Talk:Peace River (disambiguation)

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primary use is the river - ?? no??[edit]

All other names here, for the Canadian usages anyway, derive from that of the river. Shouldn't this title be used for the river article, and all the others appear on Peace River (disambiguation)? Nearly all of the derived Canadian names will appear on the river's article in the text anyway. The 'primary use" of this name is the river, in other words; the US ones are obscure by comparison, and only one has an article.Skookum1 (talk) 22:10, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah OK the move of the former disambiguation page to this title took place in 2009..... I may start an RM on this later today; the most common thing that the link Peace River would ever come to is the river-in-Canada article IMO. If other regulars on this page see a reason why not to RM this, please chime in.Skookum1 (talk) 22:30, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Common sense would be that this should be the home for the Canadian river as it is the namesake for the town (and the river and/or the town is the namesake of the other Canadian articles), but the existence of rivers in the US, albeit less notable, makes things fuzzy. I'd err on the side of caution. Try an RM. Hwy43 (talk) 07:20, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
K, that's kinda why I asked. That two of the US rivers are redlinks suggests they're not very notable, but don't know about the Florida one, could be significant...in Florida. Thing is, if there was a Fraser River or a Mackenzie River in the US that was minor and not as major a river or as well-known, would there be a need for a Fraser or Mackenzie dab page? Definitely for Red River there's a whole whack of variables...in fact, I'm curious to see whether that's a disambiguation page or not. The Red River of the Arctic is not as well known as the other two, but in Texas the Red River of the North is definitely not what they'd mean there.....Skookum1 (talk) 08:34, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, dab page there...more than I could have realized, and had forgotten about the tributary of the Kechika, too. I'll start the RM tomorrow, it's late.Skookum1 (talk) 08:37, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 00:40, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Peace River → Peace River (disambiguation) – The Peace River in British Columbia and Alberta is by far the most common use of this name, and is the source-name of all other Canadian "Peace River" entries on this page. This was moved from Peace River (disambiguation) in 2009 and really should not have been. Though there are three Peace Rivers in the United States, only one has an article, and I am unfamiliar myself with the notability of the one in Florida in terms of US geographical names or historical importance. The Canadian Peace, on the other hand, is a very major river with a significant role in the history of Canada and as the namesake of various entities, some already listed. Concomitant with this move, the current Peace River (Canada) article should be moved to the main Peace River title. Skookum1 (talk) 19:15, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Rather surprisingly for such a common word, a search of the U.S. geographical names database shows no other uses in the U.S. besides these already listed here. I think a move based on common name seems appropriate. Rmhermen (talk) 20:34, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the face of it, oppose - Peace River (Florida) is 106 miles long. Do you have any evidence it is named after Peace River (Canada)? In ictu oculi (talk) 00:47, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • I said the other Canadian uses, I said nothing about Florida other than I didn't know how notable it is in Florida or in the US. It's certainly not as notable as the Missouri or Colorado or Ohio Rivers. And how many web searches or wiki searches will be looking for the one in Florida, vs the one in Canada? The Canadian one is 1,923 km (1,195 mi) long, btw.Skookum1 (talk) 01:48, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, you did not say that. Re-read what you wrote. Though I do understand this is what you meant to say, I suggest you revise your opening sentence to prevent further confusion. Hwy43 (talk) 06:11, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed.Skookum1.
