Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation/New York City Subway/Station naming convention

See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation/New York City Subway/station names

Introduction to the discussion

When I recently returned to Wikipedia after a long absence, I was dismayed to find that many of the New York City Station articles had been repeatedly "move-warred." New editors joined the project, and were fairly aggressive about "correcting" what they perceived to be "errors" in the names chosen by previous editors. The guidance provided at Wikipedia:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation#Structure was apparently not good enough to handle many commonly occurring situations.

The problem is that many of the subway station articles have more than one extremely reasonable name, and the editors who work here—many of whom are also subway users and railbuffs themselves—have strong views about which names are correct. It is quite likely that as the present set of editors "burns out," another set will come along with new views. Without any sort of guideline, the station names will surely be move-warred again.

In the current draft, I attempted to accurately reflect the status quo, even in cases where I personally don't agree with where the article names have landed. (For instance, I personally do not like links to sections within articles. As a reader, I almost invariably go back up to the top of the article anyway, because I want to see the surrounding context.)

There is only one place where I consciously "took a position" for which there is currently no visible consensus. Several months ago User:Larry V renamed many station names containing hyphens to equivalent names using an en-dashes. Larry V is a Wikipedia administrator, and knows what he is doing: Wikipedia guidelines do permit en-dashes in article names (where it is semantically appropriate; see WP:DASH), as long as a redirect using hyphens is also available.

After User:Larry V went on a long Wikibreak, sure enough, a new group of editors came along and started renaming the pages back again. This was completely unnecessary, and in any event, was not even undertaken thoroughly. So there are now some subway station articles with en-dashes in their names, and some not. So, in this draft, I have taken the position that the en-dashes are correct—as Larry V recognized. The applicable guideline says they are permitted, and most editors agree that the name should display that way in text.

Anyhow, my hope is that, after review, a consensus can be reached on this guideline, and that it is comprehensive enough to avoid most of the move wars that have taken place in the past. Marc Shepherd 03:27, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I oppose using the map as the main source, and even Imdanumber1 does in the cases where the schedules and map disagree. --NE2 23:41, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Why do you oppose it, and what alternative do you recommend? By "the schedules," I assume you mean the published timetables? What would make them a more authoritative source than The Map? Marc Shepherd 01:54, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't oppose using the map, I just think there are possible alternatives that are acceptable other than the map, such as when a name on the schedule is longer than the name on the map. Grand Army Plaza – Prospect Park is used on the 2, 3 and 4 train schedules, Grand Army Plaza is used on the map.

OTOH, this looks like a case that the MTA themselves must handle. They are the ones that can't make up their mind because they have changed their names over time and things get discombobulated. I'm all for Marc's proposal, but will things get discombobulated again over naming? I hope not. And I hope certain users within the project won't breach the rules if this passes. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 02:24, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The MTA is clearly not consistent. This leads to precisely the problem we're talking about: many stations have more than one reasonable name. The move wars happen because a new editor comes along, and thinks he's found something more accurate. What's worse, the vast majority of these changes aren't consistently carried out. An editor renames a page from X to Y, but pages referring to it as X are unchanged. The links still work (thanks to redirects), but the same physical place is referred to by more than one name.

Now, why do I recommend The Map? It's the one document that: A) comes from an official source; B) shows every station; C) everyone has easy access to. The published timetables are no more authoritative, but frankly, they're less familiar to the general reader. There are 23 timetables, but only one Map. I mean, The Map is posted in every station, on every platform, and in every train car. What's the sure way to spot a visitor on the subway? They're carrying a map.

I wouldn't really mind terribly if we all rallied around the published timetables, rather than The Map. But the fact is that they are 23 of them, and anyone can see that the average rider relies on them far less than The Map. Marc Shepherd 02:57, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

What would you do with High Street – Brooklyn Bridge, which does seem to include the "Brooklyn Bridge" in common usage? --NE2 03:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Grand Army Plaza has the "Prospect Park" on the schedules, and nowhere else. Thus it belongs at Grand Army Plaza, not Grand Army Plaza – Prospect Park. The main guideline that applies here is use common names. If the MTA starts adding advertising to names, like "Grand Army Plaza – CitiBank", and changes everything (signs, the map, etc) as part of the contract, but no one actually uses that name, we shouldn't use it. On the other hand, if a station is commonly known by a name that does not appear on signs, like 34th Street – Herald Square (signs drop the Herald Square), we should include that. But these are edge cases; the main dispute is over names like Inwood – 207th Street. Almost nobody except the MTA calls it that, and the MTA is inconsistent. So we should use the common name of 207th Street. --NE2 03:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

We agree that the Wikipedia guideline is use common names. The difficulty is: how, exactly, is that to be ascertained? You've been editing in the NYCS project long enough to see that a significant number of station articles have been renamed multiple times, because editors had conflicting views about what the name should be. Clearly, there are a lot of stations for which the "common name" is open to question. Unless we want the move wars to go on forever, we need to come up with a clear system that doesn't depend on individual editors' personal judgments about what they think is the common name.

For the record, if it were up to me, the common name of the A train's northern terminus would indeed be "207th Street," but the common name of the first Brooklyn stop would be "High Street," not "High Street – Brooklyn Bridge." I could go either way on "34th Street" or "34th Street – Herald Square." But the whole point is that I don't want it to be "up to me" – or you, or Imdanumber1 – because as long as it's up to editors' subjective perceptions, there is 0% probability that there will be consensus on 400+ station names.

There are some station names on The Map that I personally don't think are the most straightforward common names. But they are all at least reasonable, and I can't think of another system that takes station naming out of the realm of perpetual debate. Marc Shepherd 03:24, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Editors' subjectivity is one problem of the common names guideline. I ask myself the question: if sources can demonstrate what would be the common name, why not go from there? I answer: such synthesis of information could be original research. Therefore, I cannot actually move forward with the personal view I take below. We can probably agree that obviously the terminal stations are the most controversial names. Tinlinkin 12:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I think one thing we need to look at is what happens when names change - what sources change, what sources don't, and whether common usage goes along. I think the change of 86th Street to Gravesend – 86th Street and back to 86th Street during Sea Beach Line reconstruction is a good reason not to use the schedules or online line information. I don't think there are any cases like this on the map. We might also want to look into the history of when and how these neighborhood names actually got added. --NE2 04:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I doubt there is any totally reliable pattern in the sources; we spend more time obsessing over this than the MTA does. For instance, on the MTA website, there is an interactive subway map and a PDF map. The interactive map has "42nd Street – Grand Central," and the PDF has "Grand Central – 42nd Street." I don't think it matters very much which one we choose. Either way, there is only one station it could refer to. I am just looking for a reasonable guideline that will put an end to most of the renaming wars.

I will grant you that there is no reason for "86th Street" to morph to "Gravesend – 86th Street," and back again. But I doubt that such changes are particularly frequent on The Map. As long as we have a clear rule that is not wide open to interpretation, we could actually look forward to a time when most of the names would stay put for a while. Marc Shepherd 11:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The Map station names

This is an extension of the discussion above. I am also not totally in favor of using The Map as the all-authoritative source for station naming. Looking at The Map, I can synthesize that neighborhoods appear first in the station name only if it is a terminal station, although this is not true for all terminal stations. (The only exceptions I see are four stations on the Queens Boulevard Line: Jackson Heights, Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, and Briarwood. For these stations, I rarely hear conductors announce the neighborhoods before street name except for Briarwood.) They appear to be for the convenience of subway service identifications, not stations themselves. Many of these names did not appear in previous designs of the subway map, and when they did, the neighborhood came after the street. It is unclear whether the MTA will update station signage, which would be more memorable to passengers, to correspond with The Map in the future. So I would be uncomfortable if terminal stations, especially, are enforced by The Map. (And I certainly don't want the article name "Hoyt–Schermerhorn".)

My view for determining station naming that I have taken for a long time is: find the common name from a variety of sources, namely the sources that are listed on the proposal page. Also take into consideration the history of the name. In the past, I also proposed a loose set of guidelines that were perhaps confusing, since there were few comments about it. I will not resurrect those guidelines here, since I want a fresh view, and also because this proposal is succinct.

As I'm sure you've become aware of, Marc, the current dash guideline has only been recently agreed upon. I was the one who brought up the en-dash to hyphen reversal, just because of the guidelines that were there at the time (web browser technicalities). Now due to the current state of affairs, and since the hyphen is not a correct usage in the station names in any instance, I agree with restoring the en-dashes. Tinlinkin 12:36, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

As I look at this further, there certainly are some cases where the map name is distinctly awkward. Three obvious cases are:

• Cathedral Parkway – 110th Street (IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line)
• Cathedral Parkway – 110th Street (IND Eighth Avenue Line)
• Central Park North – 110th Street (IRT Lenox Avenue Line)

These names are all ugly, to say the least.

A triple-barrelled name like Sutphin Boulevard – Archer Avenue – JFK Airport (Archer Avenue Line) is ugly too.

Where the name on The Map includes a neighborhood, I think the "common name" would exclude it in virtually all cases. The MTA isn't even consistent. Sometimes the neighborhood is included, even though the station isn't a terminal (Marble Hill – 225th Street (IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line)). Sometimes the station is a terminal, but no neighborhood is shown (168th Street (IND Eighth Avenue Line). Sometimes a neighborhood is in the name, but it comes after the street name (63rd Drive – Rego Park (IND Queens Boulevard Line)).

(Just an aside here: I came across "Bay Parkway – Bensonhurst" when looking at rollsigns. This name appears nowhere else that I can find. --NE2 19:04, 27 June 2007 (UTC))

Where the name on The Map includes both a street and a landmark, "common usage" would exclude the landmark in most cases. Landmark names could be dropped from examples like:

• West Eighth Street – New York Aquarium (New York City Subway)
• 137th Street – City College (IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line)
• 81st Street – Museum of Natural History (IND Eighth Avenue Line)
• Brooklyn College – Flatbush Avenue (IRT Nostrand Avenue Line)
• 47th–50th Streets – Rockefeller Center (IND Sixth Avenue Line)
• 42nd Street – Port Authority Bus Terminal (IND Eighth Avenue Line)
• Christopher Street – Sheridan Square (IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line)
• West Fourth Street – Washington Square (New York City Subway)
• Jay Street – Borough Hall (New York City Subway)
• Bedford Park Boulevard – Lehman College (IRT Jerome Avenue Line)

This might lead to a standard where we strongly discourage double-barrelled names, unless both elements of the name are equally prominent, or where the second element provides useful disambiguation:

• Times Square – 42nd Street (New York City Subway)
• Grand Central – 42nd Street (New York City Subway)
• 42nd Street – Bryant Park (IND Sixth Avenue Line)
• 34th Street – Herald Square (New York City Subway)
• 34th Street – Penn Station (IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line)
• 34th Street – Penn Station (IND Eighth Avenue Line)
• 14th Street – Union Square (New York City Subway)

I suppose there might be cases where people strongly desire a double-barreled name, even where the extra element isn't strictly necessary:

• Brooklyn Bridge – City Hall (IRT Lexington Avenue Line)
• Aqueduct – North Conduit Avenue (IND Rockaway Line)

Double-barrelled names would certainly persist wherever the station straddles two streets, neither of which is more prominent than the other:

• Clinton–Washington Avenues (IND Crosstown Line)
• Vernon Boulevard – Jackson Avenue (IRT Flushing Line)
• Sutter Avenue – Rutland Road (IRT New Lots Line)
• Broadway – Lafayette Street (IND Sixth Avenue Line)
• Hoyt–Schermerhorn Streets (IND Fulton Street Line)
• Bushwick Avenue – Aberdeen Street (BMT Canarsie Line)

So it's possible we might be able to come up with rules that handle the vast majority of cases. I'm fine with that, but there ought to be something fairly close to definitive, so that the next time someone wants to rename a bunch of stations, we can point to a project standard, which hopefully would remain stable, and wouldn't change without compelling reasons.

I continue to believe (as Tinlinkin alluded to above) that any standard that requires editorial judgment based on a synthesis of sources is inherently unstable. And as he observed, the synthesis itself is probably original research. Marc Shepherd 14:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Slashes for complexes

For subway complexes, should the backward slash "/" be used for two platforms with different names? My rationale here is that the endashes are better to describe concurrency (an associated neighborhood or landmark, same name for a street), not separateness (street or station intersection). Tinlinkin 12:37, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I would be fine with that. Marc Shepherd 13:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

That's fine. The slash can be used to describe separate names, such as Roosevelt Avenue/74th Street, etc. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 11:22, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

But that one would be Jackson Heights – Roosevelt Avenue / 74st Street – Broadway by that method. I do generally agree with using a slash in some cases, like Fulton Street, but we shouldn't "overdo" it. --NE2 11:26, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the article title needs to include every element. That station complex article is already at Roosevelt Avenue – 74th Street (New York City Subway). Per Tinlinkin's standard, it would become Roosevelt Avenue / 74th Street (New York City Subway). I don't see a burning need to change it, but if we reach consensus on using slashes in that situation, that works for me. As noted above, I would be perfectly happy with a standard that leads to shorter names. If I understand NE2's position, that's what he wants too. Marc Shepherd 12:27, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this would be an exception to the general rule. This is not original research, despite Tinlinkin's claim. --NE2 13:35, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Where did I say this example would be original research? This is not original research because we are also allowed to use short names when reasonable and if common sense tells us to. Jackson Heights – Roosevelt Avenue / 74th Street – Broadway is obviously superfluous. There are no other examples like this, are there? Marc below best describes the kind of OR I'm generally referring to. Tinlinkin 09:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe we all agree (how could we not?) that the guideline is to use common names. This is a guideline born of practicality, and is not subject to WP:NOR or WP:V. It's basically a derivative of another guideline, use common sense.

