Talk:Geraldton

to do:

• Geraldton Southern Transport Corridor, with removal of foreshore railway Sept 2005
• Iron Ore exports, commenced into port Jan 2004

Apostolos Vafeas reference

A citation is needed for the following text:

"Additionally, Geraldton is home to the well-known, local teacher and philosopher, Apostolos Vafeas."

Encyclopedic content must be verifiable.

--Peter Campbell Talk! 23:11, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Use of the word 'Recently'

I see this page was last edited in 2008 (it is now 2010); using dates would be clearer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jabelicious (talk • contribs) 23:28, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

Geraldton, Western Australia → Geraldton — hese three cities are all uniquely named and do not require disambiguation. As such, in line with WP:COMMONNAME and WP:DISAMBIG, these articles should be at their common name: i.e. Geraldton, Kalgoorlie and Mandurah. Australian place name articles have historically been named in the [Town, State] format but it is no longer clear that the idiosyncratic process of mandatory "disambiguation" has widespread support. See Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 36#RM -- moving forward and Talk:Ballarat#Requested move. Mattinbgn (talk) 11:29, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

• Kalgoorlie, Western Australia → Kalgoorlie
• Mandurah, Western Australia → Mandurah

Support on Kalgoorlie and Mandurah (both are sufficiently iconic / well-known / major that they won't cause confusion at an undisambiguated name); Oppose on Geraldton - the name is not unique. There is a Geraldton in Ontario, Canada, although its article is at Greenstone, Ontario; the place is big enough to have a small airport. If the Geraldton in WA were larger, I'd argue it to be a primary use situation, but I don't believe it is. Perhaps seek Canadian input on this one. Orderinchaos 19:37, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment: Just for clarity's sake, the Canadian Geraldton is indeed a community or neighbourhood within a larger town, rather than an incorporated municipality in its own right. Given that populated places are generally considered to be inherently notable, it would still be entitled to its own article (rather than a redirect to Greenstone) if that article were properly sourced — but at the time that I converted it to a redirect, all we had was an unreferenced stub that said little more than "this place exists".

However, if the situation were reversed and the Canadian one were a city of 27,000 while the Australian one were just a neighbourhood inside a larger city, I would still most likely oppose moving the Canadian one on the grounds that a population of 27,000 wasn't sufficient to deem it primary usage, given that the city isn't particularly well-known outside its home country. Which is not to say that I'll stand in the way of a move if that's the consensus result here, because in reality the Canadian one is very unlikely to get a separate article of genuinely keepable, properly sourced quality anytime soon — but if the final consensus instead favours keeping the article where it is, then I'd convert the redirect back into a dab page instead.

That said, Kalgoorlie and Mandurah are obvious no-brainers, but their discussions should really be taking place on their own talk pages rather than here. Bearcat (talk) 20:05, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure why there needs to be disambiguation for an article that does not exist (Geraldton, Ontario is a redirect). We disambiguate actual ambiguity, not just potential ambiguity. Besides, there is already a implicit acknowledgement that "Geraldton" is WP:PRIME as Geraldton redirects to Geraldton, Western Australia already! This proposal does not in any way change the navigational path from keying in "Geraldton" into the search box and finding your way to the Canadian community. Finally, it seems to me that this move would be permitted for a Canadian article: see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Canada-related articles) "Cities which either have unique names or are unquestionably the most significant place sharing their name can have undisambiguated titles" -- Mattinbgn (talk) 20:34, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I was the primary writer of that guideline in the first place, so I don't need to have it explained to me. The question here is whether a population of 27,000 is large enough to be considered "unquestionably the most significant place" or not; the very same guideline also says that it's not just a matter of comparing population figures and automatically according "primary topic" status to whichever place happens to have the largest number of residents. Hamilton, Ontario is between five and several hundred times larger than any other place on earth named Hamilton, for instance — but it still doesn't get to claim "primary usage" status, because too many of the other Hamiltons are notable for other reasons besides raw size. At any rate, all I said is that I personally wouldn't consider a Canadian city of 27,000 people to be "primary topic" for a non-unique name; I didn't say that any policy forebade it. And I also explicitly said that I wouldn't stand in the way if there was a consensus; I was just offering some food for thought, not asserting a policy of any sort. Bearcat (talk) 00:00, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I didn't think I was explaining the guideline, merely referencing it as my reading of it appeared to support my argument. Hence the words in my statement above: "it seems to me ..." Sorry if I offended you. I would still argue that the Canadian Geraldton is on a different scale altogether than the WA one and the importance of Geraldton is much more than the sum of its population. Regional cities in Australia are never very large but Geraldton would be the main service centre for an area around the size of the state of Victoria. A city with a population of 27,000 50 km from Perth would not nearly be as significant economically or socially as one 500km of Perth. Geraldton WA is one of the major cities of WA, Geraldton ON is a single neighbourhood of a larger metro area. I understand your argument - Perth itself is the classic Australian equivalent of your Hamilton example and I have no objections to leaving Perth at its disambiguated title. I don't think this argument applies in the case of Geraldton. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 05:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

