Talk:Vancouver (disambiguation)

Old discussions
Is there any reason this page should not either be the actual location of the article on, or a redirect to, Vancouver, British Columbia with a small disambiguation block at the top? Every link to this page is about the city in BC; it seems to be the natural direct link. --Brion
 * After the long lo-o-o-ong debate on naming conventions this subject leaves me gun-shy. Speaking as the one that's moving everything to Vancouver, British Columbia, I did consider your possibility.  The Vancouver, Washington article does exist and it does have links of its own.  With a population of 144,000 it's likely bigger than all eight Torontos and five Montreals in the United States put together, but it's the only Vancouver in the United States.  Personally, for deciding whether one city should be considered dominant I apply the test of asking myself whether the residents in the very much larger city can reasonably be expected to know about the smaller one.  The people here in greater Vancouver, BC are well aware of the one in Washington.  The two are a six hour drive apart, and both are certainly known along the I-5 corridor of Washington.  That's my 2 cents on this one.  Eclecticology 21:08 Aug 24, 2002 (PDT)


 * On a certain level that does seem reasonable. However, here in Sacramento, California (further down the I-5 corridor) very few people are aware of the Vancouver in Washington. This is probably the case in most other areas far from the Pacific Northwest of the US. --mav


 * I'm with Mav on this one. The real test is not whether the people who live in one city know about the others, but about whether people who are somewhere else entirely know about it and are going to have reason to link to it. I'm a few more hours down the I-5 from Mav, and I was only peripherally aware that there was a Vancouver in Washington. The very few memories I have of it ever being mentioned are as a curiosity ('oh, hey, apparently there's a city called "Vancouver" in Washington, too'). And at only 144,000, it's just a small town from where I sit. :) --Brion
 * Vancouver, Washington has great advantages for people who live there. It is in effect a suburb of Portland, OR.  They can live in Washington, which has no state income tax, and shop in Oregon, which has no sales tax.  As for the size, I don't expect that there are more than 20 Canadian cities that are bigger than 144,000, so it's really a question of perspective.  All the Vancouver links have been changed to where they belong. You can have your separate disambiguation page for now, but I still think it's pretty useless.  This isn't quite Paris.  Eclecticology 23:30 Aug 24, 2002 (PDT)

You are right - this page should be moved to Vancouver (disambiguation) then Vancouver should become a redirect to Vancouver, British Columbia with a disambiguation block at the top. --mav

Page moved. --mav


 * Woop! Thanks. --Brion


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

no move. --  tariq abjotu  19:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

