Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (US stations)/Archive 4

Status as "guideline" disputed. By what authority is this labelled a "guideline"?
I dispute the assertion of this "guideline" page that it is appropriate to use names not available in sources, and contrary to the names in sources. By what discussion, where, when, was this page created and asserted to be consensus? By what authority is this labelled a "guideline"?

This comes up because an editor has been, against explicit request/discussion, moving numerous articles from established names to "TOWN station" format names, contrary to sources and the common names of the places. They have invoked this naming convention page as justifying edits to make moves and to put stuff into articles which is not supported by any sources.

Perhaps there needs to be a proper RFC about naming of railway stations in the U.S., i.e. probably to note that regular naming conventions should be followed, and that this separate page should be deleted, or modified to state that it is an essay reflecting the views of few. This section is to note the problem and to prepare for a more formal discussion. Or perhaps the way forward should be an MFD proceeding to have this deleted.

Also, by the way, the name of this naming convention seems wrong. I think it is not intended to cover naming for radio stations or bus stations, but by its name it would seem to. There seems to be uniquely narrow perspective reflected here. --Doncram (talk) 15:29, 27 September 2018 (UTC)


 * This page was apparently designated to be a "guideline" rather than a proposal, in this edit by User:Cuchullain in 2014. The edit does not reference any specific discussion;  it appears to me that it reflects just the view of the few interested editors who were developing this as a proposal.  Now I think it would be appropriate to simply remove the "guideline" designation.


 * The version back then, and the current version shows too-narrow perspective in its assumption that the common names of all U.S. railway stations are simply the CITY OR TOWN name. The current version reads "Generally, U.S. station articles should be titled by their common name, followed by "station" if not already part of the name."  That is simply not the case; there are numerous stations documented to have other names, e.g. "Snoqualmie Depot", a historic/common name for the building which is now the Northwest Railway Museum, and it would be non-sensical to append "station" to that. --Doncram (talk) 15:46, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This guideline was crafted through extensive discussion, consensus, and consultation the overriding Wikipedia manual of style. It was labeled a guideline by a consensus of editors here and in various move discussions that cite it. If it were to be removed or downgraded, it would have to be through a new consensus via an RfC. However, that would likely be a waste of time that could otherwise be spent improving articles.--Cúchullain t/ c 18:33, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay, well I would like to see where there previous consensus was established, and maybe yes a new RFC will be needed to get rid of, or improve, this current page. Which asserts it provides a standard when it does not, we don't get to impose some artificial standard on the world when things are just named as they are, in fact.
 * By the way, Cuchullain, this page does assert one goal is to get rid of unnecessary disambiguation. Yet you just moved an article to add unnecessary disambiguation, now at Bristol station (Virginia).  I am gonna try to move that back to its long-standing name again, and I request that you use the wp:RM process.  Perhaps one could argue that (City, State) disambiguation is needed for clarity, but there are in fact no other articles at "Bristol Railroad Station".  It was moved by another editor before, ignoring direct request to them not to make controversial moves like that, and I moved it back once.  The longstanding name is valid;  the burden of arranging for a new consensus is yours, IMHO, and I don't think you will find support.  Argh, i tried moving it, made one mistake, and it won't go back to the original, longstanding name, Bristol Railroad Station. --Doncram (talk) 21:35, 27 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Re stations with names other than the "Xxx station" formula, you also appear to be missing an important caveat of the guideline:
 * In some cases, a station has a common name that does not include the word "station". In those cases, default to the common name per the Use common names policy. Examples:


