Talk:Main Development Region

Requested move 11 July 2024

 * 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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved to Main Development Region. I considered the point about lowercase and moving to Main development region (which has been created as a redirect) but decided against it based on the lack of explicit support. Also, since there doesn't seem to be an objection, it probably wouldn't be controversial if someone chooses to move it to the lowercase title. (closed by non-admin page mover) Ae245 (talk) 04:04, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Hurricane Alley → Main Development Region – Per WP:COMMONNAME. On Google Scholar, "Main Development Region" yields over 1,600 results and "MDR hurricane" yields over 4,500 reults; "Hurricane Alley" yields over 500 results,, with many not even pertaining to Atlantic hurricanes. Google trends is less clear, "Hurricane Alley" wins over "Main Development Region", but "MDR" bests both by far; "MDR" however can refer to many things. Nevertheless, that "MDR" or "Main Development Region" is overwhelmingly preferred in literature, NHC products, and our own articles—35 items link to Main Development Region, whilst only 5 link to Hurricane Alley excluding redirects and non-mainspace pages—leads me to believe this article should be moved accordingly. ArkHyena (talk) 01:54, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Comment: It does not seem very clear that the suggested title has something to do with hurricanes. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:34, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Support Personally, I have never seen Hurricane Alley used. As it is a region, I don't think that User:BarrelProof's holds a lot of weight. ✶Qux  yz  ✶  02:44, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Support Unlike tornado alley which is referred to by a large number of people, hurricane alley is practically never used. The first thing that comes up when you search main development region is the Atlantic and most links are about such information. Same cant be said with hurricane alley... This suggests that main development region is a much more plausible title than hurricane alley. Noah, BSBATalk 02:57, 11 July 2024 (UTC)


 * WP:Lowercase. The Google scholar results above and Ngrams (and Noah's comment) show mixed case usage. When usage is mixed, Wikipedia prefers lowercase. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 03:12, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Support per above -- ZZZ'S 08:32, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Support – number one, as per other editors, way more publications call this the “Main Development Region” rather than “Hurricane Alley”. And number two, as per Hurricane Noah, the term “Hurricane Alley” is almost never used, unlike “Tornado Alley” and “Dixie Alley” (both of which are synonymous with tornadoes) which is used all the time. Bottom line, it seems better to move the article and keep “Hurricane Alley” as a redirect. West Virginia WXeditor (talk) 15:38, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Support but not capped: Main development region. Dicklyon (talk) 17:19, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * This article should either be merged with tropical cyclogenesis, tropical cyclone basins or expanded to include all of the tropical cyclone main development regions.Jason Rees (talk) 14:24, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed, perhaps merge it with Atlantic hurricane, and change the "Steering factor" to "Formation and steering"? Much of the information in this article is redundant with tropical cyclogenesis, and isn't specific to this part of the world.♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 21:26, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm unsure if it should be merged, as a quick search on Google Scholar brings up some sources that appear to focus on the MDR specifically and its conditions for TCG (e.g.   ). However, a later merge discussion could be warranted to see what others think. ArkHyena (talk) 01:07, 17 July 2024 (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.
 * Strong support - As a meteorology major, main development region is the term used by nearly all reliable sources in and out of the field. Jdcomix (talk) 02:37, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 18 July 2024
Main Development Region → Main development region – Using sentence case was suggested by at least two people in the recently closed RM, and three more people used sentence case in their comments. No one explicitly objected to using sentence case, but that question was not discussed very extensively. This new RM is to explicitly consider the capitalization. The Google scholar results above and Ngrams show mixed case usage. When usage is mixed, Wikipedia prefers lowercase. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 13:53, 18 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Support - MOS generally agrees that there shouldn't be all caps in article titles unless it's describing a proper noun. Jdcomix (talk) 15:20, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * "Main Development Region" is a proper noun in meteorology because it's a specific term for a geographic area. ZZZ'S 15:28, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * This reminds me of the argument "Men's Singles is a proper noun in tennis because that's what they call it". No, just because some specialists cap it, that doesn't mean it's a proper noun. Dicklyon (talk) 04:55, 20 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Support per nom, not universally capitalised.  Dank Jae  15:22, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose: Sources, official and otherwise, capitalize all three words in the term "Main Development Region". climate,gov|gfdl.noaa.gov|X@MichaelRLowry|scholarship.miami.edu – Drdpw (talk) 18:59, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose "Main Development Region" is a proper noun, so all three words should be capitalized. In addition, the sources provided by Drdpw show that official weather companies use the capitalized title. The Ngrams also indicate that the capitalized title is on track to surpass the proposed title. -- ZZZ'S 19:09, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Drdpw and ZZzs, this is a proper name of a geographical area. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:10, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Support, as most sources don't cap it, per book stats, even as far back as the 1950s and 1960s and continuing in the 21st century. It's very hard to see why several editors are asserting that it's a proper name, given all this usage data that readily available to the casual observer. Dicklyon (talk) 04:27, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
 * And more on usage. Consider the examples given above by Drdpw that the others are relying on:
 * climate,gov Uses"main development region" lowercase 5 times in sentences, and caps it the first time only, for emphasis of definition.
 * gfdl.noaa.gov only uses the capped term in defining the acronym, as Main Development Region (MDR), a common style that does not imply that they think it's a proper name.
 * X@MichaelRLowry is a tweet, not an RS.
 * scholarship.miami.edu The accessible abstract only has the term capped in defining the acronym, Main Development Region (MDR), like the noaa source. The title includes "the North Atlantic Main Development Region", suggesting that they don't think "Main Development Region" is a name.
 * Other scholarly papers use a variety of ways of referring to it, e.g. as "the Atlantic Hurricane Basin’s main development region", and the main development region of the North Atlantic. The term is very obviously descriptive, not proper.
 * In light of the faulty or misrepresented sources you relied on, you probably should reconsider why you are opposing here. Dicklyon (talk) 04:43, 20 July 2024 (UTC)