If an editor, after conducting a Talmudic synthesis of all the sources, announces that the "correct" name of a station is X, that might well be "original research." It is also liable to be frequently over-ridden, since it's clear that there are many "correct" answers available. But if we adopt our own pragmatic application of "use common names," that's not original research. Marc Shepherd 16:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not agree. I think the dashes are better. Only use slash if you're showing the intersecting streets for stations with the same name (for example, 57th Street on the BMT Broadway Line can be 57th Street / Seventh Avenue because there is another 57th Street on the IND Sixth Avenue Line, but something like Coney Island – Stillwell Avenue should remain the same). The Legendary Ranger 20:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Forgive me, but I said subway complexes that have "two platforms with different names". All the platforms at Coney Island – Stillwell Avenue have the same name, and this proposition would not affect that station. Tinlinkin 08:57, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

How could we not know about the common name guideline? One certain user has been reminding us about it since he came here (and has gotten annoying). Anyway, we have to be careful about complex naming. If we create a name, double barrel names like Coney – Stillwell is fine, whereas names like Fulton / Broadway – Nassau should be used if no other shorter name is known of, and names like Jackson Heights – Roosevelt Avenue / 74th Street – Broadway should be avoided at all costs. These names are unwieldy long, and is definitely not common usage. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 09:38, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I think consensus has been reached to accept this point. I would like to add it to the naming convention, but I don't know in which section it would be the most appropriate. TLK^'in 06:40, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Let me try to summarize what I believe Tinlinkin is proposing....

For station complexes named for two perpendicular (or approximately perpendicular) streets, the canonical name consists of the two streets separated by a backward slash:

• 14th Street / Eighth Avenue (New York City Subway)
• Roosevelt Avenue / 74th Street (New York City Subway)
• Fulton Street / Broadway – Nassau Street (New York City Subway)
• Lexington Avenue / 59th Street (New York City Subway)
• Delancey Street / Essex Street (New York City Subway)
• Atlantic Avenue / Pacific Street (New York City Subway)
• Fourth Avenue / Ninth Street (New York City Subway)

Now, there are a few places on The Map where the MTA uses a backward slash to separate perpendicular streets, but the station isn't a complex. However, they aren't consistent about this. If slash=complex, then perhaps it should not be used in other contexts. These names are currently on The Map:

• Lexington Avenue / 53rd Street (IND Queens Boulevard Line)
• Fifth Avenue / 53rd Street (IND Queens Boulevard Line)
• Fifth Avenue / 59th Street (BMT Broadway Line)
• 57th Street – Seventh Avenue (BMT Broadway Line)

As you can see from the number of redlinks, this proposal entails a good deal of renaming. Marc Shepherd 13:17, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Here, I don't mind the mass renaming, just as long as it is justifiable (the reason is clear if it ends up being adopted) and it is supported by the project. TLK^'in 13:30, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I would support it in this case, because the renaming doesn't really affect all that many articles, and it's a simple rule that brings clarity. Nevertheless, I wanted to make sure we are clear about the scope. In short, the proposal (as I understand it) is: slashes separating perpendicular streets for station complexes; no slashes otherwise. Marc Shepherd 13:43, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is the essence of my proposal. But for situations like Lexington Avenue/53rd Street and Fifth Avenue/59th Street, I have no opinion. They could remain with that formatting (due to their necessary distinction for commuters from Queens) or be converted to en dashes. TLK^'in 14:03, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

How about this?

First we need to determine whether on stations like Inwood – 207th Street, we go with the map, signage, or a combination (207th Street-Inwood - the procedure is if the map has a community name that the map signage doesn't, we add the community name after). Any of those three gives us a consistent scheme that can be applied to all stations. THEN we figure out which exceptions we can agree on, probably including Hoyt-Schermerhorn. Our convention has two parts then: (1) the general rule and (2) the exceptions. --NE2 11:26, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Correcting "map" to "signage" ... I'm assuming that's what you meant. Marc Shepherd 12:47, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I read something on New York City Subway nomenclature that stated:

"While the use of neighborhood names were discouraged during the 1960s where they had been inherited from private operators, virtually all terminal stations are described by both a community and a street name; i.e., Inwood – 207th Street for the northern terminal of the A service; Wakefield – 241st Street for the northern terminal of the 2 service."

This is the way I see it. A landmark or neighborhood is probably more important than the street itself or more easier to find/locate/track down. A search for Wakefield may bring up hundreds, a search for 207th Street may bring up thousands. (I actually tried this, albeit I limited the search within New York.) Same for Brooklyn College and other landmarks. The map seems to agree with most cases as such, and it is less ambiguous and condenses all information for the subway services in one, so why not use it? IMO, it is much easier to find what you need or how to get around in the City in one map then to look at 25+ schedules or even worse, 470± images of a subway sign.

A typical New Yorker like myself would say that using the map is far much easier to get around the City, therefore the names from the map should be used, as many people are not aware of common name usage that involves nomenclature having more than one name. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 00:03, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I think I know what you're getting at. But why associate a neighborhood/landmark with a street? For some stations, I agree, its inclusion better identifies the station's notability. But for others, the association is disputed. Why Lower East Side – Second Avenue, not Lower East Side – Delancey Street / Essex Street, which is more at the heart of the Lower East Side? Because Second Avenue is a terminal. The same thing for the addition and removal with Gravesend – 86th Street. There are several stations in Gravesend: from the Sea Beach to the Culver to the Brighton [1]. I remember reading somewhere that Briarwood was added to Van Wyck Boulevard because the local community wanted to add it (and it's added in such a weird way: on the former directional signs). The Canal Street complex was once subtitled "Chinatown". Why was that association removed? Probably because there's no space to add "Chinatown" to the map. Why is the station Grand Avenue – Newtown still named that way? Newtown is an antiquated name for the area, but its appearance on the mosaic is probably remembered by many commuters. The point of these questions and answers is, for me, some of these additions are made for the benefit of special interests, and I don't fully agree that a landmark/neighborhood is more important than the street; it's as equally important as the street, or not so if you're familiar with the areas, and the street is remembered more by commuters than general neighborhoods. Plus, the MTA takes their sweet time in updating some signage (and it should if they have financial constraints), so commuters wouldn't rush to re-remember names.

Because of that, my general personal preference is to put the street first. But I stress that I am in widespread agreement to the consensus that is building, and I put my personal preferences aside here. Tinlinkin 10:18, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Searching for "207th Street" only fails because the MediaWiki search cannot handle numbers correctly. --NE2 13:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Poll

Just to see if there's budding consensus here, I've listed several options below. Kindly indicate your support/opposition below. It is permissible to indicate support or mild support for more than one, e.g., if you are indifferent between two outcomes. My own votes are below:

1. Depend on The Map in Most Cases, with perhaps the occasional exception for truly ugly names, such as Cathedral Parkway – 110th Street (IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line).

• Support. For me, this rule wins by virtue of its simplicity. Also, as a practical matter, most of the articles now appear to agree with the Map names, so this would entail the least amount of disruption. Marc Shepherd 12:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• Weak oppose. In many cases, the map names are simply not used outside the MTA. --NE2 13:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Because the map contains all of the information, it would be the first go-to source. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 23:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support I am now convinced this would provide the most consistent naming scheme for stations. If I am researching a transit system I did not know about, the first primary source I would want to see is the system map. So from that first-timer's view, I would go with The Map. But with my personal experience of the NYCS, I naturally have apprehension with The Map names because I personally don't use them and signage makes those names inconsistent. Despite that, I am growing to accept the subway map as the definitive source. Tinlinkin 09:20, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• Support as per above, as the Map is an objective standard, and that it will reduce edit-warring over moves. Bearian 15:44, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support. So, we're bringing this up again? Nevertheless, I agree with this proposal. However, keep in mind that most does not mean all. Pacific Coast Highway ^{{talk • contribs}} 23:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

2. Use the Simplest Reasonable Name — generally only a street name. Don't include neighborhood names. Examples would be 207th Street (IND Eighth Avenue Line), Second Avenue (IND Sixth Avenue Line). Use double-barrelled names only where a station straddles two streets (Broadway – Lafayette Street (IND Sixth Avenue Line)), or where the landmark/neighborhood is so prominent that you can't ignore it (Grand Central – 42nd Street (New York City Subway), Coney Island – Stillwell Avenue (New York City Subway)).

• Could Support. I do like the idea of simplifying names wherever possible, but an awful lot of articles would need to be renamed. Quite a few articles have been move-warred so often that they can no longer be moved by normal mortals, and require administrative intervention. Marc Shepherd 12:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• Weak support. I think it can be better to add the neighborhood after the street, but this also works. --NE2 13:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• Weak oppose. I believe that if there is a station on the map that puts the neighborhood first, whether it is a terminal or not, that would be okay, unless otherwise is found. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 23:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• You know, this also works. My opinion on this is neutral, because the proposal makes things neutral, and fair. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 00:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• Weak support Simplifying would work, but people may have different interpretations of "the landmark/neighborhood is so prominent that you can't ignore it" Tinlinkin 09:20, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

  Maybe if it comes first on signage? --NE2 12:35, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

  Lincoln Center in 66th Street–Lincoln Center seems prominent to me. TLK^'in 06:44, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

• Weak oppose See comments below. TLK^'in 12:22, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

3. Street name first — Go ahead and include landmarks/neighborhoods, but always put the street name first, because most people know stations by the streets where they stop. Examples would be 207th Street–Inwood (IND Eighth Avenue Line), Rockaway Parkway–Canarsie (BMT Canarsie Line).

• Oppose — It would require a lot of renaming, it would conflict with The Map, and the resulting names wouldn't be the simplist. Marc Shepherd 12:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• Weak support, with the caveat that stations where even signage puts the landmark first should remain that way. --NE2 13:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• Strong oppose as per Marc. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 23:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• Weak support, but I would prefer the other choices because I would not like to do a lot of renaming on this justification. Tinlinkin 09:20, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
• Weak oppose It provides consistency, but reliance on signage entails monitoring when the signage changes, which involves visiting stations and relying on someone's word that the signage did change. The most recent documents published by the source are much more reliable, current, and accessible. I still think this is an arbitrary means to reach consistency. TLK^'in 12:22, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

4. Signage - Go by what signs say. This is similar to #3 but sometimes omits the neighborhood altogether.

• Support. We have enough information to make this work, and it's the closest way to consistently match a common name. --NE2 13:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. That's what started this mess in the first place, people moving articles here and there to match signage. As a typical New Yorker, I myself don't depend on signage, a lot of people in the subway would use a map that they carry around to find their destination. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 23:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• Weak support I used to support some form of this, but I recognize Imdanumber1's view on stations which I did not know before, and there is no way to tell which signage is current and which signage is outdated. Tinlinkin 09:20, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
• Weak oppose See #3. TLK^'in 12:22, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. In the first place, I am not sure what NE2 means, when he says "We have enough information to make this work." Do we have current photos of the signage in every station? For the photos we have, do we know when they were taken, and if they tell the right story? As an example, I noticed today that at Christopher Street – Sheridan Square, there are signs that say "Christopher St. Sheridan Sq," and there are signs that say just "Christopher St." Hence, on the basis of photos, either name could be justified. Now, multiply that problem by 468 stations. Marc Shepherd 17:40, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

5. No guideline — This stuff is too complicated to reduce to rules. We need to look at the history of each station.

• Strongly Oppose — It's the lack of a guideline that has led to so much move-warring in the first place. Marc Shepherd 17:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• Neutral. Without a guideline, things would get out of order again. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 23:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• Strong oppose Chaos begins again! Plus, inconsistencies among stations can arise by looking at station histories, and there would be no way to tell at what point in time when a station name should change. Tinlinkin 09:20, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Consensus reach

After a die out of the conversation, I am reviving it to tally up the decision of the most preferred suggestion. With poll #1, 80% of people agree that the map is the most reasonable suggestion. #2 and #3 is just about half and half, while #4 and #5 show great opposition. I believe that people are most comfortable using the map, and I thing that is the most dominant decision to make. Anyone else have the same view? —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 22:52, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Nobody opposes #2. --NE2 00:36, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I said the decision for #2 was merely half and half. It didn't receive as much support as the others. Read for once, sheesh. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 02:03, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

But nobody opposes it; it's something we can all agree on. --NE2 02:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Since it seems that everyone agrees with #1, except for one person (sounds familiar to you?) I think that that is something everyone can accept, since hardly anyone holds back on it for the others, as they are disputed. I think consensus has been reached, but I need a second (and possibly third) opinion. I haven't heard much word from Marc and TLK, the discussion died down. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 02:21, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Here we have a chance to actually apply true consensus and compromise with something everyone can agree to. --NE2 02:36, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Everyone except you agreed to #1. I think that is true consensus right there. For #2, everyone has their doubts on the suggestion. No one felt held back on #1 except you. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 02:43, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

True consensus is something everyone can accept. --NE2 04:42, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

You're real stubborn, you know that? What more do you want, huh? We all know what we supported, and #1 came out on top because that is what we wanted.

OTOH, how about we just leave the whole issue alone? We need more people, which is what we don't have right now. I'll tell Marc in the morning. For now, just leave the matter aside until we have more people. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 04:56, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

NE2 wrote, "Nobody opposes #2." The fact is that nobody strongly opposes #1 or #2. Both have one "weak oppose" and multiple support votes. But all of the support votes for #2 are "weak support" or "could support," while #1 has four solid and unqualified "support" votes.

WP:CONSENSUS does not necessarily mean voting or unanimity, but as of now #1 wins. Marc Shepherd 12:59, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• Right. This is precisely why Wikipedia generally avoids voting as a decision making process. >Radiant< 15:24, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Radiant placed the {{historical}} tag on the project page. In fact, as far as I can tell, consensus was reached, i.e., #1 above, which numerous editors agreed with, and only one disagreed. Marc Shepherd 15:54, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• The outcome of a vote does not constitute consensus. >Radiant< 08:12, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

However, by the same token, when all participating editors but one have agreed, that surely is consensus. If it isn't, what is? Marc Shepherd 12:28, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Consensus is when everyone agrees, or when at least a large group of people agree. Judging by the decision made, about 80% of the opinions made supported the new guideline, the latter of which supported it strongly. Judging no. 2, people had their doubts. I would say that no. 2 had lack of consensus per se, but if someone has their doubt on a decision to be made, some being weak supports as seen at no. 2, why even bother going forward with it? It's likely that it will make any impact later on, but for now, the resolution to use no. 1 has prevailed. Without further ado, I think we should go forward with this and leave trivial issues behind that can keep us off track. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 21:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• The first problem here is lack of participation; it's nice to say "80% of people support" but what you really mean is "four out of five". This can be solved by advertising the proposal. The second problem here is that by giving only specific concrete options to vote for, you ignore the possibility of a compromise that everyone is happier with. This can be solved by, well, not voting, but using the regular Wiki editing process instead. See also WP:CON. >Radiant< 09:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

You are absolutely correct: it was four out of five. That's indicative of the fact that, at the time of this discussion, there simply weren't many editors actively contributing in this area. That isn't unusual on Wikipedia. There are thousands of subjects that have very few active contributors. There are countless editing decisions consisting of two editors agreeing over the dissent of a third, making the "consensus" two out of three. Happens all the time. The overwhelming majority of these decisions go no farther, unless the proposed consensus violates a policy, or the third editor is remarkably persistent.