 * Kalamazoo Transportation Center
 * Rosa Parks Hempstead Transit Center
 * Old Town Transit Center
 * William F. Walsh Regional Transportation Center
 * Hoboken Terminal
 * Grand Canyon Depot
 * The guideline is already clear that we default to WP:COMMONNAME when there is one.--Cúchullain t/ c 18:35, 27 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Umm, I actually agree with you here. The current page does seem to exclude its system from pages having sources establishing a common name, as Bristol Railroad Station does from its NRHP listing name.  And the other editor making moves, citing wp:USSTATION, seems to have just been completely wrong. --Doncram (talk) 21:35, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Commonnames are good to follow, but NRHP listing are most often unrelated to what things are commonly called. For example, they often append "Railroad Station" (capped thus) to station names that are never referred to that way in the wild. Dicklyon (talk) 01:38, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

I think you're a little confused about the meaning of guideline. WIKIPEDIA: "A guideline is a statement by which to determine a course of action. A guideline aims to streamline particular processes according to a set routine or sound practice. By definition, following a guideline is never mandatory. Guidelines are not binding and are not enforced." Secondarywaltz (talk) 18:42, 27 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Who are you saying is confused? This page has been labelled as a guideline, rather than being, say an essay, or being deleted entirely.  It has been cited as authority justifying moves to names other than the common names for places, as established in sources.  This is a problem. --Doncram (talk) 21:35, 27 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Domcram, drop the stick. You are acting in an incredibly hostile manner and making wildly baseless accusations. I'm about ready to seek a a topic ban from you and railroad stations because you're taking such a narrow-minded view of naming and creating chaos while you do it. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:49, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Naming convention pages are typical labeled as guidelines after a consensus emerges. USSTATION and UKSTATION are widely used influential conventions, often discussed in discussion of what convention to use in other countries, too.  I have not heard any signficant pushback on the conventions themselves in recent years (though there was a bit of kerfuffle in implementing USSTATION when it was new; that settled out). Dicklyon (talk) 01:41, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with Pi and Dicklyon. WP:USSTATION has been an accepted convention for quite a while. –Daybeers (talk) 01:51, 28 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you to you several commentators for illuminating a bit of what is going on here.
 * I see in some early discussion that indeed USSTATION was questioned immediately, long ago, including for the nonsensical way that it states that whatever the name is, you then append "station" to it, and that was not fixed then or since.
 * I also see consider there might be some merit to having a USSTATION guideline, on dint that it has been around for a few years, for coverage of modern stations, though I am not sure. It is hard for me to get past the fact that the guideline doesn't apply for stations that have names in sources, but does apply for stations that don't have names, but then why do we need a guideline for them, they should not be in articles.  Perhaps there is some unstated legitimate explanation why editors cannot jolly well find out the actual name of stations in government planning offices, say.  Perhaps the names are too technical and not commonly used.  Then some guidance about how to figure out names might be justified, but currently the guideline fails IMHO, it just announces what it announces.
 * But, there is no way that you get to simply dismiss NRHP names for places, on basis that "NRHP listing are most often unrelated to what things are commonly called", that is simply false and insulting and there is no way that you have consensus to do that. NRHP names should be the common names.  What if there is a commonly used common name for a place, which the NRHP nominator competently discerns from all sources, then you would simply dismiss it because it is what the NRHP nomination used?  That is irrational and contra to all Wikipedia standards.
 * I do "get" people not liking any set of "official" names that are imposed, or at least wanting to allow them to be questioned; I happen to sort of dislike the system of official names that the Lighthouse wikiproject adopts.  But then you go into, for any specific case, what the sources say and use.   And no "official" system wins all the time, when examined.  Certainly many NRHP nominations cover the existence of two or more names, and the nominator's assessment of which is the lasting permanent name can be overturned by the public, e.g. by a nonprofit forming and promoting one of the secondary names, i.e. in effect changing the common name over time.  But NO WAY CAN YOU JUST MAKE UP your own bogus private official system and say that trumps common usage and all other "official" names.
 * And even if you believe you have permission to use a name for an article title, if you feel "guideline" status allows you to do that, you can't put that name in bold into the article if it is not supported by any sources and it is challenged by editors who are demanding sources, which I am.
