Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (schools)/Archive 6

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Rewrites

We currently have a modified version from Adam, another version from Chgallen and possibly another version from Miss Mondegreen. It's possibly premature to comment on specific proposals at present. I agree that the naming convention should concentrate specifically on how to name school articles. There is however a lot of confusion over the question of what to do with all these disambiguation pages as can be seen from some of the questions and discussions on this talk page where experienced editors are still unsure as to what to do. Can I suggest we aim for a simple naming page and then have a separate disambiguation page, mainly for the benefit of those of us in Wikiproject Schools, so that we can sort out the procedure for these disambiguation pages. I have one small point on Chgallen's proposal. It is misleading for the UK example to say that if the location is not unique then the county should be added. In the example given, Birmingham is not a unique location. There is for instance a Birmingham in Alabama and presumably a few more elsewhere. The UK Birmingham is however the one which, according to Wikipedia consensus, does not require disambiguation. I think we somehow need to retain the link with the place name title to avoid confusion. Dahliarose 15:50, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry - when I said that I would have a go at a rewrite I didn't mean to create even more confusion (as it appears that I have done). I've had a go at changing the wording as per your suggestion. Feel free to tamper with it if you don't like it. chgallen 15:59, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

That's where I disagree and think that we should specify differently. As has been pointed out below, not only are the naming conventions for settlements, in general contested and disputed and changing, but decisions like the disambiguation page is located at Birmingham or Birmingham (disambiguation) are decisions that are made locally and that in many cases change, sometimes more than once. We obviously don't want to create a new system in terms of settlements, and I'm not suggesting we do, I'm suggesting we simplify things. We base the system of NC(S), one parameter here, two there, yada, but if it's not unique, we always add a parameter--not just sometimes, dependent on something that changes. Miss Mondegreen talk  09:35, July 27 2007 (UTC)

I apologise Miss M, but I, not sure what you mean. My first problem is "NC (S)", my next is "yada". Putting those points aside. I read "one parameter here, two there" and think that this means that we have a liberal system. Then I read "we always add a parameter--not just sometimes" and this seems prescriptive. Maybe its me.,, if so then I reiterete apologies. I'm on holiday for a couple of weeks... Victuallers 10:13, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we have a liberal system, I think--it follows naming conventions (settlements) which recommends using different naming systems in different areas--so two parameters in the US, one in England, etc. Adding one parameter when it's ambiguous, it's a little prescriptive, yes, but it's easier to follow than sometimes adding one parameter when it's ambiguous, depending on the current status of whatever. It's not only easier to follow at the beginning, because it's always instead of almost always, but it requires no changing latter. In this case, prescription, which I'm generally against is just so sensible, that I can't see doing anything else. Can you explain what you're first two problems were though...I'm afraid I didn't understand. Miss Mondegreen talk  11:14, July 27 2007 (UTC)

I think NC S is the settlements naming convention. I've no idea what yada is. It sounds like the character from Star Wars. I'm dropping out of this discussion for a few weeks and perhaps by the time I get back we might have had some wider input. It seems to me far easier to go with the flow, so if Chicago don't want to have Illinois in their name then I don't see why we need to include it for school names. Dahliarose 11:16, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that the best wording might be "include the state (or county or whatever) if the place name is ambiguous". If we define ambiguous to mean "likely to cause confusion" then we're basically set. If we say always add another parameter, then we'll end up with "Manchester, Greater Manchester" to differentiate the English city from the others - even when on an international scale, Manchester on its own means the biggest Manchester (in England) unless otherwise stated.

