Talk:Appomattox

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Requested move 2 August 2017[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus DrStrauss talk 20:59, 23 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Appomattox → Appomattox (disambiguation) – For most readers, Appomattox is the place Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses Grant at the end of the U.S. Civil War in 1865. The lemma Appomattox should therefore redirect to Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, per WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT. If you Google "Appomattox -wikipedia," seven of the ten results on the first page relate to the historical site or to the surrender. That compares to two results for Appomattox County, Virginia and one for Appomattox, Virginia. The town has a population of only 1,700, so its size cannot justify such prominence. Its notability is presumably due to its proximity to the historical site and to the similarity of the names of the two places. The county gets even fewer page views than the town, according to this chart. Whiff of greatness (talk) 14:05, 2 August 2017 (UTC)--Relisting. DrStrauss talk 20:58, 9 August 2017 (UTC) --Relisting. DrStrauss talk 15:00, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Unadorned "Appomattox" is just as likely to refer to the battle or the campaign as the courthouse in print sources. Wikipedia pageview stats show the battle has about four times more views than the courthouse. The current arrangement works fine. — AjaxSmack 01:05, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

By far the most common use of "Appomattox" is as a shorthand for Lee's surrender, as your gbook examples confirm. The articles Appomattox Campaign, Battle of Appomattox Court House and Appomattox Court House National Historical Park all deal with the surrender. They overlap because that's Wikipedia's style, not because we are dealing with three different topics. On the disambiguation page, the top four entries are unrelated to Lee or Grant. I don't see how that arrangement can be said to work fine.
"Appomattox Court House" was the name of the town at the time Lee surrendered. The surrender was not performed in a courthouse! The town no longer exists. It's now the historical park l linked to above.
Update Ngram has zero results for "Appomattox Campaign" as well as for "Battle of Appomattox Court House."[1] These are Wikipedia-created terms that reflect conventions promoted by the military history project. They don't exist in the literature. Whiff of greatness (talk) 05:07, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@AjaxSmack: I was going to close this as moved but I think it's fair to give you a chance to respond to the update above. DrStrauss talk 17:43, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Firstly, the Wikipedia titles in question are descriptions rather than proper names so there will naturally be variants. After eliminating strange parameters and testing for upper and lower case phrasing, I get these Ngram results showing that these terms are all used. Secondly, a perusal of sources for Appomattox shows titles like Appomattox: The Last Campaign, Appomattox: The Last Days of Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, The Intelligence War from Belmont to Appomattox, To Appomattox: Nine April Days, 1865. These are not referring to a courthouse building or a "National Historical Park". Thirdly, if the ranking of these titles on the disambiguation page is a problem, it can easily be changed with a simple edit. Finally and most damning are words of the nominator that "by far the most common use of 'Appomattox' is as a shorthand for Lee's surrender". I couldn't agree more and, at Wikipedia, that topic is dealt with in the extensive "Surrender" section of the Battle of Appomattox Court House article. The Appomattox Court House National Historical Park article has one sentence about the surrender. If this move is carries out, "Appomattox", by the nominators own rationale, will point to the wrong article. — AjaxSmack 02:20, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I just edited this article to add context of Lee's surrender. — AjaxSmack 21:17, 20 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support Well all I know Appomattox from is really the court house and R E Lees surrender there. Yes, it's notability is due to an accident of history.Slatersteven (talk) 15:35, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- The surrender is not dealt with at the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park article. — AjaxSmack 02:22, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support Of course. The first thing I thought of when I saw this at WP:MIL was Lee's surrender at the courthouse. However, given all that is listed on this dab, I think it would make it easier for the casual reader to immediately see on a search result is that this is a dab page, not where Lee surrendered, or anything else they might be hoping to find. — Maile (talk) 00:54, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- The surrender is not dealt with at the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park article. — AjaxSmack 02:22, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - What is it you are arguing for? If you want the surrender section of the battle article to be primary topic, this move has to happen first. Whiff of greatness (talk) 03:07, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    - I'm arguing that there is no primary topic and that the status quo best reflects that. — AjaxSmack 03:20, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Support Lee's surrender is clearly the primary topic here. Battle of Appomattox Court House seems like a better target than Appomattox Court House National Historical Park. That said, if we can't agree on a target, keeping the disambiguation page here is the correct option. Power~enwiki (talk) 02:31, 11 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – this rationale about what a topic makes you think of is not really how primarytopic works. If user types just Appomattox, show him the choices to help disambiguate. The status quo, no primarytopic, does that. Dicklyon (talk) 04:12, 20 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.