It is also quite common that, after a subject has had extensive debate, a vote is held, to take the temperature of the state of the issue. This happens so frequently on Wikipedia that its presence here can hardly be called unusual. Actually, it is typical. For instance, every AfD, Cfd, Tfd, or MfD is a vote. So is every RfA. So is every hearing before ArbCom. The archives of many policy and guideline discussions contain votes.

The point of "consensus doesn't mean voting," I think, is to prevent someone from claiming a consensus when a "vote" passed 10 to 9, or something like that. In this particular case, because we had a resolution that all but one active editor supported, I am not really sure what you believe we are supposed to have done. For an example, an AfD with 4 votes for "delete" and 1 for "keep" would almost certainly end in "delete." No one would say, "let's hold on and wait for a compromise that all 5 agree with." Consensus doesn't mean voting, but it doesn't mean unanimity either. Marc Shepherd 14:55, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• I'm afraid that you're absolutely and entirely wrong about what you just said about consensus and voting. While in the past deletion debates were decided mostly by vote count, this has not been true for at least a year now. While you may think that policies and guidelines are "quite commonly" voted upon, precedent proves you wrong (to the point where only some very old policies, and no guideline whatsoever, were created through vote). And no, consensus isn't unanimity. But consensus is based on strength of argument, and voting tends to get in the way of that. >Radiant< 08:32, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

This discussion is beginning to resemble the fable of Blind Men and an Elephant. We are both looking at the same website, so I just cannot conceive how you could be unaware that "voting" (or something quite similar to voting) is an integral part of Wikipedia . I can only assume that you are arguing a semantic distinction—namely, that votes on Wikipedia also include reasons; and it's the reasons, not just the raw vote total, that matter. But "Votes with reasons" are still votes, and there are also plenty of examples of raw vote-counting on Wikipedia, e.g., ArbCom.

In any case, the discussion that took place above—whatever you call it—very clearly was a "vote with reasons," so it appears to me indistinguishable from the normal Wikipedia consensus process that is employed all over the place. Obviously, there are many instances where there's no actual vote, because none is needed. If one editor wants to do something, and four editors keep reverting him, it's the same effect as a vote, just recorded in a different way. As I noted above, it only takes two editors to overrule a third, and it happens thousands of times every day. Marc Shepherd 16:46, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

My comments:

• I support opening the discussion longer (but not too much longer), only to solicit more views if advertising works. If reaching a consensus means increasing the sample set, so be it. But I personally doubt how this subject would have broad appeal.
• On reaching consensus: does this mean that even my amendment regarding slashes can't be adopted since one opposes it (and hasn't responded)?
• I don't agree on adopting #2. After some time and rereading the comments, my position now is closer to Bearian's: the official subway map sets the best objective standard over other sources. The MTA uses The Map station names in its literature, rolling stock, service advisories and alerts, and here (what timing!), among other places. Then media outlets use them, as witnessed by the subway flooding last week. If we say that simplicity is best, not only does that creates inconsistencies, but I am uncomfortable in setting that as the gold standard. Never mind the magnitude of changes (which I see as a non-issue). And of note, the effect of using #2 over #1 is greatest among terminal stations, which Imdanumber1, particularly, has been wanting to preserve.
• I'm changing my "weak support"s to "weak oppose"s due to a change of heart. I have realized that nothing is as authoritative as the official system map. I have come to (reluctantly!) realize and accept that. I still believe street names are the most important part of a station name (which is why I say "weak"), but the MTA must have good reasoning in how they stylize its names on the map and in how it refers to its stations.

--TLK^'in 12:08, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• • As we have just been discussing, the above vote is not a meaningful way of adopting anything anyway, so changing your votes at this point is pretty much meaningless. >Radiant< 12:16, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I don't see it as voting. I have to respond to suggestions and say whether I agree with them or not, just as if it is not in a strawpoll format. I am also giving reasons as to why. I try hard not to summarize everything in "supports" and "opposes", but if the format requires it, I am forced to say those things. How should the discussion continue then, especially as I am about to compose a notice for greater input? TLK^'in 12:30, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
      • I am still perplexed as to what Radiant thinks we were supposed to do differently. He mentioned soliciting additional participants. But there must be millions of editing decisions on Wikipedia every day that involve small groups of anywhere from two to five editors. While anyone is welcome to join at any time, there is no particular minimum number of editors required to reach a conclusion. Marc Shepherd 16:53, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
        • Perhaps if something is to be named a "convention", it should include more people than it would ordinarily take to approve a decision on an XfD, for instance? Or it must include third-party opinions (those not involved in the WP:NYCPT)? TLK^'in 07:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Historical???

As far as I can see, #1 above was supported by all who commented, except for NE2, who was a "Weak Oppose." No other alternative had that level of support. It also so happens that #1 comports with the way the vast majority of NYCS articles are named now, and therefore entails the least change. I understand that NE2 wishes it had turned out differently. I know the feeling. There are tons of things I'd change, if I could. But to say no consensus was reached in this case is just weird. Marc Shepherd 02:50, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Option #2 had support by all. As Radiant! said, we don't vote on guidelines. --NE2 04:47, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

When they say that "consensus doesn't mean voting," I think they mean that if something passes 10 to 9, you can't call that "consensus." But when everyone but one person agrees, that certainly is a consensus. If it were not so, then any Wikipedia guideline disputed by at least one person—in other words, all of them—would be a nullity.

Opposition by one editor, when all others participating in the discussion agreed, does not block consensus. I will be once again removing {{historical}} later on. That template is for "dead" proposals. If someone thinks that this guideline is in that category, I would like to have an explanation.

NE2's agenda is pretty clear. As the one and only one person who disagreed with what the others had settled upon, it's in his interest to throw the whole thing once again wide open. I am not sure what Radiant's angle is, since he has never participated in the substantive discussion before. I am not suggesting he can't participate—of course he can—but it's a little unusual to just drop in, mark a live page as "historical," and then drop out again. Marc Shepherd 12:26, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• Judged by the edit history, It wasn't live at the time. >Radiant< 12:39, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• You seem to have reached that conclusion when this talk page had gone a mere two weeks without further revisions. That is an awfully short time interval upon which to rest such a conclusion. Does everything on Wikipedia need to be endlessly debated? Marc Shepherd 16:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Addendum. I replaced {{historical}} with {{proposal}}. In my own view, this has actually moved beyond the proposal stage to an adopted guideline for WP:NYCPT. That was the opinion of every previous editor who commented on it, except for NE2.

However, in the interest of WikiHarmony, I am willing to call it a "proposal" for the time being, to see if further ideas are developed to improve it. Marc Shepherd 12:33, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

• You are of course welcome to do so, however I would advise you to (1) ask around e.g. at the village pump to get more feedback, and (2) avoid the temptation to call a vote, since guidelines aren't created by voting on them. >Radiant< 12:39, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The subject of New York City Subway station naming is rather esoteric, don't you think? Although this might get someone's attention at the village pump, the best call for participation is to call members in the WikiProject who haven't voiced an opinion, or even a message at WT:TWP. Is this a course of action you would suggest? TLK^'in 09:34, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

• Yes. Advertising it in multiple places never hurts. You could also drop a line on WP:RFC. But you'd be surprised in how many people read the pump even if they don't post to it. >Radiant< 09:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Backslash proposal (revisited)

I added Tinlinkin's slash proposal to the main page, as there seemed to be consensus for its adoption. As noted previously, a number of articles will have to be renamed to comply with this, so I would suggest holding off for about 10 days or so, in case anyone wants to strenuously object. Marc Shepherd 13:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The only complex names I can think of that would be renamed are:

• 14th Street – Eighth Avenue (New York City Subway) to Eighth Avenue / 14th Street (New York City Subway)
• Delancey Street – Essex Street (New York City Subway) to Delancey / Essex Streets (New York City Subway)
• Fourth Avenue – Ninth Street (New York City Subway) to Fourth Avenue / Ninth Street (New York City Subway)
• Franklin Avenue – Botanic Garden (New York City Subway) to Franklin Avenue / Botanic Garden (New York City Subway)
• New Utrecht Avenue – 62nd Street (New York City Subway) to New Utrecht Avenue / 62nd Street (New York City Subway)
• Roosevelt Avenue – 74th Street (New York City Subway) to Roosevelt Avenue / 74th Street (New York City Subway)

I pick these because these stations don't have any other official complex name but as per Wikipedia:Use common sense, it would make sense to merge them. These are what I could think of, but there may be more. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 13:42, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

A few changes:

• 14th Street – Eighth Avenue (New York City Subway) to 14th Street / Eighth Avenue (New York City Subway) (That's the existing order, and probably how most New Yorkers would say it.)
• Delancey Street – Essex Street (New York City Subway) to Delancey Street / Essex Street (New York City Subway) (existing name has "Street" twice, which seems to me correct)
• Fourth Avenue – Ninth Street (New York City Subway) to Fourth Avenue / Ninth Street (New York City Subway) (no change)
• Franklin Avenue – Botanic Garden (New York City Subway) to Franklin Avenue / Botanic Garden (New York City Subway) (No: it's only for perpendicular intersecting streets, not where you have a street and a landmark)
• New Utrecht Avenue – 62nd Street (New York City Subway) to New Utrecht Avenue / 62nd Street (New York City Subway) (no change)
• Roosevelt Avenue – 74th Street (New York City Subway) to Roosevelt Avenue / 74th Street (New York City Subway) (no change)
• Lexington Avenue – 59th Street (New York City Subway) to Lexington Avenue / 59th Street (New York City Subway) (missing from your list)

Marc Shepherd 16:33, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess those changes are reasonable, but I have doubt over the Delancey / Essex complex. Won't combining the street names seem to make more sense by using "Streets", compared to Delancey Street/Essex Street? —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 16:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

As long as there are separately named station platforms and The Map lists St twice, I'd feel better if Street appears twice for Delancey Street / Essex Street. I agree with Marc's names, though I would support Franklin Avenue/Botanic Garden because the platforms are perpendicular to each other.

I am assuming that we are overriding The Map's convention for such stations, which I should have discovered earlier. Rereading The Legendary Ranger's opposing comment, the backslash is used only in the Fifth Avenue / 59th Street & Lexington Avenue – 53rd Street area and at Jamaica Center – Parsons/Archer, while an en dash or a separate line is used in other places. Fourth Avenue – Ninth Street, Myrtle–Wyckoff Avenues and 149th Street – Grand Concourse are indicated with an en dash and Delancey Street and Essex Street are on separate lines. I still believe my backslash suggestion makes sense, but if it is approved, it should be with understanding that The Map (probably) considers such punctuation differently.

On a separate note, I am considering whether to combine Lorimer Street (BMT Canarsie Line) and Metropolitan Avenue (IND Crosstown Line) to Lorimer Street / Metropolitan Avenue (New York City Subway) (using dash or backslash). TLK^'in 07:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I totally support merging Lorimer Street / Metropolitan Avenue (New York City Subway). I don't feel that strongly about Franklin Avenue – Botanic Garden, so I'm happy to go with your suggestion.

I'm unclear what you're suggesting for Jamaica Center – Parsons/Archer and the midtown stations that have slashes in their Map names. Marc Shepherd 21:48, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I mean to state that other stations that don't have two different platform names use a slash. Does the convention need to comment on that? TLK^'in 05:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Not a backslash. The character you are calling a backslash above, /, is actually a forward slash. I suggest that the word 'backslash' be replaced by 'slash' throughout the proposal. Look at our backslash article for confirmation. EdJohnston 11:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Oops. It's my fault for not checking which kind of slash in my original proposal. Thanks! TLK^'in 11:26, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

So guys, want to go on with the proposal? Let's do the ones that have the least amount of controversy. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 03:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

If you want to push for the moves now, tag them and announce on WP:RM. Moves solely based on punctuation usage are not uncontroversial. TLK^'in 04:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Modified proposal

I saw this discussion linked from the Village Pump. I have to say I like the original proposal quite a bit, with one caveat: since the MTA isn't consistent across editions of The Map, it may make sense to have an anointed source edition, instead of having each new released edition spark off a round of article moves (which might turn into move wars, if some editors don't hear about the updated edition).

While The Map is mostly stable over time, we never know when there might be a radical redesign, or gods forbid, another round of constant service changes like was seen in the month after September 11th. It is precisely at such times that we should maintain stability in our own article locations. Beyond that, I'm in full agreement that The Map should be the definitive source. --CComMack (t–c) 12:02, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Radical redesigns probably aren't going to happen very often. The last one was in 1979. I don't know how often the MTA tweaks station names on the Map. But when they do change a name on the Map, I think it remains stable for a good long while. So if the guideline says, "The Wikipedia name is the Map name," that probably isn't going to create a lot of churn.