I think it might be impossible to come up with a wording of the guidelines that work in every conceivable scenario. Better to explain the spirit of the guideline, and then be consistent. That is, make sure that all schools in LA either use on parameter or two, but not a mixture; all schools which just have "Manchester" refer to the Manchester in England. etc. If we continue to search for a universal water-tight rule set, we might be here forever. Thoughts? chgallen 11:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

But what happens next year when Chicago does want to have Illinois? It's not likely to be a problem with Chicago, but it will be with other places. Some of the most constant issues I see on Wikipedia are where to place a disambiguation page, whether or not one article is important enough not to be disambiguated. It's important to not be too prescriptive, but if we go with the flow to that extent, there will be no consistency--not only between different article's, but also in terms of individual articles. And the guideline already calls for avoiding repetition, why can't it call for avoiding repetition in terms of place names too? I'm sure we can think of lots of solutions---my real issue is basing this on place name article titles which in so many cases are contentious and change. We should be able to come up with something, something. Here's one thought--why don't we say, "in rare cases" again, or in some cases. We have that exception for school titles right, school titles which don't need to be disambiguated. So why don't we do the same here--in rare cases where one of the places is much more known than the others, an additional location parameter can be avoided. That gives flexibility, but it doesn't base it on something we don't have control over, and something that doesn't provide stability. Or, if that doesn't work, let's brainstorm--why don't we list the qualities that we want and try to think of a solution based on those? Miss Mondegreen talk  12:07, July 27 2007 (UTC)

Consider these two schools: Colchester Royal Grammar School and Royal Grammar School Worcester. Those are their official names. The naming convention is not consistent, but there in no ambiguity. Do we need consistency for its own sake, because we surely don't need it to avoid ambiguity? ~ Scribble Monkey 22:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Then they wouldn't be disambiguated, what's your point? Adam McCormick 02:36, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

My point is that as the long standing examples stated show, including a geographical qualifier allows people to distinguish between the two schools, but it not necessary to impose a rigid naming format. We can disambiguate without following a rigid naming formula; they have been doing it for years. ~ Scribble Monkey 10:08, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

What? Those two examples are using the official names of the school and require no disambiguation. They aren't including a geographical qualifier. They aren't disambiguated! That the schools happen to be named after places is not a point at all. People can distinguish between the two schools because they are named differently. We aren't applying a rigid naming format there--as far as I can tell, we aren't applying any at all.

Your example doesn't prove anything about disambiguating without a guideline because the schools in your example AREN'T DISAMBIGUATED (and don't require disambiguation either).

The problem is when there are multiple schools which share the same name. A disambiguation page doesn't exist, or someone searches improperly so an article [[example school a) (California)]] is created about the school in Los Angeles, California when an article already exists, but at the location [[example school a) (Los Angeles)]]. Most articles don't use any hatnotes, so readers have no idea that there are schools with the same name that we have articles for. If they come looking, they assume that we don't have the material, when often we do. Disambiguation pages are a mess to read because articles are being disambiguated over a dozen different ways. Articles link to the wrong school article because the title is ambiguous, or the writer doesn't remember that [[example school b) (California)]] is about the school in Oakland and that they need to link to [[example school b) (Los Angeles)]] for the LA school. This is what this guideline attempts to correct. Miss Mondegreen talk  12:45, July 29 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be under the misapprehension that Wikipedia invented disambiguation. All names exist so that we can differentiate between thing. When Henry VIII established seven schools called the King's School, he decided to disambiguate them by adding a geographical qualifier to their name, i.e. the settlement name where each school was. In real life, and in Wikipedia, the settlement name forms part of the official name. In real life, however, the people of each of the settlements tend to drop the settlement name when referring to the school amongst themselves. They include it, however, when talking about the school to people from other areas, to prevent ambiguity. Similarly, the schools previously mention tend to be call the Royal Grammar School, or RGS locally. This system has worked for years without having to use parentheses, or fixed settlement and district qualifiers. Surprising that we have to reinvent the wheel in Wikipedia.