 * Vancouver to Vancouver, British Columbia
 * Vancouver (disambiguation) to Vancouver
 * It is not clear which, if any Vancouver should be a redirect. Vancouver, British Columbia, Vancouver, Washington and Vancouver Island all are well know. So the dab page should be at Vancouver to avoid redirecting to the wrong article. ... Please share your opinion at Talk:Vancouver (disambiguation) -- Vegaswikian 00:29, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Survey
Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~
 * Oppose. The 2010 Winter Olympics city is clearly the most well-known. --Usgnus 04:24, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Vancouver is about as big as Portland, but Vancouver (WA) is only a suburb of Portland. Plus Vancouver (BC) is reasonably well-known outside the US. --Polaron | Talk 05:02, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Support for the reasons above. Vegaswikian 05:16, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose requested move. Vancouver the 2010 city is, I believe, the best known use of the word Vancouver in the world. Luke 05:21, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't that be a reason to oppose the change to "Vancouver, British Columbia" then (not "support")? -→ Buchanan-Hermit ™ / ?!  05:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Is this not a vote on making the City of Vancouver article the choice for Wikipedia Vancouver searches? I'm somewhat confused. Luke 05:48, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It already is currently. The survey is for moving to a disambiguation page. --Polaron | Talk 05:50, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clearing things up Buchanan-Hermit My vote has been changed accordingly. Luke 06:02, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose We're not the only Vancouver in the world, so that would be the main reason why I'd support this change. However, I agree that we're the most well-known Vancouver, and people searching for Vancouver would probably be looking for the Canadian one. For that reason, I'm going to oppose the change as it overrules the first point I stated. -→ Buchanan-Hermit ™ / ?!  05:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose First off, they are not equally well known in the world. When I was in Hong Kong, everyone knows Vancouver is in Canada, and few were aware of the one in Portland or even the island. Second, Vancouver is the third largest city in Canada, and much more significant than the other meanings. I'm assuming this applies in the US as well, outside of Washington. _dk 06:26, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * As a side note, apparently people in HK know "Richmond" too, due to the Chinese population there. :) -→ Buchanan-Hermit ™ / ?!  07:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose this is the best know Vancover and that will only become more appearent when the Oymplics come. --Edgelord 07:05, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. City of two million plus, Canada's third largest metro region, west coast port, next Winter Olympics, popular destination for European, Asian, North American tourists, film production, on and on and on. If it were a level playing field, I'd be inclined to agree, but in this case - no contest. --Ckatz chat spy  07:59, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose Canada's third largest city. This would be like making Manchester a dab due to the presence of Manchester, New Hampshire. Kirjtc2 13:24, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose Vancouver, BC is the most well known one. Vancouver Island=Vancouver Island, not Vancouver. -Royalguard11TalkMy Desk 17:28, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose, largely because of the legwork involved in switching all the links that there are...inertia I guess is my reason. But it is strange to see Vancouver's city-page without its jurisdiction, given that Seattle redirects to Seattle, Washington and New York goes to the state, with a dab to the city and, presumably, a disambig for other uses.  Similarly Los Angeles redirects to Los Angeles, California.  So I'd almost say Support, just for conformity to Wiki standards, but the inertia thing strikes me as a major issue.  I also don't agree with the "Vancouver the 2010 City" being the best-known usage internationally; that's just Olympics grandstanding and part of the fake importance of what will be a fly-by-night event.  Is Calgary known as "the 1988 City" or is Montreal known as the "1967 City".  I think somebody's been reading too much VANOC bullshit....Skookum1 23:40, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * That wiki standard only applies to the United States. Even then, Chicago has its own article, while Chicago, Illinois is a redirect. _dk 23:55, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Plus in Canada, there's Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Saskatoon, and Lloydminster. Then of course, internationally, Marseille, Manchester, Busan, Christchurch, Munich, Boma, etc. --Usgnus 00:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * And Calgary, Winnipeg, and even Flin Flon have active move requests too. All of them are leaning towards "support". --Arch26 06:36, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Oppose as per reasons above. GeeCee 10:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose, as per reasons set out above. Skeezix1000 11:45, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Outside of the metro Portland Oregon area, 'Vancouver' clearly implies the city of Vancouver, British Columbia.  And Vancouver Island is *never* referred to as just 'Vancouver'. Jim Douglas 18:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. You've got to be kidding me.  --Serge 22:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose: Per above. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose: The city, province format is not consistent with the new trend in Wikipedia and is not consistent with how articles are identified in most encyclopedias. The subject is Vancouver and that should be the title. If there is deemed a high risk of confusion with other places called "vancouver", then move it to "Vancouver (British Columbia)", not "Vancouver, British Columbia". --Arch26 06:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm with the oppose. The city in British Columbia is vastly larger, more economically significant and more internationally famous than the one in Washington, and I find it rather ludicrous to claim that a city of 157,000 people that's essentially a suburb can be considered remotely equivalent in importance to a metropolitan area of about two million people. Bearcat 07:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Vancouver BC is clearly the most famous.--DaveOinSF 18:48, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose, I have no idea how Vegaswikian came up with the idea that Vancouver Wash was known anywhere outside of Vancouver Washington as Vancouver. Internationally, the 2010 Olympics clearly shows which one is more widely known. And in California, it is Vancouver BC that is better known, because of the outflow of jobs. For the DEA, it is Vancouver BC, because of "BC Bud", for Canadians, it would be Vancouver BC. For Chinese people, it would be Vancouver BC, due to the large number of Yacht-people from Hong Kong. For many Americans, Vansterdam is better known than Vancouver WA. For FHM magazine, who rave about the Vancouver drug, hookers and strippers scene, it would be the BC one. Greenpeace was started out around Vancouver BC... 132.205.45.148 18:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, Greenpeace started out in Vancouver, not around. It was founded in Kitsilano. :) -→ Buchanan-Hermit ™ / ?!  01:20, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose, works well as is, disambiguaion message/page does the job as it should. "Vancouver, British Columbia" (or "Vancouver (British Columbia)" for that matter) would still be ambiguous, no gain there. --Qyd 19:18, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Discussion
Add any additional comments
 * I'll bet that most people in the US think of Vancouver Island when you say Vancouver and are talking about Canada. Unless it can be clearly shown that most redirects are correct, then this needs to be changed. Even if 51% of the redirects are correct today, they means that 49% of users are being redirected to the wrong place.  Since all three are well know, the main name space should be a redirect.  Vegaswikian 05:20, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I have never ever heard Vancouver Island referred to as just Vancouver. --Usgnus 06:25, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Long discussion which I'll spare you for now, but historically it was, hence the name of one of the early federal ridings (Vancouver (electoral district)). Even the CPR's naming of the City of Vancouver was sleight-of-hand, because the railway politics had said a line from Montreal to "Vancouver", which in 1870-1 meant Vancouver Island, and Vancouver Island only; the name had no mainland associations.  So when the city was named it was partly a way for the moguls to live up to the "railhead at Vancouver"; which had meant, in its original conception, a rail terminus on the Inner Harbour; not Burrard Inlet.  There was much controversy about this when Van Horne or whomever it was chose the name in 1885-86, in fact.  And to this day a lot of visitors are surprised when they discover Vancouver is not on Vancouver Island; or they'll mistakenly call the latter "Victoria Island".Skookum1 23:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * But visitors are not mistaking the island for the city. They just assume that the city is on the island. --Usgnus 02:21, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * For two years, I lived in the States (Utah, Arizona and Nevada). When I said I was from Vancouver, it was never mistaken for the Island. In fact, more often than not, I'd have people say, "Oh, I've been to Victoria Island". I am doubtful, if the above supposition is widespread to any significance. --Kmsiever 19:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. 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.