 * The guideline currently states that common names are to be used, but at least two editors here, the one whose userspace hosted the draft for this page, and the other user who promoted it to guideline status, have blatantly ignored the existence of common names and just imposed their made-up private names, contrary to sources. This is not acceptable, and suggests that the guideline itself should be questioned and perhaps eliminated.
 * If there is no positive reason for having it, and if in practice it seems to being used to impose stuff contrary to what it says, then perhaps it should be deemed not a guideline. If the faults in the guideline and in the practice by editors invoking it are not addressed.  And you don't get out of some consequences here by falsely labelling my legitimate complaints here, or my edits to articles, as "vandalism", or by threatening to take me to ANI for questioning what has gone on here.  Don't confuse the fact that there is a local consensus here of train-station-fans, with any right at all to go against basic Wikipedia principles. --Doncram (talk) 02:56, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Re the NRHP, it looks to me like they don't have a commonname policy, but rather they have their own naming style; they make up what appear as proper names for places, typically with "Railroad Station" on the end of station names, "House" on previously unnamed houses, etc. I'm not complaining or criticizing them for that, just noting that the NRHP names are not what we call WP:COMMONNAME; but if they're all we have, maybe we can use them.  Typically, station names are just the same as the cities, towns, neighborhoods, or streets that they serve; we append "station" (lowercase) as "natural disambiguation", not pretending it's a name per se (which is part of why it's lowercase).  By the way, I had no hand in formulating the USSTATION convention, but I've done a lot to help implement it, especially in case fixes, and in similar changes in non-US countries that have similar issues and "Station" is not part of any common proper name. Dicklyon (talk) 03:05, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you. FYI, the NRHP does have a thick guideline book which gives instructions about how private contractors and local level staff and state level staff are supposed to discern the common name from what is used in sources (documents and people interviewed and so on), with coverage of how you are supposed to prefer a long-term historical name used in long practice as being more representative than, say, the name of a business which recently occupied a given building.  E.g. choose the name chiselled into the building and long used, rather than "Adams Fly-by-night Pizza".  You may attempt to discern a "naming style", and in fact there clearly some imposed for some types of places, e.g. there were a bunch of sort-of-badly-named post offices that had unfortunate use of parenthetical phrases, imposed by some collection of authors/reviewers for a time.  Sure, many names are sort of created, but using guidelines and common sense, where a name is needed.  It is good to choose to use, for a house, the name of the original builder/owner or the longest occupant or whatever, then it becomes "A.A. Smith House" or whatever.  You might say, aha, that means it is made up and therefore bogus!  Not so.  It was composed, and the house was named that by the nominator.  Like you were named, yourself, by your parents, it is not bogus for the fact that it was chosen, by the local and state and national levels.  And then people use the NRHP name immediately with announcements in newspapers of the NRHP listing, and sometimes before that in announcements of state-level listing, and in ongoing coverage, and the NRHP database is copied and used, and the name is propagated.  You don't get to dismiss a name because you know something about it having been chosen, while other names could have been chosen, but weren't.  And, in fact the NRHP nomination is supposed to get to the bottom of what is the actual name, and to put that forward, and there are local and state and national levels of review as to whether the suggested name is best.  Sometimes you might not yourself get why a given name was chosen, but you don't get to just choose your own with no justification besides it suits yourself.  Maybe there are in fact some unfortunately chosen NRHP names for train stations which we don't want to use, e.g. which don't stick in practice in use by the public, like U.S. Grant's original name didn't stick, and which can indeed be questioned in a proper wp:RM process reviewing what is actual practice.  I am not impressed by any suggestion that using lowercase gets you out of obligation to find the actual name of a place, it does not, especially if there do exist one or more candidates for actual names of the places. --Doncram (talk) 03:24, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * We've been generally OK with the NRHP's "composed" house names (except that we don't connect multiple owner names by hyphens as they do, but rather by en dashes). And I don't say their "Railroad Station" names are bogus, but those stations generally had names already before they composed those, so we generally just stick to their names "in the wild", with "station" if needed as natural disambiguator. Dicklyon (talk) 03:31, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