Disambiguation pages are a mess to read because articles are being disambiguated over a dozen different ways - Oh come on, how difficult does that make it? And if the absence of hatnotes makes it difficult, why not promote hatnotes. If it's the readability of disambiguation pages, use pipes to standardise the entries on a page. I still haven't seen a valid argument for renaming hundreds, if not thousands of pages. ~ Scribble Monkey 12:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

(resets indent) I like that idea: "In rare cases where one of the places is much more known than the others, an additional location parameter can be avoided." I think that since this is only to differentiate schools, not places, that a state after the major US cities (Chicago, LA, et al) is unnecessary (even if they have one in their article title). I've added this to my sandbox:

While complete location disambiguation is preferred, in some rare cases this is unnecessary. When a major city is significantly more well-known than others with the same name, or else recognised around the world by one unique name, further qualification with a state or region is not needed.

• For example, [[Any High School (Chicago)]] requires no further disambiguation. Chicago on its own unambiguously refers to the world-famous city of Chicago in Illinois.
• Similarly, [[Any School (Manchester)]] is assumed to be found in the Manchester in England, even though there are many other smaller, less famous places called Manchester.

Feel free to tamper with it - the idea of it being in a sandbox is that we can play with it without confusing people viewing the policy page. chgallen 12:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why you guys are tying to ram through a naming convention for the UK that just doesn't represent reality. Within List of schools in the South East of England, for example, how many schools can you find that use parentheses rather than commas? I think the UK should align with Australia, on this one. ~ Scribble Monkey 13:51, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

In fact the majority of schools on that list that are disambiguated do so with parentheses, not commas, only ten use commas where over thirty use parentheses. Adam McCormick 14:07, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I think you'll find that most of those are red links. ~ Scribble Monkey 14:11, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Calm down, we're not trying to ram through anything. We're following a guideline that was agreed upon by consensus. You must understand that this is a new policy in development: of course there are many schools which chose an inappropriate name, that's why this naming convention is needed. You could pull out almost any list of schools and say "look, these don't all follow the guidelines!" - if they did, we wouldn't need to standardise them.

The reasons parens were decided on I've already outlined above. As I said, if you want to change it bring it up with the people who agreed upon it: Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools. It is irrelevant since I didn't participate in the original debate, but having read the original arguments put forward I personally feel that parens are more appropriate for schools as per every other disambiguation convention apart from settlements. chgallen 14:12, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't realise it had already been agreed. What's this discussion for then? Also, when does a guideline become mandatory? ~ Scribble Monkey 14:19, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The discussions are linked to on the policy page. This discussion is to decide upon the wording of the guideline - the spirit of the thing has more or less been agreed upon. The guideline will become official (but not mandatory) once consensus is reached on the wording. Hopefully this will occur soon. chgallen 14:22, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

