Talk:Rostock Hauptbahnhof

Importance assessment logic
Category 2 station - one of about 60 in Germany. These are either important junctions for long-distance traffic or offer connections to large airports.

Central stations start at Calais
Extensive discussions on other Hauptbahnhof pages produced strong support for following wp:commonname, wp:reliablesource and wp:useenglish (which is about following English usage, not about avoiding foreign names) for the name of a Hauptbahnhof (literally "main station") - rather than trying to devise our own name or hoping to influence usage towards what some people might think the poor benighted people on the wrong side of Dover should have called their main stations. So Rostock Hauptbahnhof is good enough, with no need for any "Rostock Central" (which isn't even a helpful translation of Hbf).

If I ask the DB journey planner for Rostock Central, it thinks I mean "Rostock, Cafe Central (Gastronomie)". The European Rail Timetable (March 2014 edition) only knows a Rostock Hbf. As has been found in endless discussions on other Hauptbahnhof articles, simply searching Google for "Foo Central station" as proof that people use that name for any given Hauptbahnhof is useless, because of the poor quality of results: copies of Wikipedia credited or otherwise, hopelessly outdated nineteenth century sources, references to things like power stations (Berlin), or to completely different stations (Hamburg), or just bad translations from German (perhaps influenced by Wikipedia). If at some point in the future reliable English-language sources start calling the current station "Central", then we should consider starting to use that name. Until then I believe we should stick to the normal name, with no mistranslation. Wheeltapper (talk) 22:18, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I saw no evidence for "strong suport" for "Hauptbahnhof" in previous discussions. I saw your endless repetitions of the the same thread-bare arguments, which 1 or 2 other editors finally gave some degree of support to.--Grahame (talk) 01:06, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * @Wheeltapper. I am not looking to change the article name - that debate was decided a while back. However, it is only reasonable to cite the leading English version of the name which is used by numerous travel and business websites e.g. Googlehits gives: Rostock Central Station: 151,000 hits; Rostock Main Station: 24,400 hits; Rostock Hauptbahnhof: 19,900 hits - hilarious when you think that includes all German sites!
 * To include common English alternative names in the lede is standard Wiki practice and to delete it is to fly in the face of reality. I will reinsert it - please do not delete it again. --Bermicourt (talk) 07:36, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I've done some wp:reliablesource digging in Google Books (which hopefully avoids the Wikipedia article copies, forum postings and endless variations of hotel booking SEO'd pages etc which have made raw Google hit counts so useless as data when discussing Berlin, Karlruhe etc Hauptbahnhofs). Of the three wp:useenglish English-language references to "Rostock Central station", one is copy of Wikipedia articles, one is a novel which mentions "Rostock's central station" (and is set in the early 20th century, possibly when that was the actual name?), and one is a 1999 German to English translation of how to get to the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften (which uses Hauptbahnhof as well!). In English, Hbf is used by Rough Guides, Lonely Planet, German Architecture for a Mass Audience, Northern European Cruise Ports, two novels, Europe on a Shoestring... (plus obviously the usual suspects like the European Rail Timetable etc). Wheeltapper (talk) 09:27, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it would be best for the article if Bermicourt were to discuss any referenced information he wants deleting here, rather than simply take it out of the article; also keeping in mind wp:reliablesource and WP:OWN. The claim that there is "no need for refs" is contrary to normal Wikipedia guidelines; while I will assume good faith, it is hard to avoid suspecting that the references aren't wanted because they make clear that English-speaking reliable sources support the normal name, not a mistranslation. Wheeltapper (talk) 15:57, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * That sounds pious, but is in fact misleading. It is unusual to reference the name(s) of the article in the lede and we certainly don't need them for the German name of this station or the least used English alternative (Rostock Main Station), both of which I am content with. And not only is there dictionary proof that "central station" is a valid translation of Hbf, as I have told you before, but your repeated removal of Rostock Central Station from the lede when it is the most WP:COMMONNAME by far and also compliant with WP:ENGLISH is clearly wrong and looks a little like WP:POV pushing. Bermicourt (talk) 19:50, 30 July 2014 (UTC)


