he types in "Batavia"?
 * 99% of the current world's population was not born when Jakarta went by the name "Batavia". So it is not, in my opinion, fair to presume that the colonial capital is what most people are looking for.

Yes, as I said, a lot of links have been created to go to History of Jakarta, but those links were created by people who have an interest in Indonesian history. But someone interested in just Roman history--and there will be a lot of those, may be thinking about this. Someone interested in American history may be looking for this (or even this). And it's not just about those with an interest in history. Someone interested in particle physics is quite possibly looking for this. Heck, look at this user page. Do you think she means Jakarta?

I would suggest that there are thousands more people who, when they think of Batavia, think of one of these other uses. So I decided, a few weeks back, to look at views, and I found the following views in January 2011 for the following Batavias:
 * Batavian Republic had 8513 views (actually used December 2010 figures, since it got 17,500 views when it was listed on the Main Page in "On this day" for January 19, 2011).
 * Batavia_(ship) had 7677 views.
 * Batavia_(city),_New_York had 4073 views.
 * History of Jakarta had 3132 views.
 * Batavia, Illinois had 2731 views.
 * Batavia_(town),_New_York had 386 views.
 * Batavia, Suriname had 167 views.
 * Batavia,_Iowa had 166 views.

Note that, even with over 350 pages containing redirects from Batavia to History of Jakarta, and another 100+ pages redirecting there via Batavia, Dutch East Indies, that it was still only #4 in views. My point is that it is probably a somewhat insular community of people who share an interest in Indonesia history who think the that natural thing is to make the default link from Batavia go to History of Jakarta, or for that matter, anything related to that town. In other words, there are over 500 articles linking to History of Jakarta (including some that actually do not intend to link there), and it still lags far behind the leading article in views.

Looks like a case of boldness is called for. HuskyHuskie (talk) 20:05, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I think it is a good idea to link to the disembarkation page of Batavia instead. --Shorty23sin (talk) 09:46, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I second the motion. Peter Horn User talk 16:11, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

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: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:46, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Batavia (disambiguation) → Batavia — Batavia formerly redirected to History of Jakarta, but for reasons I have explained at length here at Talk:Batavia (disambiguation), this is non-reflective of likely reader expectations. I have already taken the step of changing (essentially, "pre-disambiguating") all of the articles that had the intent of going to History of Jakarta in anticipation of this move so as to negate any disruption. The few articles that remain linked directly to Batavia are now going to Batavia (disambiguation), and I intend to fix these after this move is completed. I cannot complete the move myself because Batavia is a pre-existing title, and I am given to understanding that one needs the mop to do this. HuskyHuskie (talk) 21:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Survey

 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.