All I can find are links back to this article! It may not become mandatory, but it'll give a green light to any fanatical editor that feels like renaming existing pages to an ugly and alien format. ~ Scribble Monkey 14:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Just because you find it an ugly and alien format does not mean everyone else shares the view. The original discussion I was referring to was at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Notability_%28schools%29/Archive_3#Sidetrack:__School_article_names. Why are parentheses so hard to accept? Every other disambiguation practice (other than settlement) uses parens, so it's hardly "alien". It's not just a matter of aesthetics: far more importantly , the use of parentheses can distinguish the official name from the added disambiguation tag. Commas don't do that. chgallen 15:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't realise it had already been considered by thirteen voters. ~ Scribble Monkey 15:10, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Your sarcasm, witty as it is, is not helpful. Instead of producing a counter argument to the fact that parens are differentiate the official school name from added qualifiers, you decided to mock the fact that only thirteen people considered the matter. WP:DEMOCRACY. I've already suggested raising the topic again. What do you want me to do? We cant override a consensus because of one editor's distaste for certain punctuation. Either re-raise the topic on the wikiproject, or accept the convention. Either way, please stop making unhelpful antagonistic comments. chgallen 15:24, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'm Sorry. One objection to parentheses, is that you have to pipe the name if you link it inline in an article, whereas St John's School, Chichester would probably be ok in most cases, making it easier for novice editors to link to. ~ Scribble Monkey 15:35, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry about it: I'm just grumpy because this debate keeps going and going and going. You make a good point, but I'm not convinced that either St John's School, Chichester or St John's School (Chichester) looks better in inline text. However, that's just my personal opinion. If you really feel strongly about this I'd advise finding a few other editors who share your point of view and then making a combined assault - you're much more likely to succeed if you can demonstrate that you have a groundswell of support. As it is, all we have is one or two editors on either side of the argument - it's hard to really progress from there. Anyway, sorry for getting bitchy with you earlier. chgallen 15:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's any easier to type "Name of school, Place" than "Name of school (Place)" and a novice editor wouldn't pipe either of them. A novice would probably end up linking to the disambiguation page anyway. But parentheses are used for articles sharing the same name across wikipedia so why confuse these "Novice" editors with two very different guidelines when we don't have to? Adam McCormick 17:09, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Is the beligerence intended to be helpful? - I came here in good faith, believing that a discussion regarding the naming of schools was taking place. However, everyone appears to have made up their minds and my opinions are not welcome. Unfortunately, this appears to be the norm on Wikipedia; ten people defeat three other people in a vote and thousands who edit in good faith have their efforts disrupted by those few people who believe everyone else must share their narrow view. Personally, this is not high on my list of priorities, but I suppose it's that sort of apathy that permits these unrepresentative rules to be created. ~ Scribble Monkey 22:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

As we have already established, place names are often a part of school names. In fact, sometimes punctuation is too--"the school of whatever, city a" "the school of whatever, city b". AFAIK, there are no schools that include in the official name parentheses. Including the disambiguation in parentheses makes it very clear that it is not a part of the name of the school. The other various issues that are being discussed I don't personally see as issues, and even if they are for an editor should be minor compared to this. The two forms are equally easy to type, both have to be disambiguated in inline text and neither is particularly pretty. This is simply about clarity. Miss Mondegreen talk  07:12, July 28 2007 (UTC)

I'm trying to resist this debate, but. Why do domain names use "WWW"; why does html markup up "<>". Its because the text was unusual. Location name articles in Wikipedia use commas. There for a format that uses commas is silly. Parenthesis are in use already. QED. On ScribbleMonkeys point. There are a number of people exhausted by this debate - I'm not sure fillibusting is going to get a good consensus Victuallers 12:00, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but, huh? "There for a format that uses commas is silly"

"Parenthesis are in use already" -- I normally get your shorthand, but this can be a read a million ways. Deciding to forgone long prose, specific names, and antecedents is all well and good, only if people know what you mean. And even if they do at the time, your comments run the serious rusk of being misread in the future. Anyway, mind translating? Miss Mondegreen talk  12:17, July 28 2007 (UTC)

OK slower. Computers (and by extention humans) can find a phrase if it is diffentiated in some way by starting with an unusual character and finishing with another unusual character. HTML uses the character "<" and ">". "www" in a domain name is the name of the subdomain. When there is no subdomain you write "www". They could have chosen "Tuesday", but being as most languages don't have triple w s, then its a good choice.

1. I think we have decided that school followed by location is as good idea and being as we have thousands of them written this way then thats a sensible choice.
2. Writing the location as Wikipedia writes locations is a good idea, cos thats how they are defined and as people expect to see them. There are 100s of thousands of these with commas in. So locations have a-z, A-Z, commas and I would expect to see apostrophes, occasional ampersand, and all cyrillic, scandinavian character sets. I would be very surprised to see square brackets, pipes or curly brackets (cos wiki uses them) unusual to see round brackets.
3. The name of the school can flow into the location. e.g. I'm working on La Martiniere Lucknow and I have no idea whether they know whether that is the name or the name and the location. Being as they havent yet put a seperator in it like a comma then I guess thats their name. To stop school names flowing into locations then we need a seperator.
4. Location name articles in Wikipedia use commas (see above). Therefore a format that uses commas [to seperate the location from the school] is silly. Parenthesis are in use already [See above]. QED. Victuallers 14:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thats what I thought you were getting, at, but I wasn't quite sure. Thank you--that was exactly the point that I was trying to make. Unless all else is equally, we don't really worry about how pretty something is. We worry about clarity and comprehension. Unless of course there is a whole group of schools that do have parentheses in their names. Miss Mondegreen talk  08:26, July 29 2007 (UTC)