A few things here. As stated above, the guideline already instructs editors to rely on the WP:COMMONNAME when that's different than the USSTATION version. However, in most cases, either the "Xxx station" construction, either is demonstrably most common, or no one name clearly stands out. This does not mean there are no sources, only that the sources use different variants. For instance, in my experience, Jacksonville station is rarely if ever called "Jacksonville" in the sources; it's "Jacksonville station," "Jacksonville Amtrak station", simply "Amtrak station", etc. In cases like that, the "Xxx station" construction is a good basic fallback and descriptive title that allows us to avoid parsing all the variants every time. In determining if there's another common name, the NRHP version should be taken into account, but it can't be held up as the "official" version above other sources. As said before, this guideline came about from rigorous discussion here, in the 30 discussions linked at the top, and various other places. It has wide consensus as a guideline. We can always talk about tweaking it, but one thing that's not going to happen is unlisting it as a guideline, or holding up uncontroversial changes, simply because one editor doesn't agree with it.--Cúchullain t/ c 16:18, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Pennington as an example
We don't have a ton of articles titled with the NRHP's "Railroad Station", but we do have Pennington Railroad Station. Yet if you look at sources (books), Pennington Station and Pennington station are much more common. So what should we do? Both WP:USSTATION and MOS:CAPS+WP:COMMONNAME would say to avoid the unnecessary caps and just call it Pennington station like so many sources do. So, doncram, do we fix it, or stick with the NRHP name? The NRHP form, by the way, simply calls it "the Pennington station" in most instances, but at the top claims "Pennington Railroad Station" as the common name; citation needed? Dicklyon (talk) 03:54, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Another is Lehigh Valley Railroad Station (Rochester, New York); and some other Lehigh Valley Railroad Station ambiguities. From books, it looks like Lehigh Valley Railroad is the company and "station" should be generic. But NRHP caps it.

And then there's Milwaukee Airport Railroad Station; not historic, but it's actually called that in some sources. So that one seems right, or at least not as wrong. Dicklyon (talk) 04:13, 28 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Briefly, the NRHP name "Pennington Railraod Station" is supported by its nomination document, which itself cites numerous sources such as:
 * Historic Buildings in Pennington, New Jersey, delivered by D. Clarkson; before the Pennington Lions Club, April 21, 1950.
 * "Sipes, William B., The Pennsylvania Railroad--Its Origin, Construction, Condition, and Connections; The Passenger Department, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 1875."
 * numerous others, documenting that the NRHP document writing process was intelligent and applied research skills.
 * And it mentions HAER, suggesting there is a HAER document about it, which I would check, but I don't find one when searching at HABS/HAER search site.


 * I can't find the NRHP naming guideline instructions for nominators right now, but please see the corresponding HAER naming guideline instructions, with specifics about choosing names covered in Appendix A, page 21 on. It notes that performing research can be necessary.  The NRHP program is newer, and adopted NRHP naming instructions perhaps based on HABS/HAER instructions, but presumably refined/better for NRHP purposes.  I do recall they are similarly bureaucratic in a good way.


 * I'll reply more later about these. --Doncram (talk) 04:26, 28 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Okay, I read through MOS:CAPS and did some searching. There is nothing in MOS:CAPS which is at all supportive of anything like "Town station" naming;  what is relevant is the section on Proper Nouns;  we want a proper noun name for a place.   In Google books I find this page in a book, which clearly conveys that Pennington Railroad Station is the proper noun name of the place, and also refers informally to it as Pennington station.  These together suffice for me.  It is up to someone else to find documented use of "Pennington station" as a proper noun name, in order to support Wikipedia using it, which basically won't succeed because any usage of that is obviously not as a proper noun name, because it is partly in lower-case.


