Talk:Watershed

Talk pages should not redirect unless the associated non-talk page also redirects
As is, it left me no place to discuss the disambiguation. I had a new topic that needed listed. Besides, because the page was a disambiguation page, there were other things on that page that people might want to talk about. Will (Talk - contribs) 02:27, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Watershed Records
I understand there was or is a record label named "Watershed Records". If so, it needs to be included in the disambiguation. Will (Talk - contribs) 02:28, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


 * No one commented on this, so I added it. No page is there at the moment, but hopefully it will appear soon.  Perhaps, the new link will help there.  If someone does create it or knows the correct location, please update me via this section so I can update Wikia:christianmusic:Watershed to link to the new article.  Thanks. Will (Talk - contribs) 07:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Watershed list
''The signed content originally here is more applicable, following the subdivision of the Watershed (word) article's former content, to the List of watershed topics list page, and has been (cut-and-paste) moved to Talk:List of watershed topics. --Jerzy•t 06:31, 28 February 2008 (UTC) ''

Subdivision into Dab, List, and Article
Like an overgrown toothpick, an overgrown Dab page is unable to do its job adequately. The exact division i am effecting is not necessarily the perfect one, and i'm not going to try to find the proper home of the list of watersheds; it suffices to say that
 * 1) most people who look in an encyclopedia (not a dictionary) for an article entitled "Watershed" are looking for one of the two literal senses, water divide and drainage basin,
 * 2) those who want a list of either of those are making a mistake in looking for an article on the topic "Watershed", unless they prefer the effort of following the lks from the watershed page (whatever role that page is given) over the effort of typing List of watersheds, List of water divides or List of drainage basins  -- or distrust the WP editor corps' diligence in making their first guess among those a suitable article, list, dab, or Rdr; their need should be serviced at the Dab's "See also" section, if on the Dab page at all -- and
 * 3) the result of trying to do the tasks of an article and a Dab on one page is not a "hybrid", but a monster precluded by MOSDAB, its "Individual entries" section (esp. the initial 'graph and the 1st and 6th bullet points), and CONEXCEPT. --Jerzy•t 05:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


 * There was some logic in breaking out the list. However, there was no need for the Watershed (word) article, which has now (in my view properly) been proposed for deletion (see Talk:Watershed (word)).  The information in that article (or at any rate most of it) belongs here, where it helped distinguish the disambiguated articles.  It did not make this page an article, nor a dictionary definition, but a clearer and easier-to-use disambiguation page.  Watershed is a word with two very different but easily confused meanings, and the text explained which was which and how they related to each other.  Disambiguation pages are there to help people find what they want.  --Richard New Forest (talk) 21:22, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Reconsider Watershed as Dab
It may be worth looking again at the appropriate role for the title Watershed. Even if the apparently 6-2 RM-based move of Watershed to Drainage divide (or was it water divide?) is not reconsidered, it need not imply the Dab role: Watershed could Rdr to Drainage divide, which would get a "redirects here" ToP Dab targeting Watershed (disambiguation). I removed a couple of ill-advised lks from metaphorical uses of "watershed" (if we're going to lk those, we should lk (above) look, title, role, redirect, target, couple, and metaphor in a paragraph like this one), but based on what i saw in byp'g Rdrs for uses of watersheds, few if any of the 150+ remaining lks to "watershed" seem likely to be for anything but the "drainage divide" sense, bcz watersheds in that sense help define ecosystems; in contrast, it is mostly cartographers and mathematicians who are likely to use the "divide" sense. (Some would claim there's a debt of honor owed by those spearheading the move, to check and bypass those uses.) IMO that's few enuf that very few users will suffer the inconvenience of following the ToP Dab to drainage divide. --Jerzy•t 07:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Umm... what sense is it you think is predominant? Drainage basin or Drainage divide? For reasons that surpass my understanding, the distinction seems to have been a major point of contention in earlier RM discussion. redirects here with a hatnote to the disambiguation page can. older ≠ wiser 21:57, 31 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The usages are geographically separated, so I think a redirect to either of the meanings would be confusing and misleading. In any case, there is a need for a disambiguation page for the various other uses of the word, and this is as good a place as any for that.  --Richard New Forest (talk) 22:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Geographical distinction in usage
This disambiguation page notes the geographical distinction between the use of "watershed" to mean either "drainage basin" or "drainage divide", labeling the former usage "North American" and the latter "non-North American".

However, the latter meaning is quite common in North America as a metaphor. For example, this recent Washington Post article calls the Watergate scandal a "watershed" http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-watergate-watershed-a-turning-point-for-a-nation-and-a-newspaper/2012/06/04/gJQA2BxmIV_story.html. And this New York Times article says the 2012 Newtown Connecticut school shooting "could be a watershed": http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/us/religious-leaders-push-congregants-on-gun-control.html?_r=0 And in February 2013, CNN wrote that "Veteran activists feel America has reached a watershed moment in its writing of gay rights history." http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/02/us/gay-rights-watershed-moment. Also, in the summer of 2012, an editorial in Sports Illustrated said that the then-current child sexual abuse accusations against football coach Jerry Sandusky "should be watershed moment in our society". http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/michael_rosenberg/06/23/sandusky-verdict/index.html

Though the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and Sports Illustrated are using the term metaphorically, it's clearly a metaphor that refers to the sense of a divide, not a catchment. And, as we see from these examples, that's a usage that's common in North America, and universally understood among educated American readers.

So, though it's true that the use of "watershed" to mean "drainage basin" is restricted to North America, the meaning "drainage divide" is found throughout the English-speaking world. For that reason, I propose to remove the description "non-North American usage" from the latter link of this disambiguation page (while keeping "North American usage" for the former). TypoBoy (talk) 12:21, 25 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Given that you have done that, I'm going to put the "divide" definition first, since the "regular" usage should come before the "exceptional" usage. I hope people don't find this too petty... &mdash;Ashley Y 21:16, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Please what would be the figurative sense of 'watershed'??
(please see subject). 37.171.136.23 (talk) 07:55, 28 July 2022 (UTC)


 * The term "watershed" has two senses, that of a drainage divide, and that of a drainage basin. When used figuratively, it always refers to the first (and original) meaning, a drainage divide. It refers metaphorically to passing from one domain to another, as one does when crossing a watershed between two drainage basins. TypoBoy (talk) 20:04, 28 July 2022 (UTC)