You appear to be solving a problem that doesn't exist; why do we need to be able to tell a schools official name from search results or a disambiguation page? Surely consulting an article should be the preferred method, or if it was really important, perhaps the article's referenced sources? Btw, Sheiling School (Thornbury) appears to be one school that includes parentheses in its name. ~ Scribble Monkey 10:08, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Why do we need to be able to tell? Because it's confusing otherwise. A user should be able to clearly tell the difference between an official name and a Wikipedia naming convention from browsing, and frankly, even if I have read the article, we disambiguate when there's more than one. I don't want to, when browsing a category for instance, constantly have to be going to articles to find out what the actual name of the school is.

And besides, why should we choose against clarity? Because you think commas are prettier? If both issues really are negligible, and I don't believe that's true, do you honestly believe that looks come before content?

And in re the link...which is more common? And looking at the website it's really unclear if that's actually an official part of the name or just there for clarification. Miss Mondegreen talk  12:45, July 29 2007 (UTC)

How often do people browse through categories wondering if the town name is actually officially part of the school name? It's not a question of choosing clarity against prettiness, rather the imposing of a rigid unnecessary structure and creating a situation where pages will be renamed in such a way that is inconsistent with other local building, such as churches. ~ Scribble Monkey 12:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I think you might be clutching at straws now. "how often..." Well, I would think that when browsing though local schools it might be beneficial to be able to tell the name of a school from the title of its article, but that's just me. The "imposing of a rigid unnecessary structure" is just using deliberately defamatory language. It's not any more rigid than any other naming convention - if we were advocating "rigid" use of commas you would call it comprehensive and consistent. As for "unnecessary", I really do not agree. It's may be slightly arbitrary, but I do think that using a consistent nomenclature is beneficial to the encyclopaedia. And parentheses make the most sense for the reasons already explained (that's why they were chosen for the default disamibguators all over WP). As to your point about churches, I looked but I couldn't find a specific naming convention page for them. A quick search reveals that they are in a state of limbo quite like our own - some use parens and some use commas. I could link to an example but that would be pointless - you would just find another example contradictory to my own and so on and so on ad nauseam. We are not debating churches, but schools. You say that "other local buildings" use commas but that is quite incorrect. Most are inconsistent. WP:PLACES says:

There are two methods in primary use for the long form of disambiguating place names. One uses commas between the administrative divisions, the other uses parentheses enclosing the administrative divisions. There are also hybrid variations.

It specifically notes that both systems are in use. In fact, I would argue that it encourages parens in our case. It says that if the disambiguated term is in normal use in other articles, use a comma; if it is generally referred to as the short name then use parentheses. Schools (I would argue) are generally referred to by a short name and rarely with disambigators unless necessary. But it doesn't really matter - the point is that parens are acceptable and the majority consensus appears to be that they are preferable. The use of parentheses was the one thing we were all agreed on. It would be utterly pointless to go back on it for no good reason - we would not just have made no progress; we would have actually gone backwards. chgallen 13:43, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Search for Sedgemoor "Ashmeads School" in Google and see if you can find it without parentheses. The assertion that school names don't contain parentheses is dubious. BTW, using a comma doesn't exactly obfuscate the name; I think most people wouldn't fret whether Hill View School, Banbury was really called Hill View School, Banbury, or just plain old Hill View School. Looking at the article, would suggest the latter. ~ Scribble Monkey 14:22, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone asserted that no school names include parentheses. I think the idea was that it was far more common for them to include commas than parens, and that parens were almost universally used across WP for disambiguation. Are you claiming that parnetheses within school names are more common than commas?