The post 9/11 service changes are a slightly different problem. Station names weren't affected, only service patterns. I think most editors agree that temporary service changes aren't encyclopedic, unless they are long-lasting. But there are some who believe that every change, however brief, is worthy of note. Marc Shepherd 14:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

That's not true; 86th Street was renamed Gravesend – 86th Street when the Sea Beach Line was temporarily truncated, and renamed back when they reopened that part of Stillwell Avenue. --NE2 20:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I stand corrected, but in a system with 400-odd stations, one exception isn't bad. Marc Shepherd 22:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The nomenclature of The Map suggests that most terminal stations are accompanied by neighborhoods or landmarks–the motivation being that train services can identify the direction of trains, and yet be unambiguous. If The Map announces changes in terminal and non-terminal station names just because a service changes, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect Wikipedia article names to change. In fact, if the G is extended to Church Avenue (IND Culver Line), I suspect that that station's name is going to change. TLK^'in 05:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The Map is updated twice a year or so, but station names do not change frequently with each edition. But the convention should state which edition (effective date) of The Map is being used. TLK^'in 05:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I added the date of the current map (i.e. April 2007) to the project page. Marc Shepherd 12:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Now the map is current as of August 2007. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 18:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Objections to The Map

As long as we keep discussing about the merits of The Map, I don't think NE2 will be satisfied. NE2 said "In many cases, the map names are simply not used outside the MTA." I actually agree with that. But sources outside the MTA do not need to address stations by their formal names. I must be missing something here. Could this objection be elaborated upon? What single source can identify common names outside the MTA? TLK^'in 05:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Since when is NE2 ever satisfied by anything? Anyway, I don't think any can but the MTA themselves. The map is less ambiguous than signs and whatnot, but what throws me off is what NE2 meant by saying that signage is more common, and there is enough info to use them. (What the heck?) I disagree. There are 468 stations, more or less, and to find pictures of sign decals, that takes a lot of work. Does anyone want to do that?!?!?! What does other sources have that the map doesn't? I can't think of any. Wouldn't it help to just refer to one source alone (the map) instead of possibly hundreds? That is what we are trying to tell NE2, but he has yet to be persuaded otherwise. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 16:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I prefer not to question another editor's good faith. I just don't know how his proposal (which to date no one else has supported) would work. We don't have photos of every station. Where we have photos, we don't know if the station still looks like that. And even within the same station, signage isn't always consistent, so we don't know if those photos are really representative. To work all that out would require considerable original research. Marc Shepherd 17:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's not reasonable to do street-level research on every station to study the signage. Relying on the 'mappable' names is an easy rule to follow in the future, and should help to avoid disputes. EdJohnston 17:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I hope this persuades NE2 enough. A picture is not much of a primary source, or secondary source. It seems like a tertiary source, which is way less significant and off the charts. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 20:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Changes in article title change procedures

I made changes to the move and merge procedures that would make the process appear more open to Wikipedians as well as to conform them to the way other Wikipedians suggest and implement similar changes. It is so easy for any WikiProject to put up a walled garden and be carried away in its own universe. I don't want this project to become a walled garden, if it hasn't already.

It is important to stress that nothing is compromised: the rationale for a comment period or the requirement that consensus is needed to proceed with a change still remain. If anything, leaving decisions up to an uninvolved administrator (for moves) provides greater input in deciding a change. TLK^'in 06:54, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I think, perhaps, you've taken this a step farther than necessary. As far as I know, WP:RM is required only for moves an ordinary editor can't perform. Most moves can be accomplished by any registered editor. I don't see a need to involve administrators in all cases—a rule that exists nowhere else in the encyclopedia. Once there is consensus, I think any editor can make the change (as long as the software will allow them to). Marc Shepherd 12:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm now upset. Imdanumber1 did just the thing that I was afraid of: performing a move that is possibly controversial. If it were not a WPNYCPT-scoped article, I would be just as concerned. And he did not fix the double redirects. This is how we are building a walled garden: through our discussion process and sudden changes like this, and it needs to stop.

WP:RM is both for moves that require administrator assistance and for controversial moves. If it's a move for obvious errors in spelling, or supported by the manual of style or naming conventions, that's not controversial. As I said, a move to change a dash to a slash is controversial. Some micromanagement, like a WikiProject, is appropriate for Wikipedia, but we don't need to be blind to the Wikipedia community at large: particularly with move proposals. In fact, the community at large would frown on such behaviors. See the comments about another project acting like a walled garden here and here. TLK^'in 20:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it seems that User:Imdanumber1 went ahead and implemented the "slash" proposal as he interpreted it, even though it clearly was a proposal—albeit one that was trending heavily towards adoption. I don't know why User:Imdanumber1 did this. It would have been just as easy to post a note in advance, rather than just forging ahead. Also, the guideline says quite clearly not to go ahead unless you are prepared to change all of the other places that refer to the name that might need to change. Marc Shepherd 22:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Wuh-oh Marc, you got me there. Humble apologies for not letting you know in advance, or forgetting about the guideline hierarchy. I thought we had a green light, plus I was booted off the computer as well. I'm not doing anything right now, so I'll make the changes, if it's okay, though. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 01:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Remove proposal tag?

I think the proposal tag can now be removed, and this page added to Category:Wikipedia naming conventions. This does not mean that the station naming convention is "final," because nothing on Wikipedia is final. But as far as I know, only one editor opposes the current version. The proposal has been stable for quite some time with no new alternatives being offered.

I am also proposing to empty out Category:New York City public transportation articles with names to be reviewed. An editor created that category four months ago, and it appears he added every station that has conflicting names on literature, timetables, rollsigns, and/or station signage. Once it is verified that a station name comports with the convention—as I believe virtually all of them now do—I don't know what other kind of review would remain appropriate. Marc Shepherd 20:33, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I support this proposal. Just for completeness, the list of all the naming conflicts is at Wikipedia:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation/New York City Subway/station names. From the edit history of that file, it seems that User:NE2 collected most of the information about the conflicts. I gather that he is the person you refer to above who opposes using the map. Unless I'm mistaken, it looks like the 'Poll' above supports your idea. EdJohnston 22:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Using qualifiers when no ambiguity exists

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation#Using qualifiers when no ambiguity exists.

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The naming guidelines here vary from the norm without giving much reason. If there is no ambiguity, why do the article titles need to include the line? -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:47, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Outdated naming convention

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation#Update naming convention?.

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The "naming convention" section currently reads "For any name that requires an en dash, if there is a space between one or both of the elements, the en dash is spaced, per the WP:MOSDASH guideline." This was once what the MOS called for; however, it (MOS:DASH) was changed in mid-2011 to mandate that en dashes that are part of compounds should be unspaced. When the MOS conflicts with any local project guidelines, the former takes precedence, so this page should be changed to reflect the change in the MOS. Otherwise, it's offering guidance that's misleading at best and incorrect at worst. – TMF 23:34, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I just came here to say the same thing, and saw you beat me to it. I'll update it since nobody has objected. Dicklyon (talk) 00:07, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

This discussion shouldn't be here (no one watches this page)... moving to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation. Acps110 ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:11, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Unnecessary disambiguation?

I was wondering why do all the New York City Subway station articles includes "(New York City Subway)" in the title? Aren't they unnecessary disambiguation? E.g.: 14th Street / Sixth Avenue is a redirect to 14th Street / Sixth Avenue (New York City Subway). (I suspect there is some old discussion which I was not able to find) --Jaqen (talk) 14:33, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

No, it's not unnecessary, and not just a disambiguation. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 03:30, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

It would seem to me that 14th/Sixth could be located anywhere in the world, and refer to any possible topic. Adding "(New York City Subway)" immediately states exactly what the article refers to, ie, a subway station near that intersection in NYC. --Zfish118 ^⋉talk 18:13, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Our naming conventions are being threatened again

Once again, somebody has decided to screw up all station naming conventions on TWP, and some of those renamings have been used to screw up the stations in WP:NYPT. Has anybody noticed most of the people screwing these up have been administrators? ---------User:DanTD (talk) 21:07, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

@DanTD: I would like to investigate this further. Could you post links to diff's to provides examples? --Zfish118 ^⋉talk 18:14, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

For more local examples, consider Orange (NJT station), which was renamed Orange station (New Jersey), in response to a rash of renamings of California railroad stations, all on separate systems within that state. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 22:48, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

That's only one! If you don't like the rename, move it back to the NJT naming convention and dispute the move at the talk page. Secondarywaltz (talk) 23:17, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Also Oceanside (LIRR station), which was already moved back. I agree that a project-wide rename is in order, but not individual renames, like that fiasco at Parkside Avenue (BMT Brighton Line) a few years back. epicgenius (talk) 02:15, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Unnecessary and overlong "disambiguation" parentheticals to station complexes

The by-decree naming conventions for station complexes does not follow from the guidelines on the very page. Adding "(New York City Subway)" where it is wholly unnecessary does not make anything easier, as some of these stations' articles are already extravagantly long. What else would "Times Square–42nd Street" refer to? And if something came up, we could disambiguate it then. Adding unnecessary text does not jibe with

"Article naming should prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature."

None of the articles that I moved were ambiguous in any way, and no other reasonable articles would be found for "14th Street/Sixth Avenue" and the like. It would, however, make writing and editing and linking on Wikipedia much easier while having a complete zero effect on reading. Why does this line of thinking:

merging the articles for Broadway–Lafayette Street (IND Sixth Avenue Line) and Bleecker Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), as it would produce an unwieldy name, such as Bleecker Street/Broadway–Lafayette Street (New York City Subway).

not get one to the conclusion that it could be easily improved

merging the articles for Broadway–Lafayette Street (IND Sixth Avenue Line) and Bleecker Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), as it would produce an unwieldy name, such as Bleecker Street/Broadway–Lafayette Street (New York City Subway).

which can readily be seen as not nearly as unwieldy, and therefore more desirable? JesseRafe (talk) 16:48, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

These are long, but they are for consistency. For example, Canal Street (New York City Subway) would not be called Canal Street. On the other hand, I agree with making redirect targets from pages without the disambiguators, such as Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Avenue/74th Street to Jackson Heights–Roosevelt Avenue/74th Street (New York City Subway). epicgenius (talk) 18:10, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, which is what I did, and what was then summarily undone. I think that the Canal Street example is perfect as that's an instance where it's obviously needed and one would not think that an unadorned "[[Canal Street]]" would take one to the station. Likewise, one would not think that links to any of Times Square, 42nd Street, or Port Authority Bus Terminal would be reasonably expected to lead to the subway station, however, what could "Times Square–42nd Street/Port Authority Bus Terminal" possibly be the expected link to if not the subway station? Adding "(New York City Subway)" adds nothing of value and complicates linking since there's nothing else that could reasonably go there. I also understand, but reject, your call for consistency. If that were the case hundreds of thousands of BLP articles would have (singer), (politician), etc after their names even when they are the only bearer of that name, not just cases where they're the primary topic. JesseRafe (talk) 22:46, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

I see what you mean, but I don't think it would help clarify that the article describes a subway station. Would it help if we redirected the short names to the long names? Like Chambers Street–World Trade Center/Park Place to the long title. epicgenius (talk) 02:24, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

They are long and unnecessary, and the consistency they are there for is a foolish consistency. This is a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS (which is a bad thing) contrary to WP:PRECISION and WP:USSTATION. If the name of the station isn't clear enough, the unparenthesized part of the name should be clarified (e.g., Canal Street station), which would also be consistent with other stations that aren't claiming a local consensus. The edit summary here of "No consensus" is incorrect. The consensus is WP:PRECISION and WP:USSTATION. This guideline needs to be updated. That would be the correct consistency to seek. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:20, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

They may be long, but there not unnecessary. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 13:27, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Re God Dammit! Not this shit again!: "this shit" keeps coming around because this NC violates the broader consensus (see WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, WP:PRECISION, WP:USSTATION). Until that changes, this will keep coming up. That's how it works when the broader consensus is against you. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:34, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

No, it keeps coming up because editors like you keep getting uptight about it, and you keep ruining the whole damn structure of the articles. The rigid WP:USSTATION NC themselves are part of the problem! ---------User:DanTD (talk) 13:48, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

No, the local consensus here is uptight about defending the fiefdom against the broader consensus that wants to fix the whole damn structure of the articles. The rigid resistance to the consensus is the only problem. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:11, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@DanTD: How about this: we can redirect the titles without disambiguators, if they don't exist, to the respective titles with (New York City Subway) or (XXX Line) after them. Makes it easier to link, like for example, Court Square–23rd Street to Court Square–23rd Street (New York City Subway).

@JHunterJ: What I mean by "no consensus" is that this project has yet to come to a consensus about what naming convention to follow. WP:USSTATION is consensus for a Wikipedia guideline. However, the current guideline for the NYCPT project needs to be updated. Also, moving a page while it's on the Main Page as a DYK entry is generally seen as unhelpful because it's being seen by thousands of readers. As the move dialog says, "This can be a drastic and unexpected change for a popular page; please be sure you understand the consequences of this before proceeding. Please read Help:Moving a page for more detailed instructions." epicgenius (talk) 14:13, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@Epicgenius:, I have no problem with redirecting Court Square–23rd Street to Court Square–23rd Street (New York City Subway).

@JHunterJ:, what you fail to realize is that in this case, the broader consensus is wrong. If logic ruled Wikipedia as much as it should WP:PRECISION would actually be more supportive of this consistency you hate so much, and not just on subway station articles. I know of at least three "Murray Hill Stations;" 1)The Long Island Rail Road station in Queens, 2)The New Jersey Transit station, and 3)A post office in Manhattan often mentioned at the end of many TV ads. I'm not going along with the name "Murray Hill station" because you find the current name to be unnecessary. -------User:DanTD (talk) 14:30, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@DanTD: As a test, I just created 2 new redirects: 68th Street–Hunter College to 68th Street–Hunter College (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), and Morrison Avenue–Soundview to Morrison Avenue–Soundview (IRT Pelham Line).

Also, I think what JHunterJ is saying is to move these respective articles to Murray Hill station (LIRR), Murray Hill station (NJ Transit), and Murray Hill Station Post Office or something. I could be wrong about the last one, because there is the Church Street Station Post Office, but the article title is 90 Church Street. epicgenius (talk) 14:42, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Just so you know, I did a Google search and I found even more "Murray Hill Stations", and these are just the post offices. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 14:51, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and there is even a Murray Hill, Queens, Station. But there's at least five Murray Hill locations in the U.S. with post offices, and I guess not all of them are notable. epicgenius (talk) 14:58, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

And what I mean by "consensus" is WP:CONSENSUS. The statement "this project has yet to come to a consensus about what naming convention to follow" is exactly what WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is against. This project (and all projects) follow WP:AT, including WP:PRECISION. Within that, this project can decide which parenthetical phrasings to use when disambiguation is required, such as the examples that DanTD pointed out. It's not that "I" find the current name unnecessary; it's that it's the consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:35, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

The problem with that is there are many, many, many stations with the same name in the NYC subway system. You have your standard examples of being on the same street, like 23rd Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), 23rd Street (IND Sixth Avenue Line), etc. Then you have stations in different boroughs like Prospect Avenue (IRT White Plains Road Line) and Prospect Avenue (BMT Fourth Avenue Line). Then, and this is the confusing part, you have stations in different boroughs on the same subway route, like 36th Street (BMT Fourth Avenue Line) and 36th Street (IND Queens Boulevard Line) on the R train. Non-ambiguous names only make up 30-40% of NYC subway station titles (222 out of ~600, including the abandoned elevated stations). For the vast majority of other systems, this ratio is much lower, even in Amtrak where there is a relatively high number of ambiguous stations titles. epicgenius (talk) 14:42, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

None of these examples pose insurmountable problems. In those cases, if this project were to follow WP:USSTATION, you'd keep the line-based disambiguator but add station. We ran into cases like that with the CTA and SEPTA and it wasn't a big deal. No one is arguing against disambiguation when it's necessary. The issue is articles like Jackson Avenue (IRT White Plains Road Line). It's a long title, which manages to not indicate that it's a station. Jackson Avenue station is shorter and unambiguous. Mackensen (talk) 15:40, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

@Mackensen: You never finished your sentence. What articles are you talking about? epicgenius (talk) 18:02, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

I finished it my head :). Amended.