 * Support; I don't think any one use is primary. Powers T 21:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support; very well-organised disambiguation page so far, gives a good overview too. Trigaranus (talk) 23:38, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support; I love disambiguous pages. However, I humoursly note that the History of Jakarta is not on the disambiguous page Dkriegls (talk) 01:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Should redirect to Jakarta. By far the most common use of the word Batavia, whether most readers were not born when it had that name or not. It's certainly what I'd immediately think of if I heard the name, and I was born long after it had become Jakarta. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:58, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Question:. It was the assumption that the most common use was for colonial Jakarta that led to the former redirect to History of Jakarta. I have presented significant evidence above why I believe that assumption is incorrect.  On what basis do you base your belief that most readers are thinking of the city in Indonesia? HuskyHuskie (talk) 04:31, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Support; Before, during and after World War II, Indonesia was also refered to as Batavia. I wonder how many people today refer to Indonesia as Batavia. Going back further in history, how many people refer to The Netherlands using the Roman name which is also Batavia. Thank you-RFD (talk) 12:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Indonesia was never referred to as Batavia. Jakarta was. While we all get things wrong, at least get the very basic facts correct before you post your recommendation. --Merbabu (talk) 21:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Support. Batavia should be a dab page. I didn't realize that it redirected to History of Jakarta in the past. Being from Illinois, I usually associate the word with the city in Illinois. As your example above showed, I'm not the only one who made that assumption. Being a dab page will allow us dab cleaner-uppers to associate the backlinks with the right Batavia. --Funandtrvl (talk) 18:07, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. Substantial divergent uses with varying localized primaries. People who live by or near one of the many towns by this name may be completely unaware that it ever referred to a country. bd2412  T 21:38, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Best as a dab. walk victor falktalk 19:50, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Discussion
For the Jakarta Indonesia context, I’d recommend those links going straight to Jakarta rather than History of Jakarta which seems a little naff. Alternatively, and possibly better, what about a little definitional article just on Batavia in the Indonesian context? Just a sentence or two. Ie, in the same vein as Kalimantan which is really a definitional and navigational article. The article on Kalimantan provinces and the island of Borneo are always going to be bigger, in the same way as Jakarta and History of Jakarta will always be bigger. Whatever way it's difficult/clumsy - the disambig is so long, one has to read through a lot of info. And linking to "Jakarta" or "History of Jakarta" is also clumsy as one has to read through a bit of info before there's any definition of the word. --Merbabu (talk) 23:01, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Could this short little article be at Batavia, Dutch East Indies? Currently that goes to History of Jakarta, but it might be put to better use as this mini-article clarifying the history of the city's name, along with a link to both Jakarta and History of Jakarta. HuskyHuskie (talk) 23:26, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * IMO the common name Batavia should be redirect to Batavia (disambiguation). The elements of the article History of Jakarta probably better to be inserted into Jakarta article or let it be instead. Batavia, Dutch East Indies deserve to be treated as a single article concerning the certain period of the city history; after Jayakarta prior to Jakarta (the administration capital of VOC and Dutch East Indies). Although Batavia is the same as Jakarta, actually both has distinct historical nouance, the name Batavia has always been strongly associated with colonial history. (Gunkarta (talk) 15:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC))
 * A "Foo" title can not redirect to a "Foo (disambiguation)" title (see WikiProject Disambiguation/Malplaced disambiguation pages); the correct solution would be to move Batavia (disambiguation) to Batavia, leaving Batavia (disambiguation) as a redirect to which intentional links to the disambiguation page can be piped, as required by WP:INTDABLINK. bd2412  T 21:36, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I think what seems oddest about redirecting Batavia to Jakarta or History of Jakarta is that it's difficult to see anyone who knows enough about history to search for "Batavia" actually expecting to find an article about Jakarta at that name. If they want to read about Jakarta, wouldn't they just search for that? Powers T 16:11, 15 February 2011 (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.

Notification
I used this tool to locate the editors who have worked on ALL the articles that link to this dab page. I then left the following message on the top three editors (in terms of edit counts), with the exceptions of anon IP editors, blocked editors, and editors who, despite being one of the top three editors, had only a single edit to the article. If anyone finds this posting to be non-neutral, let me know, but frankly, I don't see how much more neutral I could have made it:

Opportunity to comment on Batavia

''There is a discussion starting up at Talk:Batavia (disambiguation), that may be of interest to you. The subject is technically a page move discussion, but the purpose of the discussion is to decide where Batavia should redirect. Until earlier today, Batavia redirected to History of Jakarta, but during this discussion, it is redirecting to Batavia (disambiguation). Your comments and suggestions are welcome. ''

''Thanks for your help. HuskyHuskie (talk) 22:51, 14 February 2011 (UTC) ''

Again, let me know if there are any issues. HuskyHuskie (talk) 22:51, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * FYI- Someone forgot to redirect Talk:Batavia to this talk page. It was still pointing to Talk:History of Jakarta. Don't forget to update that too when this is moved again. --Funandtrvl (talk) 18:15, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Since I live not far from Batavia, NY, which refers to both a town and a city, both named after the Dutch colony, I think of them first when I see 'Batavia.' Clearly, the many possible choices should prohibit Batavia from redirecting just to an Indonesia page. Stepp-Wulf (talk) 05:16, 27 April 2011 (UTC).