Talk:St Peter's Square tram stop

Scope
Is this article about the tram stop - which is what the title implies - or about the area of ground that the tram stop is named after? At the moment it just looks messy, particularly since some extra images have been added, seemingly selected at random. I've eliminated the gallery (one image was fair-use, and you can't put those in a gallery; the others can all be accessed via ) and tidied up the other images, but it's still not right. -- Red rose64 (talk) 13:01, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * (posting in response to a message on WT:GM) I'm surprised each stop has its own article. Certainly I wouldn't call it a station, its just an unmanned raised platform outside the library. To me, a significant proportion of the stops are more akin to bus stops than train stations e.g. this one, Shudehill, Exchange Quay. To write a worthwhile standalone article on one of these without veering off-topic would be nigh-on impossible. I notice that St Peter's Square, Manchester redirects here, to me that is the wrong way around. If the article were about St Peter's Square with a section on the tram stop, there would be no issue. Oldelpaso (talk) 13:30, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Seems clear to me that it should be about the tram stop, not the surrounding area, unless the surrounding area in some way impacts on the usage of the stop, which I don't see that it does. I agree that this looks messy as it is, and most of the material – and especially the images – ought to be removed. Like Oldelpaso, I somewhat question whether regular tram stops are sufficiently notable to warrant their own articles anyway. Malleus Fatuorum 13:33, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed - the tram stop is hardly notable. I would favour renaming the article St Peter's Square, Manchester unless someone can make a case for the notability of the tram stop. Richerman (talk) 13:41, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd be in favour of that renaming too. Malleus Fatuorum 13:43, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * In which case I'd like to invite the opinion of WP:UKTrams/WP:UKRAIL. -- Red rose64 (talk) 16:34, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Every stop or station on the Pittsburgh Light Rail has it's own article. Supertram (Sheffield) and Nottingham Express Transit seems to be set up to have an article per stop but not all have been written. Scillystuff (talk) 18:03, 12 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I think it is an question of focus. The example article filled a gap- and the content is the content of an article on St Peter's Square, with a bit on the Tram- haltstelle tacked onto the bottom. If an article is written on St Peter's Square, then a lot of he background information moves over there, and this article can be rewrittten to explain the design and construction difficulties of integratng the haltstelle into this iconic location. This does lead to the conclusion that each of the haltstellen on the Metrolink will need to be examined and if no article has been written on the location, that needs to be written before a Haltstelle article is penned. --ClemRutter (talk) 19:28, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * There were seperate pages, looks like at some point (2007 by the looks of it) someone merged them. St Peters square is notable in itself with a large amount of histry and civic importance and a seperate page should be reinstated, this article should be pruned of the superflous content. It is UKTrams policy that every station is notable, though some particularly those which were not previously national rail stations with associated centuries of history or which havent opened yet are stubs. There is however some influence of the square in the development of this stop, for evidence see in particular 2CC consultation. --WatcherZero (talk) 19:37, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd find it hard to accept that tram stops shouldn't all have an article - things would seem a little random if some stops did, and some didn't have articles. I'd suggest the articles are de-merged, with one about the Square itself (of course mentioning the presence of the stop itself and linking to the second article) and one about the tram stop (linking back to the article about the Square). jdan (talk) 22:22, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Is there any coverage of the tram stop (as opposed to the line as a whole) in third party sources? We currently have one reference relating to transport, and while the referencing of a 1971 local transport authority document shows admirable resourcefulness, it is not independent of the subject. In other words, is there any prospect of a tram-specific article being anything more than a permastub? A quick Google shows that publications such as Tramways & Urban Transit exist, but how much coverage would there be for a single routine stop? Oldelpaso (talk) 21:27, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * To add to what Oldelpaso says, I'm struggling to see the difference between a tram stop and a bus stop. Malleus Fatuorum 22:36, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd say they are a lot rarer, and usually much more of a significant installation (platform, shelters, ticket machines,etc) than a bus stop? jdan (talk) 23:12, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * A quick search for me of just this stops name found 5.57m hits --WatcherZero (talk) 23:23, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, but what makes them notable under wp:notability? Richerman (talk) 23:24, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Significant press coverage, Local, National, and International, high everyday use (hundreds of thousands of passengers per year), Previously established policy that all National rail stations, Underground stations, Bus stations, etc are notable, even rail stations which have less than a hundred passengers a year have their own articles according to wiki policy. Unless you want to open a Portal:UK_Railways debate on whether rail stations should be deleted? --WatcherZero (talk) 23:58, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Notability_(Railway_lines_and_stations)'When considering reliable sources, the audience must be considered per WP:CORPDEPTH. Evidence of attention by international or national, or at least regional, media is a strong indication of notability' WatcherZero (talk) 00:05, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it's a stretch to compare a regular tram stop to a railway station. Sure, many tram stops were previously railway stations, but many are just bus stops. Malleus Fatuorum 00:16, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * By definition if the train stops nearly every time its a station, if only a few services in the schedule stop, or its by request/theres passengers on the platform then its a halt/stop. The old Blackpool tram stops were indeed stops, it only stopped if a passenger wanted to get off or there were people waiting else it carried on, however with the exception of the Queens Road Staff Halt (which is a request stop) a tram will stop and rest at signals at every single station. --WatcherZero (talk) 00:32, 14 June 2011 (UTC)