There used to be a Jackson Avenue station where Martin Luther King Drive (HBLR station) is today. Also thanks to your renaming of CTA and SEPTA stations, many of those are no longer identified as CTA or SEPTA stations, and even the SEPTA stations had some distinction between the Market-Frankford Line, Broad Street, and streetcar stations. In the CTA case, I saw two Jackson Park stations on the Chicago L's; One is the existing Jackson Park (CTA station), and the other is a former South Side Elevated Railroad station that doesn't have an article. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 17:09, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Epicgenius, that's not a problem. If the vast majority require disambiguation, then you disambiguate the vast majority, but you still don't qualify the unambiguous. There is no attribute of the NYC subway system that indicates the encyclopedia would be improved by ignoring the rules here. The other station systems throughout the US and the world demonstrate that. -- JHunterJ (talk)

For what it's worth, most articles about railroad or subway stations are expected to have a disambiguator. Unless the name is so obvious that it's a railroad station or a transportation hub like Grand Central or Penn Station, removing the disambiguator will cause inconsistency with some stations having it and some not having it. Besides, there are few people here that complain about it versus the majority of those who do not.
There are subway articles for many other subway systems, not just the New York City Subway, that are also disambiguated based on their respective transit system. Do you want to go create upheaval about having them removed too? (Please don't based on my sarcastic suggestion.) Therefore, I oppose removing the so-called "unnecessary" disambiguators that have been a staple for our subway articles for all this time. Therefore, I am standing with DanTD and epicgenius and defending their arguments as to why the articles should not be disambiguated. I am aware that we should be precise when necessary, but as per WP:IAR, if the guideline seems to do more harm than good for the articles that fall under our project scope, we can choose to ignore them. The only thing I would be open to is adding the word "station" at the end of the disambiguator to indicate that we are talking about a subway station, example: Bedford Avenue (BMT Canarsie Line station), but that's for another discussion. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 19:22, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

That's simply incorrect. Articles about railroad or subway stations are expected to have a qualifier only if the title is ambiguous. If a an otherwise-ambiguous title is a poor choice because of lack of clarity, then it's a poor title and should have a non-parenthetical addition made, such as "... station". This is indeed what many other rail-related project do, and it works and works nicely. Removing the disambiguator will reflect (not cause) inconsistency between ambiguous titles and unambiguous titles, exactly the way that having "(film)" reflects the inconsistency between film titles that are ambiguous with other topics and unambiguous film titles; similarly, "(policitian)", "(footballer)", "(planet)", "(river)", "(album)", etc., etc. We use disambiguation on Wikipedia to resolve ambiguity on Wikipedia. See WP:PRECISION. Per WP:IAR, the rules are ignored when they improve the encyclopedia. Here, ignoring the rules does not improve the encyclopedia, as evidenced by all the other station article sets. Ignoring the rules only benefits the some of editors within this project, exactly a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS to be avoided. Yes, the "upheaval" will improve the encyclopedia. The "upheaval" argument was also used, unsuccessfully, by the WP:BIRDS project, who resisted for years the push to follow Wikipedia consensus on the naming of bird articles using sentence case. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:22, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I have to disagree. Consensus was reached based on those that are actually contributors within the project scope. Since the project became a thing back in 2005 and 2006, our naming conventions have been threatened countless upon countless times because it doesn't fall into accordance with the naming conventions for the guidelines set in place for other projects. We are not like other WikiProjects, and the fact that there are non-contributors that want to force us to conform to guidelines that doesn't benefit us is absurd. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 16:34, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Exactly. WP:LOCALCONSENSUS was formed contrary to the broader consensus. The project does not WP:OWN any articles, and I am also a contributor to the articles, despite not being a member of the project nor a supporter of its local consensus. "Your" naming conventions are not being "threatened", but the broader consensus will continue to butt up against the local consensus until the situation is resolved. The expectation of unwarranted special treatment is the absurd part. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:38, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

In no way I am saying that we own the articles, but as main contributors to the project we are the ones that take care of them the most and will be the first to fix anything should there be any sort of conflict. I honestly think that you're wasting your keystrokes here, seeing that this is not the first time that you have tried to bring this defense up and it has been shot down before, but I hope that I am overreacting and maybe, just maybe, you may be onto something. But as of right now, like Simon Cowell would say, it's a no for me. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 17:26, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Sure, the project doesn't WP:OWN these articles, but it would likely be the project changing all the articles (and various links, especially in templates and the like) to confirm to what you're stating here. And they are "the project's" naming conventions so I don't get the quotation marks; WikiProjects more in line with your point like WP:WMATA have naming conventions as well.
I prefer the current established guidelines (mostly), but if we had to change, there should always be a redirect existing in the style of the current convention (if nothing else, for consistency). That said, I'd rather an overall reassessment of the guidelines (e.g. whether our disambiguation titles should include "station", because it was good to bring up that even with these unwieldy titles, such is unclear) rather than what seems to be a petty feud over WP:NYCPT vs WP:USSTATION. -- rellmerr ^{(talk page • contribs)} 07:24, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

This is the first time I’ve gotten involved in an argument with naming conventions and the disambiguators in a very long time. The first time our project’s naming conventions were being threatened was back in 2007, and it seems like an occurring thing every other year or so. And every time the argument dies out, only for it to be rehashed, tempers flaring, and those who ended up challenging the naming conventions giving up and retreating back into nonexistence. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 19:47, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I just keep on editing as usual. And when I come to an article that violates the broader consensus, I correct it. If it is reverted, I explain again the broader project's policies and guidelines. Then some members of this project's tempers flare, rehash all their reasons for clinging to their WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, claiming that following the real consensus is "threatening", and claiming that following the policies won't work in This Special Case. And I continue editing as usual. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:28, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

If there is no need to disambiguate, then don't. If there is a need, what's wrong with "NYC subway" as a disambiguator? Mjroots (talk) 13:40, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

@Mjroots "New York City Subway" is exclusively used for station complexes. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 01:31, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

I think Mjroots is misunderstanding the argument being made. The issue is that we need to disambiguate between different articles within the NYC subway. There's no problem with disambiguating NYC subway articles from other systems' articles. I agree that we would just use the line's name when only one line serves the station, and we would use the "New York City Subway" disambiguator when it's a complex, since otherwise the disambiguator becomes just plain confusing. epicgenius (talk) 01:46, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Right. This is why it appears that the broader consensus "gives up and retreats". The broader consensus is terribly simple and direct. We just repeat ourselves over and over. And will continue to do so, as is the nature of a broader consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:07, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

And that is just the issue the "broader consensus" has. We at this WikiProject have stated time and time again, many times even for as long as I've been on here, that the rules of the broader consensus does not benefit us. And because the rules don't benefit us, we choose toignore them. IAR is policy, always has been. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 10:17, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

And the broader consensus isn't there to benefit you, but the encyclopedia as a whole. So you have not chosen to WP:IAR in favor of the encyclopedia, but rather to form a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS in favor of your fiefdom. WP:IAR is another policy that you aren't following. It's really simple: correct your local consensus to match the broader consensus, or follow the policy: "For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a wikiproject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope." (emphasis added). So the policy is exactly no, the project cannot choose to WP:IAR until after they engage the broader community. Since you have not followed that policy, but rather built your own blanket fort here, this cycle will continue, with you being irritated every time other editors correct your articles. So, please, stop sticking your heads in the sand and take the action to bring your suggestion that WP:IAR here will benefit the encyclopedia up at the broader naming conventions. I of course expect that you will not convince the broader community, but the onus is on you to take the action. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:13, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

We get irritated because we have worked on this WikiProject for such a long time making progress with our articles and editors like you want to undo all of our hard work. Removing the disambiguator will misleadingly mistake the article for a street when it is not a street article. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 16:19, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

You get irritated because you're running contrary to the project policies and don't want to bother following them. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:27, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

It’s because it doesn’t benefit us! I see this as ill-faith bureaucracy guidelines being forced down our throats because we go against the status quo. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 18:53, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

You nailed it, except for the non-neutral wording.

• Wikipedia policy: unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a wikiproject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope.
• WikiProject New York City Public Transportation/New York City Subway: we decided that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within our scope. Yes, this directly violates Wikipedia policy, but since we see this as ill-faith bureaucracy, we're going to ignore it and hope the other editors go away and leave us alone rather than work within Wikipedia policy to try to convince the broader community that such action is right so we can correctly use WP:IAR here.

Follow Wikipedia policies and you'll be less irritated. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:10, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

You must not know what you're talking about, as you're confusing policies with guidelines. For your information, WP:USSTATION is a guideline, and the header specifically states: "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply."
So there you have it, we at this WikiProject have, time and time again, fought to keep our naming conventions intact. Quit the WikiLawyering gimmick, it's not working out for you so well and your efforts to try to make us conform to the broader spectrum are just going to go to waste.—LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 22:10, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

WP:PRECISION and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS are policies. Quit your Wikilawyering gimmicks of WP:FAITACCOMPLI and follow the WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy: "unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a wikiproject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope." There's no common-sense exception here; the parentheticals for unambiguous titles are unnecessary and overlong, and if the titles without them are unclear, they need to be cleared up using English, such as "Xth Street station". -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:24, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, there is a common-sense exception. There is precedent as to why we use disambiguators because of the confusion of the many stations that share the same name and are not even part of the same transit system.
It’s starting to get to the point that this discussion is losing it’s value and importance. You are clearly showing the inability to value our WikiProject’s opinion as to why things are the way they are. I find it highly inconsiderate and therefore I will not be engaging in this discussion any further since other fellow editors of this WikiProject have been driven away by you and he other people that are seemingly unable to see our side. This is not the first time our naming conventions have been threatened by an outside contributor that hasn’t been around long enough to understand why our guidelines are the way they are, and if you won’t respect it, then I do not feel the need to carry on this discussion anymore. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 16:25, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

No, you are clearly showing the inability to work within the larger Wikipedia project and its policies and guidelines. Yes, the various fiefdoms always act like it's inconsiderate when their objections to following the policies and guidelines are called out. Everyone uses disambiguators for things that share the same name. No one is suggesting that this project stop that. That rationale, as always, fails to address the use of "disambiguators" where no ambiguity exists. See, as always, WP:PRECISION. I am not a member of this fiefdom's project, true, but that does not make me an outside contributor. I am a Wikipedia contributor, just like you, but I'm working within the (Wikipedia) project's consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:52, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree with JHunterJ, the unnecessary title disambiguation should be dropped. Add the word station to the end of each title, remove everything else in parenthesis if there aren't more than one station with the same name, current or former. Done. Cards84664 (talk) 19:24, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Doing so will mess up many templates, and will make it harder to find articles. In addition, as LRG5784 stated, WP:USSTATION is a guideline, and the header specifically states: "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." This is an exception.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 21:09, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you @Kew Gardens 613:! We have everything in our WikiProject nailed down to the tee in regards to how we update the articles within our project scope as well as the templates that transclude to those hundreds upon hundreds of articles. What everyone else is suggesting that we do to conform to WP:USSTATION's guidelines just won't work for us. It's too much of a hassle. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 23:24, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

"Someone finally agrees with the way we violate policy!" isn't the same as "getting it". If you'd like this to be an exception (because it's not an "occasional" exception, but a project essay masquerading as a guideline), go and convince the broader community that such action is right. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:31, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

It isn't masquerading. It is the community's guideline, not an essay. Why won't you accept it?--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 13:58, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Policy on article titles at WP:AT, which has the widest possible consensus, says that article titles should be natural, concise, consistent, and no more precise than necessary. When there is only one article on WP about a Junius Street station, to make the title longer, with an artificial parenthetical descriptor, inconsistent with the way readers generally expect station articles to be titled, is contrary to that policy. Station1 (talk) 06:50, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Also, Kew Gardens 613, "guidelines" and "policy" reflect specific things on Wikipedia, and in particular project page's essays are neither WP guidelines nor WP policies unless WP adopts them as such. Although I do understand why you won't accept that: it goes against your WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:43, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

They were never named this way simply to make the titles longer. They were made this way to associate the names of the stations with the companies and/or services. ----------User:DanTD (talk) 01:26, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Templates exist to serve the articles, not the other way round, and can be fixed. It's not an argument to say that we can't rename articles because then we'd have to fix the templates. There's no reason for all New York City Subway stations, of all the stations in North America, should be treated as an exception to a generally-applicable guideline. Folks, please come back off the ledge. This special pleading is starting to look embarrassing for everyone involved. Mackensen (talk) 11:23, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Exactly. We (the broader project) fixed all of the bird pages, which was a lot of work, but it's work that we do as encyclopedists. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:43, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree, stuff like this isn't hard to fix. It's just more clicks in the case of this WikiProject. Cards84664 (talk) 16:13, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

For those who still don't understand why the "naming convention" here is an essay and doesn't trump the actual Wikipedia naming convention guidelines, see Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines: "WikiProject pages, including essays they have written to give advice to other editors about their areas of interest," and this essay's absence from Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines. It's a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS and the paths to correcting it are either:

1. "convince the broader community that such action is right" (and this means proposing and discussing it with the broader community, not in the WikiProject's space), or
2. updating the naming advice here to conform to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.