Okay, well that's different, but weakens your proposal considerably. Note that 106 miles of Florida is more heavily populated than 1,195 of Canada, probably the reason the disproportionate interest shown to the Florida river in books. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:47, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note that "X was named after Y" is not one of our criteria for WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Red Slash 23:58, 25 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, but "Many X's named after Y" is a very real indicator of greater notability.Skookum1 (talk) 00:29, 26 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That would make the town just as notable. 117Avenue (talk) 00:22, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's a non sequitur; the region and electoral districts are not named for the town, on either side of the provincial boundary, they are named for the river; the electoral districts are named for the region, that is, which ultimately is named for the river, as is the town. And Peace River-the-town is not the primary topic in British Columbia, nor is it likely demonstrable to be the primary topic in Alberta, either.Skookum1 (talk) 01:20, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Wikipedia is not just canada. I think that disambiguation has to consider "peace river" entries including other countries and that one river is probably not WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Sitta kah (talk) 18:52, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Probably not" is not a credible point; either it is the most common or it's not. I don't have time for the google comparison that's customary, I suggest you give it a try. It's very dubious to me that the tiny river in Florida would be a more common search item than the very large one in Canada; you're welcome to try and prove otherwise; on a global scale I'd submit that the one in Florida is "probably not" well known anywhere but Florida. Skookum1 (talk) 20:59, 22 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The ratio is 58,000:14,000 since 1980, but that 58,000 is divided among the 8 articles related to electoral districts etc. so Sitta Kah's "probably not" is supported by Google Books. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:51, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"since 1980"....hmmmm...and only googlebooks....hmmm. Did you not try winnowing the search to EXCLUDE the electoral districts and the town and the region? Did you perhaps try a "geography" only limitation? And I don't suppose it hasn't occurred to you that the "derivative" names I just suggested excluding from the search are still indications of primary topic? Are there electoral districts or towns or regions named after the one in Florida? And I suppose there might be a lot of riparian studies to do with the one in Florida, perhaps outnumbering those on the Canadian one, because of the 10:1 ratio of academic work in the US vs that in CAnada. Is the name of that river well-known across the US, whether in school books or in US history? How many companies are named for the river in Florida? If you asked an English speaker outside of North America where the Peace River was, where do you think is most likely they would answer? And on List of rivers by length, where would the one in Florida fit? Or List of rivers by volume? Oh, sure, that's different, that's more notable but I "get" that that's not what matters here; what statistical breakdowns for any name on CAnada vs the US will nearly always do, unless for a unique name like the Stikine or Saskatchewan Rivers, will be to favour the US; this is probably the case with the Yukon River, and with the Columbia; probably the case with the Red River of the North and maybe even the St. Lawrence. The preponderance of publishing titles for places in the US on a US-based internet is a given. I;m amazed, quite frankly, that a major, very significant river, could be so side-swiped by statistical presumption here like this; if this river were in the US, there's little doubt it would be the primary topic over the other three minor ones; but because it's not in the US, that is not the case. The opposition here, that a major high-volume river of considerable length and well known a name in a country of 33 million people, and important in the history and economies of two major provinces totalling eight million people in population (nine now?), is allegedly not as well known and not as important a topic, or no more important a topic, than a hundred-odd mile stream that serves as a county boundary in only one state of the Union and...... if we exclude Florida results from that google...how well known is it in, say, Washington or Minnesota or New Mexico? Not that people there would know about the one in Canada; but if you asked in the other eight Canadian provinces and three territories where the Peace River was, what answer would you get? And among people in the UK or Australia or Germany or India or wherever with geography degrees, what would they answer??Skookum1 (talk) 08:20, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I interpret the traffic patterns above differently to JHunterJ.... many people will have gone to Peace River, Alberta looking for the river not the town. It appears to me that the river is the primary topic. Andrewa (talk) 00:34, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment "notability on the internet" is not the same thing as "notability in the real world". One reason there'd be higher traffic patterns for the town is for people looking for work in the oilpatch, for example. Or for locals of the town looking up restaurants or services or the muni's own site. Somewhere in the notability guidelines there is a clause about how google results and net traffic are not final arbiters of notability or primary topic; they are only a rough form of evidence, not a deciding factor. There are cases of towns like Campbell River or Williams Lake where the namesake river and lake are nowhere near as relevant or significant as the towns in question; this is decidedly not one of those cases.Skookum1 (talk) 05:09, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, the notability guidelines don't talk about primary topics, so I don't think they say that, but the primary topic guidelines themselves indicate what tools can be used to gauge how well the criteria are being met, and those criteria are usage (Wikipedia usage) and long-term significance. The evidence only informs the decision, it doesn't make it itself. Here, it appears to me to support the current arrangement (that is, the arrangement earlier decided by editors) where the base name is a disambiguation page, and all readers need to make an additional selection to reach the town, Canadian river, Florida river, or elsewhere, since the primary topic criteria haven't been met. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:04, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Andrewa, in that case Peace River, Alberta should be a disambiguation page for the river and the town, or even a redirect to the river with a hatnote to the town, right? I disagree with that interpretation: best case, 7574 of the 10,981 wanted the river (it's woefully unlikely that 100% of the river traffic went through the town article first, but let's say it was), leaving 3407 for the town. That 3407 plus the traffic for the other articles still means the Canadian river isn't "more likely than all the other topics combined". -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:04, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Reply WPCanada disambiguation guidelines/rules are that comma-province is used for towns and localities, parantheses-province for geographic objects like rivers and mountains, so your point about "Peace River, Alberta" becoming its own disambiguation page is completely off-base. And as you note yourself, the notability guidelines refer to things like google and traffic searches but that those pieces of evidence themselves are not to be deciding factors. Context is everything in in such searches; as I've already noted, the town of Peace River, Alberta is part of the current job rush in the Alberta oil/gas patch and that will skew the traffic towards the town rather than the river; the region also (the Peace River Country), by way of a further example, is not named for the town but rather for the river, and as a term is found on both sides of the provincial boundary (synonymous with "Peace River District", though the term Peace River Block refers to a particular CPR land block). I do believe that the 2009 transformation of Peace River into a disambiguation page was in error, and was not made by someone who was familiar with the river or its very important context in the history and geography of Canada. If you were to look up "Peace River FOO" in terms of businesses and government offices, yes, many of those in Alberta would be located (maybe) in the town of Peace River, Alberta....but their name would not be deriving from the name of the town per se, but would be being named after the district/region named after the river. i.e. "Peace River School District" if there is one, would be not named after the town even if its offices were located there; "Peace River Transport", if such a business had its offices in the town, would likewise be named after the river's region and only incidentally happen to coincide with the name of the town, which was likewise named for the region/river. This is an obvious matter to most Canadians (perhaps you are one, I don't know) that it becomes tiresome to repeat it.Skookum1 (talk) 20:30, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • Skookum1, I support the move, but this is not a productive argument. "X was named after Y, therefore Y is primary topic" is not based on any WP policy or guideline. Red Slash 22:05, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • Reply My comment is to the effect that the usage "Peace River" in English primarily roots to the river, not the (rather small) town in Alberta. Wikipedia's "primary topic" so-called rules aren't rooted in reality, but in Wikipedia's penchant for guideline-forming. In the real world and in "English as she is spoke", "Peace River" most commonly and globally refers to this river, and not to the town or the river in Florida. Wiki-lawyering using the contrived language of Wikipedia guidelines is not relevant to the truth (as is so often the case with Wikipedia guidelines, the "enforcement" of which nearly always ignores the WP:Fifth Pillar though even that is not all that relevant here. The overwhelming weight of geographical significance, most prevalent meaning in Englis, and general reality as a a whole point towards the river. And if ""X was named after Y, therefore Y is primary topic" does not relate to any extant Wikipedia guideline, then it's high time that that should be considered for addition to the guidelines. Which were, after all, not brought down from Sinai by Moses...or even by Jimbo Wales.Skookum1 (talk) 23:06, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • Comment I just did a quick ["X was named after Y, therefore Y is primary topic" basic Google for "Peace River"] and the town's government site came up first (meaning that they have a really good SEO person working for them), Peace River (Canada) came next (the river), then Peace River, Alberta (the wikipedia page for the town) and then the Peace River dab page. Following that is the "images of Peace River" google image search (predominantly images of the river/region), then the Peace River Regional District in BC, then Environment Canada's weather page for the Peace River Airport, then a few listings of articles in the Peace River Record Gazette, the town's newspaper, then the Peace River school district in Alberta, then the Peace River tourist information site based in Grand Prairie...... you're welcome to review the rest yourself, but clearly Google ranks the river ahead of the town as far as wikipedia articles go, and the next few items include BC and Grand Prairie (the larger town in the Alberta portion of the region), and the quality and range of pictures in the "images" section says a lot about what the term primarily means. Skookum1 (talk) 23:52, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • "so your point about "Peace River, Alberta" becoming its own disambiguation page is completely off-base." No, just because it doesn't support your conclusion doesn't mean it's completely off base. WPCanada doesn't get to override reader navigation. If, as you claim, "Peace River, Alberta" is ambiguous for the readers, then