Talk:Marsh Hall

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 to Marsh Hall (Yale University)  Ron h jones '''(Talk) 22:14, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Othniel C. Marsh Hall → —  Move article back to original name, which is the National Historic Landmark listing name and a common name for the place. An editor had moved it to Marsh Hall (which is now a disambiguation page) and i meant to move it back to the original name, but mistakenly wrote "Hall" rather than "House". It now requires an administrator to implement the move, and who knows, maybe there will be disagreement, hence this regular requested move discussion. doncram (talk) 17:48, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Also as part of this discussion, perhaps the currently asserted usage of "Marsh Hall" as an alternative name for this place should be supported in the article, or dropped entirely. A reference added does not work.  And even if there is some Yale building list showing this place as "Marsh Hall", that would not IMO establish common/best usage for an article name.  The building is nationally important and known nationally as Othniel C. Marsh House.  The National Historic Landmark name and usage at National Park Service webpages would trump a single local building inventory list, i believe.  If there is more extensive coverage available, an argument could be made for moving this to "Marsh Hall (Yale University)" or "Marsh Hall (New Haven, Connecticut)", but I would probably still prefer the "Othniel C. Marsh House" name with no parenthetical clarifiers needed. --doncram (talk) 17:57, 10 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose the proposed move to Othniel C. Marsh House, but Support a move to Marsh Hall (Yale University). Based on this article in "Antiques and the Arts", it has been known primarily as "Marsh Hall" for over 110 years. I've been in this building on several occasions, and although it is clear that it was Marsh's house at one time, it's primarily a university building now. Here's are four largely-unrelated Yale sources (from 1999, "now", 1921, and 2009, respectively) that give the name as "Marsh Hall": http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/99_03/old_yale.html and http://environment.yale.edu/about/Facilities/ and http://books.google.com/books?id=ZrnkAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA22&lpg=RA2-PA22&dq="marsh+hall"+yale and http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2009/jan/28/supervisors-seek-to-develop-publicize-secret/ . On the other hand, the current name is not appropriate: I searched Google for "othniel c. marsh hall" and got exactly four hits: this article and three related pages on Wikipedia. (A Google search on "othniel c. marsh house" gets a lot of hits that clearly are based on the National Register listing and National Historic Landmark listing. That name is valid, but it is NOT the primary name of the building.) --Orlady (talk) 18:57, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Why is the "(Yale University)" qualifier necessary? There are no other articles on WP using the name Marsh Hall, and if any are ever written, won't this one still probably be the primary topic? None of the other entries currently on the dab page are valid. Station1 (talk) 23:49, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, "Marsh Hall" gets quite a few google hits and the Yale University one does not seem prominent enough to be primaryusage. It's a nice but relatively minor building at Yale.  The 1895 built one at Pacific University mentioned in the Marsh Hall dab page, and linked from Pacific University and Forest Grove, Oregon articles, was the principal first building of that university.  I don't suppose many people know of any Marsh Hall, but I bet that less than a majority of those that do have the Yale one in mind.  Marsh Hall seems to be a name of several musicians and, well, youtube artists, not all notable.  But certainly the Yale building is not well known and some qualifier is needed if the article is moved from "Othniel C. Marsh House", which is simply a better name because it is distinctive and not generic and mushy. --doncram (talk) 00:31, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. Did you mean to say "generic and marshy"??? Regardless of what you meant, "Marsh Hall" has been the name of this building for 110 years, so that is the name that should be used here. The parenthetical "(Yale University)" would prevent it from being "generic" (i.e., it would disambiguate). --Orlady (talk) 02:16, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose move to the long name, which is no longer the current name. This is a Yale building and the official name used by Yale is Marsh Hall. This should be moved to that name as no other articles exist with that exact name. I will also not mind "Marsh Hall (Yale)" or some variant if there really is an ambiguity within current Wikipedia articles. --Polaron | Talk 02:03, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * There really is a need for disambiguation w/r/t "Marsh Hall." There is no basis for asserting that this "Marsh Hall" is the WP:primary topic for that name -- all university buildings with that name have to be considered to have roughly equal claims to the name. Furthermore, I have formed the impression that there may be a few people named "Marshall Hall" who use the nickname "Marsh". --Orlady (talk) 02:10, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That may be so, but there are not other Wikipedia that are claiming that exact name. If that were the case, it would not have been a red link. --Polaron | Talk 02:16, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The term Marsh Hall was indeed not used in Wikipedia when Polaron made the initial move. I created the disambiguation page after noting the move of the Othniel C. Marsh House article, which was not supported by any information then in the article.  