It is not up to the editors who keep correcting the individual articles only to be pounced on by some of the WikiProject members to fix the project's essay. And the project's essay needn't be fixed for other editors to WP:GNOMEishly fix individual articles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:26, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry for sounding like a jerk but as someone who has been with this project since 2006 (minus a couple years being inactive), I'm remaining with my leave it alone stance. It wasn't a problem then, and with the exception of you and two other ppl, it isn't a problem now. Sometimes it seems good just to let things go. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 19:34, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Not at all. You don't sound like a jerk. You sound like someone who isn't interested in Wikipedia policies. You should indeed just let this go and get in line with the encyclopedia's policies. And it certainly isn't just me and two other people:

• Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 33#Article specificity
• Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 33#Motion of no confidence in WP:PRECISE and WP:PRIMARY TOPIC
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation/Archive 15#Using qualifiers when no ambiguity exists
• Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 34#hopelessly vague title
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation/Archive 15#Somebody is moving our pages
• Talk:Durham–UNH station#WP:PRECISION
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (stations)#WP:PRECISION
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (stations)#Parentheticals again
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (stations)#Station naming convention
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (stations)#Station names being messed up again
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (stations)#Station naming (again)
• Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 36#Term for what's inside the Parentheses?
• Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 36#Unnecessary disambiguation
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music)/Archive 2#But what about WP:COMMONNAME?
• Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation/Archive 38#Examples for wrong incoming links
• Talk:San Marco Station#Title
• Talk:Jefferson Station#Title
• Talk:Kings Avenue Station#Title
• Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 42#Parenthesis in title
• Talk:Jacksonville Skyway#Individual station articles
• Talk:Parkside Avenue (BMT Brighton Line)#Incremental improvements
• Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 44#Train stations & subway stations and precision
• Wikipedia talk:Article titles/Archive 45#Train stations article naming proposal
• Talk:Parkside Avenue (BMT Brighton Line)#Requested move
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation/Archive 16#Attempt to destroy the existing system of article names by moving them one by one
• Talk:South Ferry/Whitehall Street (New York City Subway)#Requested move 15 September 2015
• Talk:163rd Street–Amsterdam Avenue (IND Eighth Avenue Line)#Requested move 24 February 2017
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation/Archive 18#Station article naming
• rved move

I'm sure there are others. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:51, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

But you can go back to the head-in-the-sand approach if you like. Editors will continue to fix the articles, and you'll continue to be irritated and blame them for your failure to follow policy. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:52, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

All I see is an attempt to destroy our hard work that we have volunteered hours upon hours of in spite of the guidelines that didn't benefit us. So you can continue WikiLawyering all you want. It's crazy how you just want to set us and everyone else at the WikiProject a step backwards. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 21:12, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Sounds like WP:OWN to me. Cards84664 (talk) 22:25, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Don't be ridiculous. This is far from the case of WP:OWN. I've said it time and time again, WP:NYCPT is unique in its way that we have a number of very dedicated contributors who always discuss our large scale edits in the project beforehand and dislike large scale changes made by editors that are not main contributors to the WikiProject. True, we do not own the articles, but, as members of the project, we are their primary contributors. If someone does something to mess them up, we'll most likely be the one fixing the damage. You'd be irate if someone were to come out of left field and undo all the hard work you spent years and years perfecting and fighting for, and the titles is no exception. Contributors like DanTD, Kew Gardens 613 and epicgenius (to name a few) have made substantial improvements to the WP:NYCPT-related articles. I can't even count on two hands the amount of work these people have done, such as adding photos, promoting articles to GA status, and the like, constantly popping up on my watchlist week after week. It's like you guys that are proposing these new title changes are treating us like we don't know what we are doing. Your bluff is called, we do know what we are doing: improving the encyclopedia. These new title changes that you are proposing is just way too ambiguous, and per WP:IAR, we have elected to disregard the guidelines and title the articles the way that we see fit and the way they have always been. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 23:44, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Why irate? I just finished converting Cleveland's templates to conform with WP:USSTATION on behalf of Useddenim. I realized the title descriptions in parenthesis were excessive, so I helped to shorten them. Something like Tower City station works better than Tower City (RTA Rapid Transit station). Yes, I was stubborn to fix it too, but there's no reason to be stubborn if no disambiguation is required. Only disambiguate if something with a similar title is actually notable enough to get its own article. Cards84664 (talk) 00:25, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Aww, crap! You screwed up the Cleveland RTA station? That sucks! -------User:DanTD (talk) 01:38, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

To those outside of Cleveland, "Tower City Station" could mean anything. And since that article is specifically for the RTA light rail/rapid transit station, it should've been left alone, and so should all the others. In Texas, it could refer to an old gas station on US 66. Now if the names were XXX (RTA Blue Line station), or XXX (RTA Green Line station), which I actually saw a few years ago, that I'd be against. And I see we're now moving in JHunterJ and Mackensen's direction bye screwing up the Staten Island Railway station articles. Just keep sending Wikipedia into the toilet. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 20:41, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

@DanTD: Again, it could. Right now, it doesn't. If you can find such a notable place, please create something like Tower City (gas station), and I'll gladly add disambig to the RTA article. (See Airport station (GCRTA) and Coventry station (GCRTA)) Cards84664 (talk) 16:55, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree 100%. The moves of the SIR articles was a mistake, and should be reverted. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 20:52, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

That, and the Newark Light Rail, Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, River Line (NJ Transit), MAX Light Rail, and loads of others. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 22:22, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Jesus... —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 23:10, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

I think those moves are improvements. Tower City – Public Square (RTA Rapid Transit station) means as little to someone outside Cleveland as Tower City station, but most people looking for or linking to the topic are much more likely to type the more natural and concise title, which is also unique as a topic covered by WP and consistent with how WP topics are titled generally. Station1 (talk) 15:25, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

@Useddenim: Can you add your two cents to this discussion? It appears not everyone understands your reasoning. Cards84664 (talk) 16:38, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

To me "Tower City station" is the shopping complex that used to be Cleveland Union Terminal. The part used by RTA is the light rail and rapid transit station, hence the previous name. The former Union Terminal used New York Central Railroad affiliates, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Nickel Plate Railroad, and Shaker Heights Rapid Transit trolleys. The current "Tower City Station" uses "Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's" RTA Blue Green Red and Waterfront Lines. Lose those qualifiers and you lose the whole identity and distinction of the stations. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 17:23, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

On a technical level, the whole center is and isn't Tower City station. The mall is known as "The Avenue at Tower City Center", because the hotel, and the higbee building are all a part of Tower City Center. (this is because the C.U.T. was renamed before construction of the Avenue mall, as shown here and here. Technically, the Terminal tower lobby, walkway to gateway, and the walkway to city hall are all Tower City station as well, because the mall stays open late just to serve the RTA.Cards84664 (talk) 17:47, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Long story short, we would be better off if we were to merge the Tower City station article into the Tower City Center article. Cards84664 (talk) 17:54, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

OK, I think I have a solution. It will require some patience, and agreement from both sides. It's likely that no one will like it initially, but just bear with me:

1. Make a list of all the station articles, including redirects from "XXX (IRT/BMT/IND YYY Line)" titles to "XXX (New York City Subway)" titles. E.g. Astor Place (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), Spring Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), Canal Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line) which redirects to Canal Street (New York City Subway).
2. Add "station" before all of these parenthetical disambiguators. E.g. Astor Place station (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), Spring Street station (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), Canal Street station (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), Canal Street station (New York City Subway).
3. Redirect the "station" titles to the existing articles, or if it's part of a complex, to the relevant section of the article where the specific line is mentioned. E.g. Canal Street station (IRT Lexington Avenue Line) would contain the code #redirect [[Canal Street (New York City Subway)#IRT Lexington Avenue Line platforms]].
4. Weed out all the names that appear more than once. E.g. Spring Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line) and Canal Street (New York City Subway) respectively conflict with Spring Street (IND Eighth Avenue Line) and Canal Street (IND Eighth Avenue Line) (not a full list, but even one reappearance will get the article knocked off the list).
5. Remove all the disambiguators from the non-ambiguous titles. There should only be about 200 of these articles. E.g. Astor Place station
6. Redirect the "station" titles without disambiguators to the existing articles. E.g. #redirect [[Astor Place (IRT Lexington Avenue Line)]]
7. Fix all the templates that will break once the pages are moved. I guarantee you that there will be templates that break.
8. Move the pages.
9. Redirect old/alternate titles to the new titles. E.g. Astor Place–Cooper Union station and Astor Place–Cooper Union station (IRT Lexington Avenue Line) to Astor Place station.

This should take no longer than a year if everyone agrees. epicgenius (talk) 00:02, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

My main argument is the reason we have the disambiguators in the first place: it specifies the line that the station is located on without having to even open up the article to find out specifically what line the station is located on! Sometimes we can be linked to a station but the text in the article body doesn't tell us the station or the line it is located on at first. By hovering over the link, our question is easily answered and it saves us time from clicking on the link/opening up a new window and then going back to what we were doing. Saves time that way...that's my take.
I'm okay with adding station in the article title name, but just like the way it is for LIRR and Metro-North and SIR, I would have the word 'station" in the parentheses, example being "Astor Place (IRT Lexington Avenue Line station)". —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 00:19, 7 April 2018 (UTC) P.S. General comment for everyone: read this.

Astor Place (IRT Lexington Avenue Line station) is OK because when you use the pipe trick, it still displays Astor Place. However, Astor Place station (IRT Lexington Avenue Line) is more in compliance with USSTATION, and we can still redirect Astor Place station to that article while keeping the line in the title. As I said somewhere else, there are around 400 pages with ambiguous names, and it is obvious that unambiguous names are in the minority. Besides, redirects are cheap. (Incidentally, some Metro-North station pages are being moved if they are shared with other systems, such as Yonkers station for Amtrak/Metro-North, or Spring Valley station (New York) for NJT/Metro-North.) epicgenius (talk) 00:35, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

P.S. I think hovercards are now a default option for English Wikipedia users unless they've disabled it, and they can now preview an entire article lead by hovering over the link. epicgenius (talk) 00:38, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

In regards to hovercards, I don't have that option available, nor do I have any of the beta features enabled (I'm not really a fan of it). And if you are not logged in to Wikipedia, those beta features won't even show up.
Back to the main argument, I understand greatly where you are coming from, and I appreciate you trying to make it easy versus everyone else that wants to shove WP:USSTATIONS's guideline down our throats. But the disambiguation isn't really hurting anyone except for those that swear by the guidelines and want us to follow them to the letter. Last I checked, we are not a bureaucracy. And bureaucracy is one of many reasons why things in Wikipedia never get done, and is also why a lot of people get stressed and stop contributing, myself included at one point. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 00:59, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

I know. It would be much easier if almost all the titles were unique, so that way, almost everyone would support one common naming convention (e.g. Washington Metro). It's another to deal with a system where the titles are ambiguous even within the same borough. Even if everyone here agreed to use USSTATION, it would take literally years to fully transition to the "correct" titles. This is why I proposed a gradual transition. However, I do think that we need to redirect the "XXX station (YYY Line)" titles to the current titles, at the very least. By the way, you can enable hovercards in the "Appearances" section of your preferences, but it's called "Page Previews" over there, not "Hovercards". epicgenius (talk) 01:21, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

With all due respect, considering that the disambiguation has been an issue for a decade, I certainly don’t see any hope of titles getting changed anytime soon, even if it takes another decade. And it’s not even a matter of consensus being reached, it’s just that the status quo is going to prevail because longtime contributors here are accustomed to it. It’s all they know and it’s what they’ll fight for, myself included. But I do appreciate your take on the matter nonetheless.—LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 04:09, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

WP:FAITACCOMPLI and WP:OWN didn't work for WikiProject:Birds either. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:24, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Last I checked, we aren't WikiProject:Birds. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 23:38, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I know. You're just channeling all of their incorrect arguments for not following the Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and the counter arguments are WP:AT, WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, WP:FAITACCOMPLI, WP:OWN, WP:IAR (yep, even that one explains how you're attempting to misuse it). -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:21, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Miss me with that nonsense. For the umpteenth time, absolutely NO guidelines are being violated. Guidelines CANNOT be violated. Policies can be violated, which are subject to sanctions should you not follow them. We are not violating any Wikipedia policies that would subject us or the WikiProject to sanctions, you are one of the few people that are getting uptight about something that has been a long standing naming convention for the past decade.
If you are going to chasize me or anyone else here about what rules we should be following and not following, brush up on guidelines and their enforcement. Per WP:PG, "guidelines are generally meant to be best practices for following those standards in specific contexts", "though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply". You are really trying too hard to force us to conform to a system that simply doesn't work for us. And again, miss me with that WP:OWN nonsense like you and everyone on the offense is trying to claim. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 15:10, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Policies (not guidelines) being violated here: WP:AT, WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Policies in opposition to the arguments given for violating those policies: WP:LOCALCONSENSUS again, WP:OWN, WP:IAR. Not policies, but things that would benefit you to understand (instead of miss): WP:FAITACCOMPLI, WP:USSTATION. Only this project is getting uptight about being called out over and over again about violating those policies. You miss a lot with your nonsense. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:35, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Nope, I haven't missed anything. You keep trying to ram your ideologies down our throats as to what a naming convention should be like when we have decided that consistency was a reason to ignore the rules. Not to mention, all those links that you have kept referring to above (links to discussions and such) never saw consensus to move anything as you had desired to happen. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 22:00, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Nope. I have mentioned no ideologies, only policies and guidelines. This project keeps trying (and has so far been able to) ram its WP:LOCALCONSENSUS through the above discussions and links, which is why it keeps coming up and will continue to come up until you decide to give up WP:OWNership of the articles and collaborate with the broader community by either aligning the advice essay in this project with the encyclopedias policies and guidelines or taking the steps to convince the broader community that not doing so is right. Since you won't do either, here we are again, and here we'll be the next time. On the up side, it seems like this discussion is actually making progress in correcting the advice essay in this project and determining a path for fixing all of the article titles that have been mishandled so far. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:08, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Uh, no. Projection is one hell of a psychological order, isn’t it? Which is something you must seem to suffer from so you can be a control freak and have everything set the way you want to. You're beating a deadhorse on this matter. I will continue to invoke WP:IAR because for WP:NYCPT, abiding by the rules causes more stress for us meanwhile it seems like you just love to poke your nose in every little thing like a control freak because it gives you something to do. And this is why people give up on Wikipedia. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 13:09, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

P.S. To add on, by you enforcing the rules and guidelines like you are the Wikipedia police is actually breaking the rules! Again, projection...one hell of a psychological disorder. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and you can't follow all the rules all the time or else nothing will ever get done because of people like you that treat Wikipedia like a bureaucracy. So next time you want to argue about us breaking the rules, you mihht want to stop and think about what it is that you're doing. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 13:15, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