Anyway, take the common wikipedia user. If he sees Hill View School (Banbury) he is most likely to understand that the school's name is HVS and that the text within parens is just a WP disambiguation (as the text within parens is for almost all other types of articles). But for Hill View School, Banbury, from its title I assumed on first glance that Banbury was a part of its name just like The King's School, Rochester - from the HVS's website it is clear that it's not. So you have to ask yourself which is more important: clarity of naming, or an arbitrary preference for a certain punctuation? I've already tried to explain that you can't change the decision here: this discussion is just to decide on the level of specification required within the parens. If you are really serious about stamping out parentheses, you'll have to bring it up on the wikiproject again. chgallen 15:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I think we've done it to death. The City of London Academy (Southwark) will just have to live with the fact that everybody thinks there's another City of London Academy somewhere else. ~ Scribble Monkey 15:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

You have done it to death and, in fact, there is another City of London Academy in Islington Adam McCormick 15:41, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

There will be, but it hasn't been built yet. Who should own City of London Academy? ~ Scribble Monkey 16:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

City of London Academy should either be a dab page with a link to City of London Academy (Southwark) and a redlink to City of London Academy (Islington); or, seeing as though there isn't an article on the City of London Academy (Islington) yet, it should just be a redirect to the City of London Academy (Southwark). I think. chgallen 16:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

chgallen is correct I think. As it stands, the point is moot because only one of them has an article on wikipedia. And if the school is best known as "City of London Academy", not "City of London Academy (Southwark)" then it doesn't matter what the official name is it would be "City of London Academy" as far as wikipedia is concerned. Adam McCormick 16:19, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

it doesn't matter what the official name is - sorry, I thought that was your point, that the article name should be the official name. ~ Scribble Monkey 16:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Arbitrary Section Break

Please read the guideline. "School article titles should use the full official name of the school as provided by the school itself, unless the most common name for the school is significantly more well known than the official name." It's pretty clear on that point. Adam McCormick 16:29, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (settlements)

Welcome to the snake pit that is this guideline. The present state of affairs is this:

• Almost all municipalities in the United States are at city, state. There are several schools of thought about municipalities with unique or dominant names, which includes both great cities like Chicago and small places like Matawan, New Jersey.
  • All of them should include their state.
  • None of them should include their state.
  • The great cities which don't require disambiguation don't include their state, others do.
    • There are people who support each of these vehemently; unfortunately they also differ on their second choices.
• There are a handful of exceptions, among the great cities; there was a different handful last year; it will probably be another different handful next year. Now it's New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago, but not Los Angeles.
  • New York City was done on the grounds that New York, New York is, strictly speaking, New York County, which is Manhattan, not the other four boroughs.
  • Chicago and Philadelphia have no special basis that I can see, other than local pride.

I hope this helps. I'm not sure what I would do in the situation, especially since many schools aren't run by municipalities, but by regional school districts. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:17, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Australia

I'm not convinced that Australia is overlwhelmingly against parentheses. I'm in the process of looking through the various Lists of schools in Australia and I'm finding that the numbers of schools disambiguated with commas v. parentheses, while a little larger, is about the same. I think we may be premature in thinking that this is "local consensus" not just a few people's bias Adam McCormick 14:58, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