 * What we want for wikipedia is obvious to me, which is the proper noun name. If you put something into bold font in the lede of the article, you are saying that is the proper noun name.  If you put Pennington station into bold you appear to be coining, in Wikipedia author voice, a proper noun name which is ungrammatical in that it uses lowercase.  Your job is, instead, to find a legitimate proper noun name, if you want to have an article about a specific place rather than a generic article about train stations in general.


 * If there is some reason why train stations, perhaps subway stations in a given municipal system, supposedly have no proper noun name, or the ones that exist are too technical or unsuitable in some way, that needs to be tackled head-on in this essay. And if you make that argument for some other phrase to be used as the Wikipedia article title, it is a different matter about what you put into the lede of the article.  I think you simply cannot put the non-proper-name into bold, because bolding is asserting the phrase is a proper noun name.  It is naming the place, so that readers and others can follow and use the Wikipedia name, it is attempting to coin a proper noun name.


 * If you look inside the Sipes book cited, it does not use that name. As far as I can tell, the NRHP form does not say which sources support its naming, if any. And I can't see how to find a transcript of the 1950 talk.  But sources that I do find don't use that name, though I'll grant you that it's a railroad station in Pennington and that Pennington Railroad Station is a perfectly fine composed name for listing it on the NRHP. Dicklyon (talk) 04:49, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Okay, sure I did not see that source. Fine if it does or does not use the name, but we know the NRHP nominator considered any names that were put forward there, as part of a rigorous academic-research-type writing project.  Right we can't review the nominator's thought process in their choice of name, but we know they are competent professionals and they have explicit instructions on how to choose a name, with preference for using actual common names found by required research.  You don't know if it is a nominator-composed name (with review by local, state, national reviewers about the naming) or not, and even if you did know it was nominator-composed, there is the fact that it was thereby named and there is subsequent usage in practice. I don't see how you can second-guess that if you don't have a different proper noun formal name suggested as an alternative, in which case we get to try to review the subsequent usage of both in practice. --Doncram (talk) 05:09, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

You mention above that "we append "station" (lowercase) as "natural disambiguation", not pretending it's a name per se (which is part of why it's lowercase)." Offhand it appears to me that "station" used that way should be in parentheses, to convey accurately that it is Wikipedia disambiguation. "Town (station)" is not offensive to me, although inferior to a real proper noun name if one can be found. While "Town station" is highly offensive to me, especially when i see it in bold as "Town station", which is presenting it as a proper noun name to be used in Wikipedia and elsewhere, with it being obviously coined because of it being jarringly ungrammatical, with it being partly lowercase. There is a very strong effect from wikipedia using parenthetical disambiguation: we have educated our readers and the public broadly that disambiguating phrases are found in parentheses, that's what is in parentheses. As you put it into words, "station" is a disambiguating phrase, and it seems obvious it should be in parentheses or it is bogus and out of whack, it seems to me. --Doncram (talk) 05:25, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * OK, perhaps I mischaracterized WP:NATURAL disambiguation, which says "Natural disambiguation: Using an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English reliable sources, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title." The point is that "Pennington" is the name of the station, but it's also commonly called "Pennington station", and hardly ever "Pennington Railroad Station".  And I don't think I agree with your characterization of the NRHP naming process, having seen lots of those forms and now having read some guidelines.  They are very clearly in the business of coining names to be treated as proper names, based on some combination of usage and history, but not sticking to what it's commonly called.  That's OK for them, but not what we tend to do at WP when there are common names available. Very few station articles use the NRHP names, because they have other common names. Dicklyon (talk) 14:45, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think this gets to the root of the issue. Article names should first and foremost be common names. Is "Pennington Railroad Station" a common name? I don't believe so, but "Pennington station" probably is. In regards to the "Town (station)" format, I strongly disagree with using this for naming station articles. The word "station" strikes some sort of balance between proper noun and disambiguator, but it still should be part of the name. –Daybeers (talk) 17:01, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Merging naming conventions for stations
Hi. I am proposing a merger of all naming conventions for stations. Please give your opinion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains. Thanks. Szqecs (talk) 15:19, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