 * That's an interesting distinction. So is the argument that every scheduled stop is worth an article but not those where the passenger has to request a stop? From an earlier comment I had the impression that it was about infrastructure like ticket machines and so on. Malleus Fatuorum 00:37, 14 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Incredible! Because I ask what's notable about a tram stop you suggest that I'm proposing the deletion of all articles about railway stations. Then, as evidence for the stop's notability you give three newspaper articles about the new tram line, none of which say anything about the stop itself. Clearly the tram line is notable but that doesn't confer notability to everywhere the trams stop. Having looked at a few of the articles about stops on the Pittsburgh Light Rail system, which is given as an example above, I see that someone has created dozens of stubs that will never develop into anything more as there is nothing much more to say. As for the articles on the metrolink stops and stations, they are somewhat lacking in consistency, with odd ones giving a bit of history of the line and others not doing. I think an article on each line with its history and a list of stations with columns for the facilities they provide would be a lot more sensible. Any notable stations could then have an article of their own. That way it would be a lot simpler to keep the information up to date - although why anyone thinks that people would would look in wikipedia for information on stops when they can get more up to date information from the company's own website, is a mystery to me and seems to be a good example of what wikipedia is not. However, I'm sure that Portal:UK_Railways would see it differently. I would also point out that Notability (Railway lines and stations) that you mention above (which is an essay, not a policy) says:

It may be considered that if enough attributable information exists about a station or railway line to write a full and comprehensive article about it, it may make sense for the subject to have its own article. If some source material is available, but is insufficient for a comprehensive article, it is better to mention the subject under the article for its parent locality or parent company. If no source material, or only directory-type information (location, function, name, address) can be provided, the subject may not merit mention at all. Richerman (talk) 08:20, 14 June 2011 (UTC)


 * So are we agreed that this article should be renamed St Peter's Square, Manchester with a small section about the tram stop? Richerman (talk) 06:24, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Square reboot
This conversation really lost some steam here, but the point remains valid. The difficulty is that there are two issues: (1) whether St Peter's Square, Manchester should have an article, and (2) whether this article is notable. NB: We can consider the notability of the metrolink station separately at a later date. SFB 09:29, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * For practicality, let's untangle these matters: first and foremost, do we all agree that the square needs a stand-alone article? It has tons of history, having been the site of the Peterloo massacre, a constant thoroughfare for a large city for centuries, and the location of several individually-notable buildings. Who agrees that a new article should be started (moving the bulk of this article's general information to there)?
 * Would support moving this article to St Peter's Square; a section within this for the tram stop would be adequate for the time being. Links can still be made to this from any other Metrolink related content.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 09:43, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd agree with that. Richerman (talk) 09:44, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Another aspect of this situation is that the page St Peter's Square may bend the rules on disambiguation pages by having two entries which lead here.--Felix Folio Secundus (talk) 08:21, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

In terms of how we ended up with this strange article, it looks like it was originally about the square, then some info on the metro was added and then it was decided that the article "refers to the metrolink station" and it was moved... but people continued to contribute info about both the square and the tram stop. There wasn't separate articles that were merged... but it does look a bit like that... I guess you could say the topics were merged.

Of course the important question is "what do we do now?"

I guess we have four options: Options 2 and 4 differ in terms of where the article history ends up.
 * 1) Leave the topics merged under the name of the tram stop.
 * 2) Create a separate article for the square and move most of the content there.
 * 3) Move the article to St Peter's Square, Manchester and make the tram stop a topic within the article.
 * 4) Move the article to St Peter's Square, Manchester and create a separate article for the tram stop.

Of the four options I think I prefer number 4, but I'm not too bothered so long as we don't go with 1.

Yaris678 (talk) 22:33, 3 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I'd say 3 was the best option. I said the same thing above ages ago but I got no response and never did anything about it. Richerman ''   (talk) 00:33, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Does anyone object to option 3? Let's go with that.  If someone wants to create a separate article for the tram stop later they can do.  Yaris678 (talk) 08:19, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Looking back at the origin the article originally was solely about the tram stop, people added extra historical information rather than vice versa so it makes more sense to move the square stuff out. WatcherZero (talk) 21:40, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, so we create a new article called St. Peter's Square, move all the stuff about the square to that one and leave this article with a few lines of text about the tram station. However, someone will then have to justify its notability. Richerman ''   (talk) 14:49, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ as St Peter's Square, Manchester already existed as a redirect page and this dicussion has been going round in circles for almost a year I've moved the text on the square to that article. Richerman ''   (talk) 15:14, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

WatcherZero is incorrect. As I stated above, the article was originally about the square, then some info on the metro was added and then it was decided that the article "refers to the metrolink station" and it was moved. Yaris678 (talk) 17:23, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Im sorry but how can you say the creation of an article titled 'Metrolink Station' and mentioning the station as 'eponymous' in the single sentence was about the square and not the station? Quite obviously the article started off about the station and as you say more metro stuff as added later suggesting the first readers disagreed with your interpretation and recognised that factWatcherZero (talk) 12:58, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you looking at a different edit history to me? Check out the link I gave to the very first version of the article.  BTW, I am not arguing the we should change the demerge now that it is done... But it would be nice if we could agree on the facts of the case.  Yaris678 (talk) 18:13, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The article started off as 'St Peter's Square, Manchester" and was moved to 'St Peter's Square Metrolink station' by a DrFrench leaving 'St Peter's Square, Manchester' as a redirect. It was this redirect page that I moved the article to. Unfortunately the title of the article in the diff depends on where you start from, which is somewhat confusing, as this this illustrates. Richerman ''   (talk) 21:54, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes the Square article was moved in 2007, but if you look the Metrolink article is older, created 4 March 2006‎. WatcherZero (talk) 23:33, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
 * WatcherZero, have a look at the first 20 edits to the article. You will see that it was created on the 4th of March 2006 and that on 17th of February 20007 it was moved from St Peter's Square, Manchester to St Peter's Square Metrolink station by DrFrench.  Yaris678 (talk) 10:31, 6 July 2012 (UTC)