There are multiple valid wikipedia topics for "Marsh Hall" however and that as a simple term is no longer available. --doncram (talk) 06:38, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose. I have to agree with Poloran & Orlady. I worked in New Haven for four years and it's referred to by locals and the UN and by Yale as Marsh Hall here: . Markvs88 (talk) 13:46, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The UN reference is not an independent source, it just mentions a meeting location and no doubt follows some current Yale University lead. The Yale directory references show that the building is currently named "Marsh Hall" by Yale.  We don't have to follow that;  the National Historic Landmark name is a national-level, historic, common name for the place.  It is looking like others want to use Marsh Hall with some disambiguating phrase i suppose.  But, please indicate something other than merely "Oppose".  The current article name is invalid;  it was a mistake.  I hope you don't support keeping it at the current name which is not supported by any source at all, AFAIK. --doncram (talk) 06:38, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This is a building which is still in use, not a landmark that serves no other purpose other than being historically significant. That Yale calls it Marsh Hall in and of itself is notable. I'm not against having Othniel C. Marsh House redirect to Marsh Hall of course. If you want media coverage, here is an NYT article: []. I'm opposing simply because it is not the name of the structure in use. The same way we don't refer to Cleveland as a city in the Western Reserve, which would also be accurate... historically speaking. Again, I have no problem mentioning the older name in the article and or/redirecting it to Marsh Hall. I would also support Marsh Hall (Yale University) as a name. Markvs88 (talk) 13:45, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I will concede that the apparent consensus here is to use the Marsh Hall name, and I guess in particular to use "Marsh Hall (Yale University)". However, I note that this seems like another instance of editor Polaron adding unsourced assertions to an article, and causing other editors unnecessary work, e.g. to go through this discussion, and for others to do research towards finding out facts, which P could have avoided by adding sources originally. From long experience, I perceive that P is often "right" about the unsourced assertions he makes, as is eventually borne out by others work, but he is also often enough wrong. I believe the best practice is to delete the unsourced assertions promptly. Unfortunately here it was not possible to simply undo the original move. Also, the original move to "Marsh Hall" was non-obvious, and in fact is not being accepted. It should be P's effort to create a requested move for any move that might be contentious. And, any move/rename of NRHP-listed places in Connecticut is, at this point, contentious. --doncram (talk) 17:58, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Doncram, you and Polaron have been going back and forth about each other's methods for quite awhile now, and have been simultaneously blocked for it. Yes, sometimes he is right or wrong, as we all are. I personally would love to see an end to the "infinite reversion" parties that have been running around the Wikiproject of late. As for the NRHP, it is a project like CT and therefore cannot be automatically contentious -- the NRHP has no more claim to an article than CT does. The NRHP's documentation is also obviously not authoritative as we've seen on several articles in the past. That's not to say that the NRHP is worthless or that you make bad edits -- it's to say that NRHP project is = CT project, not NRHP project is > CT project. IMO, we all should use the project page before making changes like merges, deletes, name changes et al. Markvs88 (talk) 18:18, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Doncram, I renamed the article to its current name, which was not in use by any Wikipedia article. I did not think this would be a problem as no other article is claiming this name. My rename was reverted and discussion has occurred. I don't like you insinuating that there is something bad with my actions. --Polaron | Talk 20:27, 13 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Move to Marsh Hall (1st choice) or to Othniel C. Marsh House (2nd choice). There is no other article on WP using the name Marsh Hall and since that is the most common name of the building, that should be the article title. Polaron's original move to that name was entirely correct. The current dab page is useless and should be deleted (1st choice) or moved to Marsh Hall (disambiguation) (2nd choice). If Marsh Hall is not acceptable, Othniel C. Marsh House is next best because it is a documented name in a reliable source, which should usually be preferred to a title made up by WP editors like Marsh Hall (Yale University). Actually the best solution would probably be to merge this article into Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Station1 (talk) 20:20, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: Marsh Hall (Yale University) is not a "made up name." "Marsh Hall" has been the name of the building for approximately the last 110 years, during which time the building has belonged to Yale University. The parenthetical "Yale University" would merely be a disambiguator -- one that should not be controversial since this building is indisputably part of Yale University. In contrast, Othniel C. Marsh House is a name that appears to exist only in the National Register of Historic Places listing. That name belongs in the article, but it should not be the article title because "Marsh Hall" is by far the most common name for the topic. Merger into Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies is not a particularly good solution because the building has an existence as a landmark that is independent of its association with the School. --Orlady (talk) 20:24, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. I think that Marsh Hall (Yale University) is the best solution. Markvs88 (talk) 20:32, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * We agree Marsh Hall is the name of the building and it belongs to Yale and that "(Yale University)" is merely a disambiguator, but parenthetical disambiguators are made up by editors (that is