Manual of Style improvements
I removed several entries, such as the entire list of sports teams from Vancouver, since they are not serving any readers here on the dab page -- readers looking for a Vancouver sports team are unlikely to enter just "Vancouver" in the search box, and that list is hand;ed well by Vancouver and Sports in Vancouver. If needed, a "See also" entry for Sports in Vancouver could be added instead. See WP:MOSDAB for disambiguation page style guidelines. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:06, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Putting Vancouver, BC as the sole Vancouver on this page
What is the problem with modeling the Vancouver disambiguation after the Portland page? They represent comparable situations: Vancouver, WA and Portland, ME are the original cities with those names in North America, but newer cities have grown more prominent. Both cities should be given prominence on a disambiguation page. What's the problem with that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.208.32.177 (talk) 06:47, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

As per that discussion, it is clear that the primary use is for the Canadian city, a fact which is easily demonstrated by a Google search on the term "Vancouver". --Ckatz chat spy  06:51, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

But why should it matter that the primary use is for a Canadian city? This is the DISAMBIGUATION PAGE. It exists for the very purpose of listing the options available under an ambiguous name like Vancouver. No doubt Portland, OR draws more google searches than Portland, ME, but so what? They're both fairly significant cities. So are Vancouver, BC and Vancouver, WA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.208.32.177 (talk) 07:47, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Ckatz, please stop changing this. You have yet to articulate a reason why this should be the sole listing as to what Vancouver "is." As I pointed out, Portland, OR receives many more Google searches than Portland, ME, but both are still listed (and Vancouver, WA is significantly more populated than Portland, ME). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.208.32.177 (talk) 01:43, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It seems pretty clear. The first sentence explains what the undabbed bluelink refers to. Following that are all the other, secondary uses of the name. In the case of Portland (where the search term leads first to a dab page), there are three primary entries with somewhat equal claims of usage. That's not the case for Vancouver - all the available evidence points to a single, globally-recognized primary usage. All the other usages are subsidiary and are equally represented on the dab page linked from the Vancouver article. 128.208, you seem to be conducting this crusade alone - perhaps you might review WP:Consensus to better understand how things work here. Franamax (talk) 02:28, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Further to this, the top-of-page text conforms correctly with the requirements of the disambiguation page guideline. Pages with "(disambiguation)" as part of their title reflect a subject with a "primary topic"; in this case, the primary topic is the Canadian city. Per the style guide directive:"'Since it is unlikely that this primary meaning is what readers are looking for if they have reached the disambiguation page, it should not be mixed in with the other links.'"--Ckatz chat spy  02:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Now you're making a real argument! Bravo! But your argument is premised on incorrect information:

Typing "portland" in google gets you 36.1 million results for the oregon one. "isle of portland" nets you a mere 249,000 results. portland, me gets you 4.2 million results. So Portland, OR's closest competitor is about 1/9 as noteworthy by this criteria. By comparison, vancouver washington nets 7.4 million results; vancouver, bc gets you 16.2 million, a difference of just over 2X in favor of Canada's Vancouver.

Even if you compared only generic vancouver (121 million) to vancouver, wa and assumed that EVERY generic vancouver search result was for the Canadian one (an obviously incorrect assumption) you would get a difference of about 16X in favor of Vancouver, BC.

If you accepted the same premise about generic portland, you would compare 126 million to 4.2, which means the Oregon one would be about 30 times more common. So by any measure, Vancouver should be done like Portland; the case is even stronger for it than Portland. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.208.32.177 (talk) 06:54, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed at least, that now you're making a real argument. Franamax (talk) 09:23, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Survey
I'm conducting a new survey since the last was done 3 years ago (an editors lifetime on Wikipedia) at 2009 Vancouver Vs. Vancouver, Washington Survey. Your input would be most appreciated. Mkdw talk 21:23, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Primary topic
This talk page is full of discussions about the location of this disambiguation page. All of them amount to a debate about whether there is a primary topic for "vancouver", or if there is in fact no primary topic and the disambiguation page should be at the page name Vancouver. For what it's worth, this is being discussed more generally on Wikipedia talk:Requested moves. Compared to other examples there, the page view ratio of Vancouver (disambiguation) vs Vancouver supports the argument that the article now at the page name Vancouver is the primary topic. For September 2010 the page views ratio was 1519/173135 = 0.9%. That is low. 69.3.72.249 (talk) 03:27, 4 October 2010 (UTC)