the readers need to be served. I think that claim is completely off-base, which means that I'm more in agreement with the WPCanada guidelines than your interpretation is. -- JHunterJ (talk) 03:28, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • "in that case Peace River, Alberta should be a disambiguation page for the river and the town" is just plain silly. The Peace River isn't exclusively in Alberta, in case you hadn't noticed; what you're suggesting implies yet another dab page for Peace River (British Columbia) being about the regional district, the river and your little notion would have to then also include the Peace River School Board and the Peace River Provincial Park (both AB). Wikipedia Canada geographic disambiguation for the river would be Peace River (Alberta); in Wikipedia Canada there is no confusion about what the Peace River is, or that it would be the obvious primary topic. It's true that the town of Slave Lake, Alberta is a primary topic over Slave Lake (the lake) but note that there's no dab there either, even though the town is by far the more well-known of the two. This is not the case with the Peace River and the town of Peace River. Disambiguation in WP Canada exists to resolve confusions; and you're wildly misinterpreting what I meant about ambiguity about the term "Peace River, Alberta". If someone searching for that in the search window anywhere like that, it's a completely different thing than searching for Peace River....and as I commented it's only because the town of Peace River has (apparently) a good SEO contractor that it comes out ahead of the obvious geographic item. And if it does have more hits than the river, it's because people are looking for work there. It's only 5000 fulltime residents for pity's sake, it's not like we're talking about Calgary or Regina here. And what you said was "Andrewa, in that case Peace River, Alberta should be a disambiguation page for the river and the town, or even a redirect to the river with a hatnote to the town, right?" and the answer to that, in WPCanada terms, is very simple - Peace River, Alberta is the town article, Peace River (Alberta) may exist already as a redirect to the town by someone titling /dabbing it that way long ago, though if there were no town and there were a need to dab another large significant river of teh same name (which the one in Florida is not, then a dab page from the parantheses dab page (not from the comma-province one) might be called for. The only reason I can see that this title became a dab page in the first place was because of the three minor rivers in hte US, and had nothing to do with the town at all. Seems to me you're the one looking for ambiguity, and to spread confusion, rather than to accede to the obvious evidence of how major publications, governments and search engine image databases regard the term. This is a major river of global importance, it's not comparable to a small town along its length that is even less significant in name-usage than the governmental regions and such named after it. Even up there, something called "Peace River FOO" might well be located in Grand Prairie, or Pouce Coupe, or in Fort St John or Dawson Creek (which are in BC). Not even within the Peace River region would "Peace River" be taken to refer to the town unless the wording of the sentence/question directly implied it. ,This is just more proof to me that neither wikipedia nor google are the real world, and that education and common sense are on terminal slide into irrelevance and....wackiness. The contrarian nature of your opposition to what is common sense has now degraded into claiming ambiguity on my part when I was doing no such thing, and as such is 'putting words in my mouth' and my blood pressure doesn't need any more of this and where I've provided evidence and argument you have provided more obfuscation and confusion and what seems like deliberate misinterpretation than anything else. I'm talking common sense geographic primary use (which in geography is pretty much the same thing as notability - i.e. significance - and a small service town in the oilpatch named for a massive river that is the namesake of a whole lot more than the little town just does not equate nor should it be subject to puerile equivocation and misdirection such as your are conducting here. Your question to Andrewa was just mud in the water, and what I did was point out that comma-province is the standard format for town articles while parentheses-province when needed is the dab for geographic articles; and you did an end run on that and want to build another dab page. I do not seem to be the one confused here, nor the one intent on confusing the issue with every successive post.Skookum1 (talk) 07:18, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
            • Skookum1, I respectfully suggest you avoid engaging further in this sub-discussion. You aren't going to convert everyone who opposes your proposals. You'll save yourself further irritation and stress, which I imagine isn't doing your health any favours. Hwy43 (talk) 08:26, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
            • Also, I agree that it's just plain silly, but it's a result of the claim that people looking for the river are looking for it under the title "Peace River, Alberta". -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:24, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Decided to look up some other searches of relevance:
  • a review of all those shows predominant usage - primary usage - of the term "Peace River" as the river, or things named for it such as the region; the Peace River Airport is in the town of Peace River and it shows up a lot. But if the arguments that the town is equally "primary" were true, it would show up on these much more often than it does. And if you search on the CAnadian Geographic Names database you'll find the ranking river-AB, town, river-BC come up...the provincial park in Alberta that showed up on the Govt of Alberta page is not listed. oh, what did come out of the CGNDB search was another entry, or no-need-to-make-an-entry (?), Peace River Flats, which is nowhere near either river and is a neighbourhood of greater Yellowknife NWT.Skookum1 (talk) 00:25, 1 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
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