"uh, no". Psychiatry is apparently something else you think you understand but can't apply correctly. And let's add WP:CIVIL to the list of violations. This project is beating the dead horse. The rules aren't there to minimize your unwarranted stress; they're there for the encyclopedia. No one's suggesting that you don't do anything just because you don't understand the rules; all the project would have to do is stop reverting the moves and edits that bring the contributions in line with the encyclopedia (see WP:OWN again). -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:31, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Keep bringing up WP:OWN, it just keeps showing that you have an infatuation with being so blue book that you are actually the one disrupting Wikipedia, contrary to what you say/think.
I honestly would have expected better from an administrator. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 15:09, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

You expected an administrator to agree with your disruption of the project by WP:LOCALCONSENSUS? I should be surprised, but yeah, that's a common logical fallacy trotted out whenever administrators point out mistakes. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:15, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I would expect an administrator would be understanding as to why things are the way they are instead of just being so blue book and moving things without seeking consensus from the WikiProject. So maybe YOU are the one in violation of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS...
Psychological projection coming from you yet again! —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 20:31, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

That's some limber mental gymnastics to conclude that the broader consensus is the local consensus. Your posts are starting to read like presidential tweets. Kindly climb back down off of the personal attacks and focus on the encyclopedia issues. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:57, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Presidential tweets? What are we a political forum? How about you kindly get off your soapbox and quit with the arrogant attitude that just so happened to get you blocked a decade ago for edit warring??? And before you have anything to say about my block, at least I was just a regular old autoconfirmed user and not an administrator. That's a bad look on you pal since you want to take things there. As I said before, I would have expected better behavior from an administrator. How disappointing. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 15:56, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

• Holy moly. If you want a specific parenthetical disambiguation as a redirect, go for it, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a better title per the naming criteria (article titles policy). Save for a few edge cases above, as already noted, the natural disambiguation of "station" (or capitalized as "Station" if used in secondary sources as a proper noun) in the title does all the heavy lifting. epicgenius's process looks like a step in the right direction. For anyone still not on board, the "consistency" is only one prong of the naming criteria and the shorter names are almost always more "recognizable, natural, and concise". Remember, remember that this is a general encyclopedia written for a general audience. If the disambiguation isn't useful to a general audience, we've missed the point. (not watching, please {{ping}}) czar 22:59, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

@Czar: And there you have it: the disambiguation is useful, especially to railfans that are interested in learning more about the NYC system because they can learn that it's a station and what line it serves just by looking at the title itself, and can learn more about the article by clicking on the link if they choose to do so. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 09:52, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I think you meant to ping czar, not make a reference name, so I fixed it for you. epicgenius (talk) 14:59, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

If there's information in parentheses that's needed in the title for reasons other than disambiguation, then move it out of the parentheses! Otherwise, it's a bad title. If moving it out of the parentheses makes it a bad title, then it's bad in the parentheses too. The parentheticals are there only for disambiguating titles that are ambiguous in Wikipedia. And there you have it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:24, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I have proposed something of a compromise for the NYC Subway above. I don't oppose removing the disambiguators from the titles, if it's necessary. However, the main problem is that in the NYC subway, there are a lot of stations with the same name in the same borough, and non-ambiguous names are in the minority. I think that's why most people in the WikiProject oppose this change. There's no need to get all worked up about having to change the names now - it will take time, but it can be done. epicgenius (talk) 14:59, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I think Epicgenius' proposal is reasonable. My only suggested amendment is that when there are identical names in different boroughs, we need disambiguate only with the borough name, e.g. 77th Street station (Manhattan) and 77th Street station (Brooklyn). That's consistent with disambiguating other things that are in different boroughs like Broadway (Manhattan) and Broadway (Brooklyn). Station1 (talk) 19:21, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I was originally thinking that, but then decided it's pretty cumbersome since this adds another layer of disambiguation. For example, although there is only Seventh Avenue station (Manhattan) (the Seventh Avenue (IND Queens Boulevard Line) station), Seventh Avenue station (Brooklyn) can refer to Seventh Avenue (IND Culver Line) or Seventh Avenue (BMT Brighton Line). It would be better to have a consistent method of disambiguation within the subway system, and stick with it. However, we can redirect the borough disambiguators to the "XXX station (YYY Line)" articles, although I don't expect there will be that many examples where (1) there is a duplicated name and (2) it only occurs once in each borough (there's only about 5 or 6 of these pairs that aren't redirects, and aren't part of a station complex). There is a handy table of such examples here. epicgenius (talk) 20:01, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

That's actually the table I used to come up with the 77th St example. I agree that there are a relatively small number of stations involved, and it shouldn't be a sticking point to going ahead with your proposal. Station1 (talk) 05:48, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

• @Epicgenius, can you explain why step #2 is needed? Is it something with magic pipes and templates? If not, I think it would be fine to leave those redirects as-is. (Why are the other steps necessary and why not go straight to the final title?) Depending on your response, there are bots that handle double-redirects, so I don't think 400 page moves would take very long, certainly not a year. Let me know how I can help. czar 00:33, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Re: #1, here's a list of all members of Category:New York City Subway stations via PetScan & alphabetized czar 00:51, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I could've saved you the trouble, though, if I'd told you about this list I made several months ago. I was intending to create a list of all stations with duplicate names. (I accidentally left out 4 "(IRT elevated station)" names and 2 " (BMT station)" names in my list, but purposely excluded any articles without disambiguators.) epicgenius (talk) 01:09, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

• @Czar: Step 1 requires generating a list of all NYC subway station articles. Step 2 is basically changing what's in the list, which takes no more than a minute with the search-and-replace function. And yes, Step 2 does have to do with the pipe rule.
  We can't do all the moves at once because it would break templates, and there are dozens of intricate templates that rely mainly on the name of the page. Several others, like {{NYCS next}}, create direct links. In any event, all the redirects have to be in place so that any links being created to former names will still work when the titles are changed from "XXX (YYY Line)" to "XXX station (YYY Line)".
  I proposed this 10-step format because it would be a disaster to move 600 pages (including closed stations) all at once, then try to fix them later. Also, the members of this WikiProject have generally objected to large unilateral moves like the one proposed here. It's better to find a consensus, then pick out a timeline, since there's no rush in moving these articles to the USSTATION guideline. epicgenius (talk) 01:03, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

• @Epicgenius: This plan works.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 00:55, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

The Staten Island Railway article moves are a mistake, and they should be reverted, but I think that JHunterJ would have a fit if I moved them back since he thinks things are finally going "his way". Also, as I am an ally of Kew Gardens 613 and the others on the transit WikiProject, I don't want to piss them off and move them back unilaterally.

Let me just state that I am still wholeheartedly against this removal of the disambiguation from the article pages. If anything, all this talk about removing the DABs for the sake of being "precise when necessary" is more detrimental than helpful. Without the disambiguation, it seems like the articles can be talking about anywhere in the country that has a station underneath a 77th Street. All for the sake of conforming to the rules which are not beneficial to the project? I am not anywhere convinced that this will help us out at all. You can't follow all the rules all the time, otherwise progress on this encyclopedia will never be made. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 21:10, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

You're proceeding from the assumption that all relevant information about an article needs to be crammed into the title for identification purposes. That's contrary to the whole notion of how articles are named. Let's take the example of 77th Street. There are two articles: 77th Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line) and 77th Street (BMT Fourth Avenue Line). Someone unfamiliar with the details of the New York City subway and/or Wikipedia might assume these articles are about streets, as nothing identifies them as stations. Nothing necessarily identifies them as being in New York either, unless IRT and BMT have special meaning to you. Mackensen (talk) 21:47, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Which is why I would be open to adding "station" within the disambiguation, so it would read something like 77th Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line station) or 77th Street (BMT Fourth Avenue Line station), That's the only change I would be willing to accept. Back in 2005/2006 the word station was included in the title, within the disambiguation. I forgot the rationale behind why that move was made, but I didn't question it. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 22:09, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

@Mackensen: Yeah, but "77th Street station (IRT Lexington Avenue Line)" and "77th Street station (BMT Fourth Avenue Line)" solve that, since identify that these are stations. Plus the IRT, BMT, and IND are the initials of the original operators, similar to how CTA, BART, and MBTA articles' initials are kept under USSTATION. Of course, we can always make borough disambiguators such as "77th Street station (Manhattan)" redirect to these pages, or vice versa. epicgenius (talk) 22:24, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

LRG5784, you misspelled "are finally following the encyclopedia's policies and guidelines" there. The only fits being had here are by some of this project's members whenever their WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is pointed out and corrections made. Mackensen is right: article ledes and body text suffice throughout the encyclopedia to identify where the subject of the article is. Article titles should be natural. If the article titles without the unnecessary parenthetical are bad article titles, then they should be improved. Adding disambiguation where there is no ambiguity isn't an improvement. See WP:AT. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:12, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I didn't misspell anything. Get a grip. Within the last few years you've tried over and over and over and over to break our naming convention and people have constantly explained countless upon countless times that they disagree with your rationale. None of the articles you've linked to above ever resulted in consensus to move anything. Epic fail. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 20:31, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

WP:OWN. I suggest both of you run this circus over to WP:ANI and get them to settle for you, since WP:BIAS won't be a problem there. Cards84664 (talk) 21:00, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

No one is claiming ownership of anything. I have not once said it directly or indirectly. But keep throwing that link around if it makes you feel any better... —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 21:05, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanation, but constantly claiming you're being attacked isn't much to work with. Cards84664 (talk) 21:59, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Because if you're constantly throwing around WP:OWN, I have no choice but to take offense! —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 12:58, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

That's not true. WP:OWN exists. Your other choice, when it's pointed out that your edits and comments are contrary to it and other policies, would be to address your edits and comments to work with the community. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:00, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Do you want a cookie? —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 15:56, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

@LRG5784: I can understand why the SIR moves were carried out. Unlike the NYC Subway, the Staten Island Railway does not have problems with duplicate names for the most part. Most SIR stations can be renamed to "XXX station" without needing a (Staten Island Railway) disambiguator. epicgenius (talk) 22:24, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

So is that going to become the fate of the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North stations now? —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 12:58, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Sadly, it has already happened to the Metro-North stations. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 13:29, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

While I may not be a main contributor to the commuter rail articles, it is still a part of the WP:NYCPT scope, and I'll have to express my condolences as I know you have fought long and hard against these changes, but it seems that some users are all about being bureaucratic instead of contributing to what is useful, like getting articles promoted to good article and featured article status (only 0.4% of our 5 million articles are good articles, and barely 0.1% of the 5 million articles are featured articles), and because of bureaucracy, in my opinion it not only discourages people from contributing, but somewhat prevents it as well. Not a good way to operate an encyclopedia. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 14:12, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I initially opposed these changes. However, this has been a long time coming. In 2016 or so, shared Metro-North and Amtrak stations started being moved per USSTATION, e.g. Yonkers station. I think the recent series of moves has completed this action. On the other hand, there are redirects from "XXX station (Metro-North)" and "XXX station (state)" to the new names, so as to not break the templates.

I agree that if it were up to us, the naming convention guideline would have left NYC transit articles alone, especially NYC subway stations. But I do see the point in USSTATION, since most names of station articles outside the NYC Subway system would be shortened. The NYC subway system is the only US transit system that I know of where the station names didn't already include "station". epicgenius (talk) 15:38, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

For what it's worth, while I am indifferent with the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North article titles, considering that I never really contributed much to them like DanTD has, I can somewhat understand the reason for dropping the DABs for them, but what bothers me is consistency: I have been so accustomed to the DABs because before I even have to look at the lede of the article (or the article itself), I already know what it is that I am looking at by looking at the title itself. Back in 2006, we agreed on using the DABs for the subway articles from the past decade because of the city's unique combination of geography and street layout.
I remain opposed to touching any of the New York City Subway article names. I have given my reasons endless upon endless times within the past week alone, and I do not want to waste my keystrokes arguing about this any longer. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 16:24, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I have given my reasons endless upon endless times within the past week alone

I think everyone in this thread has registered your stance so there's no need to repeat it czar 17:46, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Yep. You have given your reasons, but have not convinced the broader community. Your position is nicely summed up there though: you are so accustomed to the local consensus, and the encyclopedia should weight that more than what the general readership is accustomed to. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:57, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Says the one that has tried for the past five years to break the naming convention of the WikiProject and each and every time you failed. Get a grip. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 15:56, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

He didn't fail to break the naming conventions. He just failed to convince everybody that doing so was good for Wikipedia. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 12:39, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 22:41, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

It's great that you two can sit and agree with each other over your WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. That's exactly what a local consensus is (and exactly why it's contrary to Wikipedia). Even though you have an echo chamber that helps your claims of "I can't hear you", the burden is still on the project to convince the broader community that their except to the broader consensus is right. And please see the long list of times this has been brought up. It's nice that you want to pretend this is just my one-editor crusade, but it obviously isn't. Multiple editors bring it to your attention multiple times, and you rant at each one of them as if they're the lone voice of the opposition. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:26, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Arbitrary break no. 2

Pinging fellow WP:NYCPT participants @Train2104, Oknazevad, and Vcohen: Our naming conventions are being threatened once again as a result of users like JHunterJ and Station1 that refuses to show an ability to see someone else's opinion. Seeing that you three are our other active project members, I'm kindly asking for you all to provide your input before this discussion gets too out of hand. It's getting to the point that it'll probably end up at WP:AN/I which is the last thing I want to happen. I've constantly explained myself that there is precedent to keep the DABs, but it feels like I'm just wasting my keystrokes arguing. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 20:57, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Maybe I haven't commented because I don't feel threatened. oknazevad (talk) 21:48, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, I'll add my usual opinion that in real life the NYCS stations are not called just Bowling Green, but something like Bowling Green (4/5), even if the specific station doesn't have namesakes. Thus, on one hand, we have to follow the real life stations' names, but, on the other hand, we cannot use route letters/digits, because they change every several years. That is why these articles use line names, such as Bowling Green (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), where the parenthetical part is not a usual wikipedia-style disambiguator, but stands for a part of the station name itself. Vcohen (talk) 11:18, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 12:59, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree that this is why the line name is included in the title. The routes are no more than a series of trains that run from point A to point B (and every day, there's at least one reroute). I have heard 23rd Street (IND Sixth Avenue Line) been called the "23rd Street F/M Station", the "23rd Street F/V Station" or even the "23rd Street Station on the orange line". epicgenius (talk) 15:43, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

If that's what those stations are called by sources, then that's the title we should use. czar 17:39, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

@Epicgenius: I kinda agree. I'm not a late night commuter, but how many of such that work certain night shifts at say, Queens Center Mall might refer to Woodhaven Boulevard (IND Queens Boulevard Line) as "Woodhaven Blvd. (M)/R station" or, before 2010, "Woodhaven Blvd. (G)/R/(V) station", rather than "Woodhaven Blvd. E station"? Roadrunner3000 (talk) 17:49, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

@Czar: Most reliable sources say "Sixth Avenue line", so that's why we use that. The services are secondary to the lines that they are on. The NYC subway system is weird in that there are not only stable, named "lines" but also flexible, lettered-and-numbered routes, unlike most metro systems, where line and route are one and the same. Then again, most metro systems do not use interlining, except for the CTA and Washington Metro, and in the case of the former, the colored routes do not change all that often. The NYC Subway is the unique case where there is this amount of flexibility and interlining from day to day. It's better to not open this can of worms.