RfC on Naming conventions (Irish stations)
There's an RfC on adopting the proposed guideline for transport stations, Naming conventions (Irish stations), here. Interested editors are asked to weigh in.--Cúchullain t/ c 13:44, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Regional systems
Where commuter rail systems serve a metropolitan area surrounding a core city, is it preferable to disambiguate with the city or the system to avoid the use of unknown (or little-known) acronyms? e.g. Bell station (TRE) or Bell station (Fort Worth)? Useddenim (talk) 17:38, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Definitely not the city. Bell station (Hurst, Texas) is unfamiliar, and Bell station (Fort Worth) is incorrect - it's not in Fort Worth. Bell station (Trinity Railway Express) is a bit long but should be fine. IMO, the state would also be acceptable for most Trinity stations, although there's another Bell station in Texas.--Cúchullain t/ c 20:27, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Agreed - state is generally the best disambiguator except for a small number of systems (for the US, I'd say MBTA, BART, SEPTA, MARC, and perhaps a handful of others) where the acronym is by far the most common form. (Hurst, Texas) isn't necessarily a familiar place to the majority of readers, but it's still a clear enough disambiguator to be functional - for example, if this was a station served by multiple operators. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 22:35, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
 * IMO, the city is the best if the system is entirely within a recognizable city. Otherwise the state or system is better depending on the situation. To me, "Trinity Railway Express" is more recognizable than "Hurst, Texas", which to those who don't know suburban Dallas could be the name of a suburb of any of Texas's major cities.--Cúchullain t/ c 15:19, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Non-notable streetcar "stations"
This has come up several times in deletion discussions (San Francisco and Philadelphia – twice), so it’s probably necessary to address the issue. A rail transit boarding point with no infrastructure other than a small sign is not by any stretch of the imagination a station, and therefore shouldn’t be called such. At the very least, to qualify as one there should be: Anything lacking these criteria should be renamed as a stop. Useddenim (talk) 16:44, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
 * a platform
 * shelter
 * fare media (ticket vending or validation)
 * notability
 * reliable sources.
 * We'll need to specify where to apply this, especially for cities that only have a streetcar system that function as a proto-LRT. Detroit has articles, while most other systems do not.  Sounder Bruce  20:25, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
 * That definition is potentially difficult to apply for several reasons. One, many systems do not have fare machines, even at what are otherwise obviously stations. (By this standard, all but a handful of MBTA Commuter Rail stations - many of which have substantial infrastructure - would be "stops".) Two, what qualifies as a platform - does height matter? Does length? Does a bulb-out qualify? What about stops where platforms are planned but not yet in place? I think it may be better to keep "station" for all article titles, even when it seems an overreach, than struggle with definitions that can never be consistently applied.


 * Notability and reliable sources should be considered totally separately from infrastructure when considering article naming, in any case. Some stations with reasonable amounts of infrastructure may not have enough good information for an article (on enwiki, that's generally only the case for non-anglophone countries, where English-apeaking editors may have fewer sources available - see the discussion about Indian railway stations, for example). Conversely, some stops with little or no infrastructure pass the GNG with flying colors because they have significant history or discussion. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 22:45, 28 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Okay; "platform" is easy: any sort of (semi-)permanent structure that's not also roadway/sidewalk/shoulder. I wouldn't include a bulb-out because it's an extension of the sidewalk. I guess "fare media" could be changed from a requirement to a consideration. And you do make a good point about sources an notability. Nonetheless, there is a line (no matter how gray and fuzzy) between stations and stops. Useddenim (talk) 23:15, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
 * , there are also some bus rapid transit stops that have platforms and shelters as well (e.g. Category:Silver Line (MBTA) stations). I think any discussion about the possible renaming of streetcar stops should also apply to BRT. epicgenius (talk) 03:52, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
 * ✅. Useddenim (talk) 04:38, 29 January 2019 (UTC)