Talk:Trams in Munich

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. 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. 

I am closing this as an administrative close under WP:RM/TR "If the page has recently been moved without discussion, you may revert the move and initiate a discussion on its talk page." It is up to those who wish the page to be moved to show that there is a consensus for the move, it is not up to the person who opposes the move to show there is a consensus to move it back. So I am moving the page back to Munich Tramway. Bahnfrend if you want to move the page then put in an RM and see if there is a consensus for the move to your preferred name. -- PBS (talk) 10:45, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Trams in Munich → Munich Tramway – This request is for the reversion of a recent good faith, but incorrect, move. This article is about a single system known as the Munich Tramway in English or Straßenbahn München in German. It is a proper name, not a general article about any old trams in Munich. Bermicourt (talk) 21:29, 22 January 2014 (UTC)--Bermicourt (talk) 21:29, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose The name was changed to the standard form name for articles in this series, namely "Trams in [name of city]". A similar change, for the same reason, was recently made to the article about Potsdam's trams, and is currently proposed, with the support of several editors, for the article about Berlin's trams.  In any case, "Munich Tramway" is not the appropriate name for this article, for the following reasons.  First, I do not agree with the assertion that Straßenbahn München is a proper name.  Care must be taken when describing German language nouns or noun phrases as proper names, because all German nouns, not just proper nouns, are capitalised.  In this case, the website of the operator, MVG, says the following: "Die Münchner Verkehrsgesellschaft (MVG) als Betreiberin von U-Bahn, Bus und Tram in München spielte und spielt in dieser Erfolgsstory eine wichtige Rolle."  If Straßenbahn München were a proper name, then one would expect to see Straßenbahn where "Tram" appears in this sentence, and, similarly, one would expect to see "the Tramway" instead of "trams" in the following translation of the sentence, also published by MVG: "The Munich Verkehrsgesellschaft (MVG) has played, and still plays, an important role in this story of success as the operator of the Underground, buses and trams."  Secondly, "Munich Tramway" is in any event not a good translation of Straßenbahn München, because in English, "tramway" refers to a single route or line, whereas "Straßenbahn" can, and in this case does, refer to a network of lines or routes.  Thirdly, Straßenbahnnetz München is an equally valid way to refer to the network as a whole, and the standard form lede for articles in this series adopts that approach, ie it begins: "The [name of city] tramway network (Straßenbahnnetz [name of city]) is a network of tramways forming part of the public transport system in [name of city]".  That the word Straßenbahnnetz is used in this way by Germans can be confirmed by a google search and also, eg, by the caption forming part of the network map in the article Trams in Düsseldorf (ie this map).  The correct translation of Straßenbahnnetz München is "Munich tramway network", not "Munich Tramway".  Bahnfrend (talk) 14:37, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.

Requested move 2

 * 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. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Consensus is pretty clear here. Dpmuk (talk) 04:37, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Munich Tramway → Trams in Munich – Standard form name for articles in this series, eg Trams in Germany, Trams in Frankfurt am Main (and also Trams in Amsterdam, Trams in Budapest, Trams in Lisbon, Trams in Vienna, etc). A similar move is proposed for Berlin tram and supported by several editors. See also my comments in the archived discussion above. Relisted. BDD (talk) 20:11, 14 February 2014 (UTC) Bahnfrend (talk) 13:06, 25 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose. I'm not trying to be difficult here, but the subject is a specific tramway system known in German as the Straßenbahn München which means "Munich Tramway". Of course, it's neat if we can have article naming consistency, but only if the titles are accurate. In this case, and several of the other articles mentioned, the title does not seem to me to be accurate. For it to be called "Trams in Foo" it ought to have a complete history of all tram vehicles and systems in that city historically and now. That's not what these articles do. --Bermicourt (talk) 09:44, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Response. Please cite (a) reliable source(s) for your assertion about the name of the system. As I have pointed out above, the website of the network's own operator does not use either Straßenbahn München or "Munich Tramway" to refer to its own tramway network.  It does use the expression Tramnetz München, which it translates as "Munich Tram Network". The standard form name for articles in this series is a short form for "Tram transport in [name of city]", and has been in use since before I became an editor in 2009.  Ideally, every article in the series should have a complete history, and if this article does not, then the history should be expanded.  The standard form name has the support of a number of other editors, as is evident from Talk:Trams in Berlin. Bahnfrend (talk) 14:39, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Support. Nouns are always capitalized in German, so Straßenbahn München can also be translated as "Munich tramway" (or "Munich streetcar system" in my native version of English). The capitalization of Straßenbahn does not indicate that it's a name, unlike in English, although I concede that the more common form of the descriptive term "Munich tramway" would be Münchner Straßenbahn.  I subscribe to two German transit magazines, Stadtverkehr and Blickpunkt Straßenbahn, and neither of them refers to the Munich system by the name Bernicourt asserts. Even (German-language) literature I picked up (and still have) from a visit to Munich in 1979 makes no mention of it, only of MVV as the operator. If it's a historic name for the system (which it may be), the article would need to cite sources indicating such and also supporting the claim that it is still the most common name used (if it is, which appears doubtful).  If Straßenbahn München is only a description, not a name, we should be comparing "Trams in Munich" with "Munich tram system" (or Munich tramway), and in such a debate I support "Trams in Munich", mainly for consistency with the large number of Wikipedia article titles on similar subjects (Trams in [city], Trolleybuses in [city], etc.). SJ Morg (talk) 19:20, 1 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Support per the evidence of Bahnfrend, and per the article itself, which explains how the system has had a variety of official names, but is known colloquially simply as "the tram". Without an unambiguous common name, it is best to simply adopt the descriptive title used for similar articles. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:51, 9 February 2014 (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 or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.