 * WP:English is about using the wp:commonname that wp:reliablesources use, not about creating "English" names for things. You seem to be quite passionate in your belief that German stations ought to be called "Central" rather than Hauptbahnhof, but Wikipedia follows reliable sources. The Hauptbahnhof issue has surely been done to death over on the Kaiserslautern Hauptbahnhof and Zürich Hauptbahnhof (plus Praha hlavní nádraží etc) pages. Simply wishing that people would used the mistranslation "Central station" doesn't make it happen (unless it gets into Wikipedia, and people copy Wikipedia text onto other websites, which are then cited as sources for the Wikipedia article!), as my Google Books figures above showed. I'll try some newspaper archives, but I'm not optimistic a relatively obscure station will have got much coverage in English. Wheeltapper (talk) 16:32, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
 * All that The Times can offer is "The railway station at Rostock ..." in an April 1942 article about some Britons making an, erm, flying visit. Wheeltapper (talk) 20:24, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
 * No, actually English WikiPedia uses English names. It uses Frankfurt Airport not Flughafen Frankfurt am Main and I very strongly object to use of arguments claiming that WP policy on reliable sources has anything to do with Wikipedia style issues.--Grahame (talk) 01:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)


 * The articles about German Railway, September Festival, Badger Dog and The Lightning don't use English names.
 * From anecdotal evidence and without detailed checking, I would say Frankfurt airport is (probably) the common name in English; in fact, the official website uses it as the URL, logo and in the legal text, even on the pages auf Deutsch. But with stations, English usually uses the real name (see references above) - outside Wikipedia, the use of "Central Station" instead of the real name (or the direct translation) seems to be mostly limited to some English (mis)translations done by Germans, and Wikipedia articles and their derivatives. Anyway, it's a nice day, so I'm off out for a Storage. Wheeltapper (talk) 15:47, 1 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I've cited dozens of articles that show "Foo Central Station" and "Foo central station" are common practice; indeed online often the most common name by far, even if we don't eliminate German-language sites which of course use the native name, but aren't relevant here. You just choose to ignore all that and keep referring to a legitimate translation - which I've referenced - as a "mistranslation" and the native name as this thing called the "real name" which AFAIK isn't used by WP:MOS. I'm happy to weigh the evidence and accept that English sources use both terms, but you appear unable to acknowledge "central station" even exists. If you just don't like the term and want to eliminate it from Wikipedia, why not be honest and say so.

Bermicourt (talk) 16:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)


 * You haven't given any cites, all you've done is pointed out that the words "central station" appear in some Google search results (in other articles, some of these have turned out to be talking about different stations, or things like power stations, or describing the station's location). I've tried to follow what English language reliable sources such as DB and books use, which appears to be the real name. It is hard to see who benefits from using a misleading mistranslation rather that just using the normal name; amusingly, one of the sources which has been tolerated explicitly says that the station is not central! Wheeltapper (talk) 14:59, 2 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Very few native English speakers would use the phrase Hauptbahnhof except when showing off their esoteric knowledge. I would prefer just Rostock station, followed by Rostock main station, Rostock central station (which incoporates a reasonable translation of the German phrase), Rostock Hauptbahnhof station and finally Rostock Hauptbahnhof. The style used in railway magazines is up to them, it is irrelevant to Wikipedia, which has its own style rules (as I have said before).--Grahame (talk) 02:25, 2 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Few native English speakers will have cause to discuss German railway stations very often, but when they do they tend to use Hauptbahnhof, just as they use Termini or Union or New Street or whatever. DB's website offers 11 Rostock (something)s, so "Rostock station" would be ambiguous. Where are these style rules documented, please? Are there any stations other than the Hauptbahnhofs where Wikipedia has an (alleged) policy of developing its own name rather than following common English usage (eg should we be getting instances of Lime Street changed to Central to follow these rules)? Wheeltapper (talk) 14:59, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Name change
Does anyone have a reliable source for the dates of the changes of name? It is given variously as 1894 or 1896 for the change to Central-Bahnhof, with the date of the change to Hauptbahnhof being the slightly vague "turn of the 20th century". Wheeltapper (talk) 09:27, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
 * This information which is a translation of the German article clearly states 1896 for change to Central-Bahnhof.--Grahame (talk) 08:08, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Which information? Is a Wikipedia article considered a reliable source for another Wikipedia article - the German version isn't explicitly sourced. Wheeltapper (talk) 15:53, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The Germans quote general sources (in this case "Lothar Schultz (2010). Die Lloydbahn, Neustrelitz–Rostock–Warnemünde (in German). Berlin: Verlag Bernd Neddermeyer. pp. 70–75 and 133–145. ISBN 978-3-941712-08-9.", which is to be taken as the source, this was also usual when I was at University.--Grahame (talk) 02:29, 2 August 2014 (UTC)