From what I can tell (having looked through all of the lists) it's an imbalance of about fourty schools (something like 15% of Australian disambiguations which makes 42% parens to 58% commas) which is not consensus at all. And even this is a little misleading because many of these schools are not even ambiguous, of which most are comma formatted due to the redlinks on these pages. Adam McCormick 15:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Interesting... Well done for researching all that. I'm all for consistent use of parens but evidently that's not a popular viewpoint. We'll see what other editors think of this. chgallen 15:49, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I asked for a link in the discussion above, but got no reply from the Australian editor. At any rate, we should just write in that if there is a country formatting guideline that disagrees with this to follow that instead. If in fact some place areas use formatting to designate meaning (though I can't see the point as it wouldn't be obvious to the casual reader), then that should take precedence. Barring that though, one of the reasons we're doing this is because there are often a dozen various formattings used on one disambiguation page and it gets confusing and hard to read. And in terms of inline text, as argued above, both should be piped in inline text as the text in parenthesis is not a part of the school name. Miss Mondegreen talk  07:06, July 28 2007 (UTC)

Making moves

I have followed this debate with interest - not least at the ferocity with which folk feel & express their views (!). However, my concern now is with existing articles. Is it recommended to move articles that are currently using commas to a name with brackets instead - since this part of the policy at least seems to be agreed. For example, might I move The Weald School, Billingshurst to The Weald School (Billingshurst) - or is it to soon? Or not worthwhile? Tafkam 14:36, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I suspect it's premature at the moment to change any English schools from commas to brackets. We could really do with some wider input from other related Wikiprojects (eg Wikiproject England) but it's probably best to wait now until September until everyone gets back from holiday. However, in this instance I would suggest that you do move the page but rename the school as The Weald School. As far as I can see it is the only school of this name in existence and the addition of Billingshurst in the title is unnecessary (unless of course the school is known by the longer name though the website suggests otherwise). Dahliarose 15:05, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

It's not the only weald school--there's one in Beare Green, Surrey. The official name is actually "Weald Church of England Primary School", but by all appearances, the school commonly goes by the less mouthy "The weald school". One good way to search for alternate schools--especially if one school has a lot of search results (which happens when it has a Wikipedia article), is to search for the name of the school and exclude from the results anything with the location (choose a part of the location that's as specific as possible (don't get too specific though) that isn't a common word--here I used Billingshurst). Miss Mondegreen talk  07:46, August 3 2007 (UTC)

The other one is a primary school, and is presumably the feeder school for the senior school. If this school ever has an article it would logically be named "The Weald Primary School". Dahliarose 08:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Erm, I haven't seen any indication that they are connected (would a school in Surrey feed into a school in East Sussex?) especially given the different names, but we can't just arbitrarily add "primary" to keep them unique. They have unique names technically, one is The Weald Church of England Primary School, but it is most commonly referred to as "The weald school" not "the weald primary school". It might be easier for us if it were, but we cannot change what the school is commonly referred to, or ignore that it is never called "the weald church of england primary school". That's unacceptable. We probably could have the senior school located without disambiguation and the primary school disambiguated, but the senior school is already disambiguated and it isn't that well known or at all necessary IMO. Miss Mondegreen talk  01:17, August 4 2007 (UTC)

The two schools are definitely not connected. There is, incidentally, another Weald Primary in Sevenoaks (also unconnected) and both a First and Middle school in Harrow by the same name. My preference, therefore, would be to leave the current article at its Billingshurst location, if only since it seems pointless moving it, where it might possibly create confusion. Tafkam 15:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Hatnotes

I've removed the New English School examples from the main page as they are confusing (I'm not quite sure how they found their way back as they had already been removed before). If I've understood correctly what we've agreed a disambiguation page should be created if two or more schools share the same name (I've amended the text accordingly). The New English Schools don't follow our prescribed format. They should presumably both be disambiguated and should be renamed New English School (Amman) and New English School (Jabriya). For the moment I would suggest we're best sticking to examples from English-speaking countries. Dahliarose 09:41, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, we flip-flopped. That had been the original idea, but then I think it was Adam perhaps who pointed out that I disambiguation page every time two schools share the same name was, well, a LOT of disambiguation pages. So it was changed to a disambiguation page for three or more schools and if it was only two schools, they were both disambiguated and used hatnotes INSTEAD of a disambiguation page, not to point to a disambiguation page. So in the case of the New English school there should be one school at New English School (Amman) and one at New English School (Jabriya) and nothing at New English School (so searching for New English School would presumably bring up (Amman) and (Jabriya) as the first two results). At any rate, that's why that was there--to demonstrate that what happened when there were only two articles that shared a name, and I used New English School to demonstrate that this problem with schools sharing names was in fact a global one, and not just an English one. I specifically wanted an example from a non-English-speaking country because this problem is not just an English speaking one.