@Roadrunner3000: That's exactly why we use the line name. It would be kinda confusing for a subway rider to go down to Woodhaven Boulevard at night and wait for the M and R train, only to find that the only train that stops there is the E. Plus, what if the F decides to stop there at night? Then we'd have a ping pong series of moves every few years based on which services stop there. Then we'd never have a stable title. epicgenius (talk) 17:57, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I will chime in and say that I agree that we shouldn't use services for the titles, but we could consider dropping the company prefixes. Woodhaven Boulevard (Queens Boulevard Line) is more closer to the common name. Where there are two possibilities (i.e. BMT Lex and IRT Lex) the active line should have the regular title with a hatnote to the other one. – Train2104 (t • c) 00:47, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

While I would be open to that, it would lead to a disambiguation problem of a major location. There is a well-known Brighton Line in England, and if I'm not mistaken there used to a West End Line in Boston as well. I think the way we are doing things now are simplest and cleanest; there can only be one BMT Brighton Line in New York City. Use of division names are still used in contracts, so they are still meaningful. They also preserve historic context and it gives readers a good way to see important correlations between different lines. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 01:01, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

I can't see a clear consensus here. There are several issues I've noticed:

• The main issue is over when, why, and how parentheticals should be used in article titles relating to rail stations in a particular geographic locale due to some issues surrounding names endemic to that locale.
• There exists a page labelled a guideline @ Wikipedia:Naming conventions (US stations) (WP:USSTATION). It was labelled as such in 2014, but I'm having difficulty finding the wider-community discussion that should have taken place to truly solidify it as a guideline. The closest I found were here and here, but that's a far cry from an actual RFC or WP:CENT-y discussion. There might have been one elsewhere I'm not seeing. So there's that.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject_New_York_City_Public_Transportation/New_York_City_Subway/Station_naming_convention is not a guideline or policy. It should not be used as an indicator of consensus. In fact, its history has edit wars over the mere labelling of the page as a proposal. Consider gaining consensus via WP:CENT or WP:RFC and clearly labelling it as an essay.
• There's some BATTLEGROUND mentality which has led to CANVASSing. This is bad.
• This discussion also wasn't an RFC.
• The points about following guidelines are valid. A guideline might not seem sane, but that's why they can change. I genuinely don't know whether USSTATION should truly be considered a guideline, as mentioned above, but any situation where people are mentioning bulk-moves of dozens or hundreds of articles to conform to some perceived convention should usually have a guideline or policy to cite. In this case, I'd suggest first determining the status of USSTATION as a guideline. If it is, it should be followed or amended; if it isn't, the article titles policy should be assumed instead (or you guys should create a new RFC to make it one). Regardless, that's not to say that everything should be moved/conformed immediately—and certainly don't move-war over it—instead, figure out the status of everything first, gain highly visible community input on what to do next (again, proper RFC), then when consensus (or lack thereof) is clear, take action.
• To be clear, it is factually incorrect that "Guidelines CANNOT be violated. Policies can be violated." Both can be "violated;" neither should be "violated" when avoidable; one simply tends to be more subjective in interpretation than the other. Above all, neither should be violated en masse without clear consensus, which, when gained, typically should also be reflected in an existing guideline or created as a new one.

--slakr^\ talk / 03:56, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree. There is no clear consensus here, but there is clear consensus at WP:AT, and this project's members have not followed the clear consensus at WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. That's the crux. In this case, I'd suggest first the project members who feel like this project's article need not follow WP:AT follow WP:LOCALCONSENSUS and "convince the broader community that such action is right", since otherwise "participants in a wikiproject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope", which is what has happened here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:42, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

I see JHunterJ's defense as a straw man because he refuses to understand that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy and him going on a power trip is not doing anything, and hasn't been doing anything for the past five years or so since he's made his ridiculous proposal. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 14:33, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Ah, and I now see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure/Archive 25#Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation/New York City Subway/Station naming convention#Unnecessary and overlong "disambiguation" parentheticals to station complexes. Again, nothing to close here. Let the discussion wind its course, or make the "closeable" Request for Comment at the broader community, LRG5784. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:46, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I put in a request for closure to save your keystrokes as your argument is constantly being refuted. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 14:36, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

There is clearly a problem, but it seems like the general consensus needs to be reopen with regards to rapid transit stations. That consensus is based on Amtrak and commuter rail, but needs to be reopened. Theoallen1 (talk) 23:22, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Repeatedly shouting "I didn't hear that" isn't a refutation. Mackensen (talk) 00:13, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Moving forward

I think the way forward is a formal RFC setting out a proposal. Wording could be something like "Should the titles of articles about New York City Subway stations follow the WP:USSTATION guideline." This proposal doesn't need to get into the weeds without settling that fundamental issue first. Mackensen (talk) 12:49, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

As mentioned in several previous discussions, USSTATION has established that this should be the case systemwide. I don't know why a separate RFC is needed. The only question is how best to implement the renaming scheme. My opposes to previous RMs had been on the basis that each only dealt with piecemeal renamings. On the other hand, the discussion here is about a project-wide renaming, which I have no objection to. epicgenius (talk) 16:14, 28 April 2018 (UTC) Edit: Maybe there should be an RFC to solidify USSTATION itself as a guideline, rather than making it only about the NYC Subway, where the discussion of the disambiguators (if at all) have gone in literally five different directions here. epicgenius (talk) 16:17, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't think an RFC is necessary to solidify USSTATION as a guideline, though I don't oppose one. There was widespread discussion before it was adopted, and it has enjoyed consensus since. An RFC can ratify that consensus, but it already exists. If you're comfortable proceeding with RMs after establishing a disambiguation scheme then an RFC probably isn't necessary. Mackensen (talk) 18:06, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

If there is consensus for USSTATION already, then all that's needed is to finalize the naming scheme. I proposed an implementation plan above. epicgenius (talk) 19:22, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

---

1. Make a list of all the station articles, including redirects from "XXX (IRT/BMT/IND YYY Line)" titles to "XXX (New York City Subway)" titles. E.g. Astor Place (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), Spring Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), Canal Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line) which redirects to Canal Street (New York City Subway).
2. Add "station" before all of these parenthetical disambiguators. E.g. Astor Place station (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), Spring Street station (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), Canal Street station (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), Canal Street station (New York City Subway).
3. Redirect the "station" titles to the existing articles, or if it's part of a complex, to the relevant section of the article where the specific line is mentioned. E.g. Canal Street station (IRT Lexington Avenue Line) would contain the code #redirect [[Canal Street (New York City Subway)#IRT Lexington Avenue Line platforms]].
4. Weed out all the names that appear more than once. E.g. Spring Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line) and Canal Street (New York City Subway) respectively conflict with Spring Street (IND Eighth Avenue Line) and Canal Street (IND Eighth Avenue Line) (not a full list, but even one reappearance will get the article knocked off the list).
5. Remove all the disambiguators from the non-ambiguous titles. There should only be about 200 of these articles. E.g. Astor Place station
6. Redirect the "station" titles without disambiguators to the existing articles. E.g. #redirect [[Astor Place (IRT Lexington Avenue Line)]]
7. Fix all the templates that will break once the pages are moved. I guarantee you that there will be templates that break.
8. Move the pages.
9. Redirect old/alternate titles to the new titles. E.g. Astor Place–Cooper Union station and Astor Place–Cooper Union station (IRT Lexington Avenue Line) to Astor Place station.

... epicgenius (talk) 00:02, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

This is epicgenius's proposal copied from above. Does anyone have any objections or think that any parts of this need workshopping? We don't even need to discuss the US stations conventions if there is consensus on the above proposal as the way forward. czar 22:50, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I still remain opposed to the changes. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 23:04, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Tangential discussion

We know. But your reasons for opposing have been constantly refuted. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:08, 30 April 2018 (UTC) And your reasons are bureaucratic as hell. —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 04:33, 1 May 2018 (UTC) WP:AT and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS aren't bureaucracy. You happen to disagree with them and have no policies to support that disagreement, so calling them "bureaucracy" is just spin. -- JHunterJ (talk) Call me a fool, but all you've been doing these past several weeks was (and still is) being bureaucratic. How about improving articles in the main space instead of worrying about mundane nonsense such as an article title? —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 17:20, 1 May 2018 (UTC) For nearly the past decade, I and many others have been trying to improve the articles in the main space (which consist of their content and titles), but you've been more interested in mundane nonsense about your contrary article titles. If you'd give up the nonsensical fight against the broader consensus, we'd all have more time to spend on other things (including your work on the article content). But if you still think we're wrong, please go propose WP:AT for deletion, since it's only worrying about mundane nonsense in your opinion. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:31, 1 May 2018 (UTC) Typical bureaucratic thing for someone with a hammer to say who thinks everything is a nail... —LRG5784 (talk · contribs · email) 17:57, 1 May 2018 (UTC) No, this is just typical distractions from the issue. You keep bringing up everything and the kitchen sink, and focusing on the editors, rather than on the issue at hand: WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. But since that "sling everything and see what sticks" bluster has prevailed far too long, I need to point it out each time you do it. Focus on the problem instead of hitting all the editors who are trying to work on the encyclopedia with your local consensus hammer. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:21, 1 May 2018 (UTC) Says the one that would rather undo everyone's hard work because they're so blue book. A poor example of a sysop. 16:19, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

I think this approach makes sense. Mackensen (talk) 19:17, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

I support this as well. Cards84664 (talk) 02:08, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

23rd Street

I find it incredible that the NYCS naming convention has been debated over a course of more than 3,900 days, and yet no one here has mentioned Wikipedia's use of ordinal indicators for the NYCS. They are nonexistent in the Subway; having no appearances on signage, timetables, or maps. WP:MOS and WP:USSTATION do not mention any rule requiring their use. This was most likely a group of "It looks right" edits made when NYCS articles were new, and later articles followed suit. All official maps and station signage post-Vignelli don't use -st, -nd, -rd, or -th. Here's an example of an article that requires no change. Here is an example of an article that should be changed. If there truly is no conflict of interest here, these indicators should be removed from the Subway articles. (Note, this does not apply to 125th and 153rd of the MNRR.) This is not a complicated fix. This is a commonly overlooked yet lasting uniqueness of Vignelli's modern designs, just like his Subway map. Cards84664 (talk) 02:58, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually, the current titles are correct, as everyone else except the MTA uses ordinal indicators, which is why this is not mentioned on MOS or USSTATION. Heck, even the MTA's predecessor uses the correct name. We don't say "I will go to 23 Street" in everyday use because that is grammatically and semantically incorrect. We say "I will go to 23rd Street". Listen to any MTA announcement, or anyone else speaking about these streets, and you will hear the correct usage. The MTA abbreviates these streets because, like the rest of us, they are a bit lazy. However, it probably has more to do with abbreviations and brevity, since every extra letter that's printed costs thousands of dollars in ink, replacement signs, and maps with smaller fonts. Even mapmakers abbreviate the name of the street to "23 St" because there isn't enough space to fit it on the map.

Just because the MTA abbreviates the name to "23 Street" doesn't mean other agencies, or the rest of the world, must follow suit. If that was the case, we'd have 23 Street (Manhattan) instead of 23rd Street (Manhattan). You wouldn't say "five floor" instead of "fifth floor", would you?

If you want to, you can change the headers of the articles to say "23 St", which I think is the correct way to go about this, if at all. However, I don't think it's right to change the name of the entire article from a grammatically correct title to an incorrect title, because we actually have to mention the new, incorrect name in this article and to other articles that link to it. The fact that no one else has brought this issue up, in 11 years, simply means that this is not an issue.

TL;DR: No need for changes, this is a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. epicgenius (talk) 13:02, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

@Epicgenius: It was simply a Subway design choice, it does not apply to anything else. For now, I'm fine with changing just the infobox headers of current stations. (Besides, I always misread stuff like 23 Street as 23rd Street anyway).

Also, why don't we just use the word "station" for articles that don't require titles with disambiguation? Cards84664 (talk) 13:33, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

The "station" argument is the one that's being discussed above, and in various arguments at WT:USSTATION. Currently, there is no consensus because WP:USSTATION would recommend that all stations, not just the ones without a need for disambiguation, be renamed to include the word "station". As I said above, these non-ambiguous articles only constitute 30% to 40% of all articles about current and former subway stations. There is even disagreement over whether we should drop the disambiguator and add "station", or drop the disambiguator and not add "station".

And you didn't "misread" "23 Street" as "23rd Street", because that is how it's supposed to be pronounced, anyway. The PATH sign that I linked above (through "other agencies") does say the full name of the station, even though the MTA calls it "23 St". epicgenius (talk) 13:42, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Franklin

@Epicgenius: Franklin Avenue station (Fulton Street) should be addressed in here somewhere. Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 20:01, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Kew Gardens 613: My bad, Franklin Avenue Station should be moved to Franklin Avenue station (disambiguation), and Franklin Avenue station (Fulton Street) should be moved to Franklin Avenue station. Cards84664 22:14, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Cards84664, this should probably be discussed as part of an RM. Even so, KG613 has a point. In a theoretical situation where none of the stations is the clear primary topic for the term "Franklin Street station", there really should be some guidance on this. – Epicgenius (talk) 22:45, 13 February 2023 (UTC)