to say there is no source that I know of that refers to the building as "Marsh Hall (Yale University)") and in this case I think it is an unnecessary disambiguator because there is no other article using the title Marsh Hall. If, hypothetically, Marsh Hall needed to be disambiguated, one way would be use of a hatnote to another article(s) or to a dab page (preferred), a second way would be use of a different documented name as the title (next best, imo), and a third way would be use of a made-up parenthetical qualifier. I'm not saying "Yale University" would be a controversial qualifier, only that I generally prefer a documented name when available. As to the merger, the building does not seem to have had any existence that is not Yale-related. Station1 (talk) 20:46, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You are correct that this is the only "Marsh Hall" currently documented in Wikipedia, so there is no inherent need for disambiguation. However, another article is bound to be created sooner or later (already there are two Talk pages that link to Marsh Hall, referring to one of the other Marsh Halls), so sooner it later it will need to be disambiguated. More importantly, when it is possible to find a compromise solution that is sensible and will end an argument with Doncram, I figure it is wise to accept that solution, to avoid arguing forever. --Orlady (talk) 17:43, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Your crystal ball may or may not prove accurate. If you're right, and the other Marsh Hall is not a secondary topic, it will be a simple matter to move this article at that time. If you're wrong, however, this article could be at the unnecessarily disambiguated name for a very long time. In any case, we generally don't pre-emptively disambiguate article titles. Your last point is unassailable, but luckily for us (not necessarily for him/her), in this case some disinterested admin will come along and decide for us based on the merits. Whatever is decided, we'll then all move on. Station1 (talk) 18:40, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Or perhaps a better merger might be to Marsh Botanical Garden? Station1 (talk) 00:11, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If you'll excuse the odd humor, that would be a bit like merging an article about a dog into an article about the dog's tail. If anything, the article botanical garden (which is part of the building's grounds) should be merged to Marsh Hall. --Orlady (talk) 17:43, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I should have said "with" instead of "to" - sorry. Maybe merging under Marsh Hall and Botanical Garden would solve all our problems? Station1 (talk) 18:40, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, this is getting offtopic perhaps, about whether there are other articles named "Marsh Hall (plus anything)". Just to note, Station1 is a frequent disambiguation page editor.  He has an anti-consensus view about red-links on disambiguation pages in occasional discussions at the Disambiguation wikiproject and elsewhere.  It is explicitly okay in the disambiguation style guidelines, at MOS:DABRL, for there to be an article topic for Marsh Hall (Pacific University) (currently a redlink) in the Marsh Hall dab page.  Station1 opposes that, but it is the consensus.  Also it has been discussed explicitly at the WikiProject Disambiguation that redlink items may be equally or more important than bluelink ones, and that presumption otherwise, as Station1 is making here, is not justified from the blue vs. red status alone.  I made a brief case above, already, that the Yale place does not meet wp:primaryusage status for the name.  The name "Marsh Hall" is not special;  there are many places and people of this name, and the Yale place is not even unique among university usages from the 1800s.
 * I suggest this discussion be closed with move to "Marsh Hall (Yale University)", and Station1 can open a new requested move asserting the primaryusage, to which other disambiguation-focused editors can be invited to re-state the disambiguation practices and policy, if Station1 insists. --doncram (talk)
 * doncram, please do not make this personal. Please stick to a discussion about where this article should be moved to and why. WP:RM move discussions usually are open for at least seven days, or longer if discussion continues. An admin will come along in good time and close it, after which I have no intention of re-opening it. Station1 (talk) 21:15, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, it has been more than a week since this was opened. The article is currently at an invalid name, accidentally typed by me.  It needs to be moved to "Othniel C. Marsh House" (the original name, and which i prefer) or "Marsh House (Yale University)" which several others prefer, and which is acceptable to me.  To reconsider the general disambiguation policy regarding redlinks on dab pages such as the Marsh House one, is beyond what should be the narrower scope of this requested move discussion.  To consider whether this place itself is wp:primaryusage for the term "Marsh House" has already been discussed here somewhat (and I have given some reasons why i think this places is not).  I believe that further discussion of that, if someone wishes to raise it, would best be by a separate new requested move at Talk:Marsh House, to which editors focussed more on disambiguation issues like that could be invited (e.g. by notice at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation).  IMO, the current discussion, mostly among editors concerned more with Connecticut places, can be closed. --doncram (talk) 19:55, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Um, I don't think you intended to suggest that the article should be moved to "Marsh House (Yale University", since no one has ever suggested that "Marsh House" would be an appropriate name. I think you meant to say "Marsh Hall (Yale University". --Orlady (talk) 02:10, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, per Orlady's correction, i meant Marsh Hall (Yale University}. Thanks. --06:38, 19 September 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.