So we should come to some sort of final decision on whether or not only two schools sharing a name should have a disambiguation page, and I'd like to see some non-English-speaking country example in there. Miss Mondegreen talk  01:25, August 4 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that if you have nothing at New English School then it's only a matter of time before an unwitting volunteer looks for an article on one school or the other, finds the namespace blank, and so begins a new article. To avoid that, it seems wiser to me to have a disambig page at New English School. Whether or not you then use paired hatnotes, or simply a link back to disambig should surely depend on the number of schools.Tafkam 01:40, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I said no such thing, I'd prefere a disambiguation page for two or more. We have to do something with the unparametrized page. Adam McCormick 03:30, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

There are two options. The Wikipedia default is a first-to-the post system where the first school grabs the unique name space (as has happened with the New English School in Jordan and the next school disambiguates itself. The second alternative is that both school names are disambiguated and a disambiguation page is created at School Name. Having two disambiguated school name pages and a blank school name page is a recipe for disaster as two articles could potentially be created on the same school under different names. It seems to make more sense in most cases to disambiguate both school names as in most cases neither one school nor the other will merit the distinction of having a non-disambiguated name. While this policy is being formulated we need to take care that we don’t provide any misleading examples on the existing page. We already have one confused editor. See: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools#Mountain Ridge High School. This example also suggests that it is very important that this page includes recommendations and examples about how to disambiguate school articles. Dahliarose 10:05, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

My apologies Adam-I don't remember exactly who it was at this point and really have no inclination to start looking through the archives.

At any rate, the way it had been written is why I raised the question a week or two ago of what happens to that page--is it left empty, is it made into a temporary redirect page to the more known school, what? I definitely prefer this version--it is simpler and it is the way it was originally written, but we did already go around changing this once.

However, if we keep this version, we need to resurrect the "unique" example. It was gotten rid of because it was the same as the disambiguating only two school example and the examples section was a mess. I've made that addition--at least temporarily and cleaned it and the previous section up. Miss Mondegreen talk  11:23, August 4 2007 (UTC)

It definitely can't be left blank. That will just leave School Name empty - not very useful when just the name is searched for. And it shouldn't be a redirect when neither of the schools are particularly famous. I think WP:D is quite clear on this:

• When two or more schools share a name, a disambiguation page is created at School Name.
• However, an exception is made for when exactly two schools share a name, but one of them is much more well known that the other. In this case, the well known is at School Name and the less famous are at School Name (Location). The well known school must have a hat note linking to the less famous. No disambiguation page is needed.
• When more than two schools share a name, one of them being very well known, a disambiguation page must be created at School Name (disambiguation). A hat note linking to this page is put on the famous school's page. chgallen 18:20, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

RFC

I have requested that the article on State University of New York at Stony Brook be moved to Stony Brook University. Would someone with knowledge in this policy participate in the discussion at Talk:State University of New York at Stony Brook#Requested move. --Voidvector 04:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Page was moved to Stony Brook University because it is the name the school publishes. Adam McCormick 21:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Consensus Building

I'm not sure if we have consensus but there are no ongoing arguments so I think it's time to see where we stand. Please list any problems/points of contention you believe still exist in the current revision below Adam McCormick 21:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

• We still don't have input from the Aussies or the Canadians Adam McCormick 21:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Um, actually there's a couple things--I thought we discussed them above but I'm computerless for the next couple days--I'll post them when I get back. Miss Mondegreen talk  08:35, August 20 2007 (UTC)