As for the articles being discussed on their own talk page, I combined the three cities in the one location as I saw the same issues as relevant. The cities were chosen as they were the only cities in WA that were both unique (at least in terms of articles currently existing on wikipedia) and not part of a larger metro area (i.e. part of Perth). I did not consider the Canadian locality as significant - perhaps I was wrong. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 20:34, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Any move discussion needs to be in a place where it can actually be accessed in the future, if necessary. If somebody needs for some reason to review the Kalgoorlie or Mandurah move discussions, say, five years from now, how do you plan to make sure that they have access to the basic knowledge that the discussions took place here, instead of at Talk:Kalgoorlie or Talk:Mandurah? Each discussion should take place on its own article's talk page, so that it's readily accessible from that article. Bearcat (talk) 00:05, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Respectfully disagree. The capacity for multiple move requests exists for a reason - to streamline discussions where the issues are likely to be very similar so to avoild editors having to copy and paste the same response on several pages. A simple link on a talk page to a discussion (such as the links to AfDs) achieves the same aim. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 05:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Geraldton, I think the dab page should sit at the primary location. 76.66.198.128 (talk) 05:18, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose I think there is nothing wrong with the traditional naming system, 'town', 'state'. However there is no reason redirections can't be in place —Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.32.17.8 (talk) 12:56, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support for Kalgoorlie, Mandurah and Geraldton (unique and well-known names - Never heard of the other Geraldton until today) . Can we also do moving discussions articles for Bunbury (this one may not be as desirable since there is a Bunbury -albeit with a much smaller population- in England), Busselton, Karratha and Port Hedland as well, since these places don't have name duplicates anywhere in the world Andyman14 (talk) 13:30, 23 October 2010 (UTC).
• Oppose I thought, the discussion to get rid of compulsory disambiguation has been laid to rest, obviously not! Calistemon (talk) 23:48, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

• Comment Why should it have been laid to rest? Where is the consensus for the continuation of mandatory disambiguation? The consensus no longer exists, hence the move discussions. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 23:55, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
• Comment How much longer do we want to discuss this, Mattinbgh? Isn't Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 36#RM -- moving forward long enough? Don't you get bored of it, I do! Calistemon (talk) 00:04, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I linked to that discussion above, of course. This is probably not the venue for this meta-discussion but do you see any consensus for retaining mandatory disambiguation in the discussion you linked to? To be honest, I don't see a lot of excitement in these discussions either - I would rather be working on my articles on Australian paintings - but I fail to see why the "tyranny of the status quo" and editor apathy should stand in the way of what would be an significant improvement for the encyclopedia. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 00:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I am of the same view - I must admit I am also concerned at the way this has been executed by hard-to-find little individual requests all over the place. Orderinchaos 00:12, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Because that seemed to be the solution reached at the discussion that Calistemon linked to. See my comment above about the "tyranny of the status quo". A failure to reach consensus does not mean that discussion stops and the status quo is somehow privileged and everyone stops trying to find a new consensus. Working on a discussion at a time has helped in moving to a new consensus - see Talk:Ballarat#requested move and Talk:Deniliquin#Requested move. The wording of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Australia now reflects this. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 00:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, that was interesting - the consensus of those present at Deniliquin actually opposed the moving of the article. Ballarat (which I expressed an opinion in) worked because the three places were so iconic that there could be no doubt as to where they were. I think the same applies to two of the three places here, and would apply to the other if not for general WP:DAB principle. I'm still of the view that this sort of scattergun approach is a way to wear down opposition and isn't being undertaken in good faith. Orderinchaos 00:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

• [ec] Oppose. There's no consensus to change current arrangements. Having said that I'm now swaying towards supporting change but would prefer to see a new discussion and clear mandate rather that changing a few selected articles. –Moondyne 00:33, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Change in consensus at Wikipedia is naturally evolutionary rather than revolutionary. That is, what tends to happen is that small incremental changes occur at the article level and at the guideline level, rather than a sudden change in both. So a few article titles will change and/or the guideline wording will change accordingly a bit, then the other will occur, and so on. This moves slowly at first, but at some point momentum picks up then there is a big change. This proposal appears to be part of that process for Australian place names. I think this is best because you can never get more than a small percentage of the community involved in any one decision, so it's better to have each of those decisions be relatively minor. Then many more participate, but over time (weeks, months or sometimes even years). When enough decisions are going one way or other, then we know where community consensus truly lies, and the rate of change can pick up. Otherwise you have a small group making a major decision, and that is likely to not have consensus support.

    Objecting on the grounds that you'd rather see "a new discussion and clear mandate" is understandable, but it is effectively calling for the revolutionary approach. That doesn't really work in Wikipedia, for good reason. --Born2cycle (talk) 17:23, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support unless it's seriously suggested that they are not primary topics. It seems silly to oppose something purely on the basis that it fails to conform to a convention that no longer has general consensus support anyway. The more of these that can be renamed to simpler titles in line with normal Wikipedia practice, the better.--Kotniski (talk) 10:49, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support- the Australian place naming convention does not enjoy consensus anymore, and contradicts the good advice that the primary topic of a given title should not be disambiguated. Even at these individual move requests, the only real opposition I have seen is a big helping of "we've always done it this way" followed by a serving of "stop being so damn persistent Mattinbgn"- which of course are not very good reasons at all. Reyk _YO! 07:19, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support — the consensus is dead. All these places seem like they'd be much better off without the unnecessary ", Western Australia" at the end doing nothing. —Felix the Cassowary 21:58, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Titles should not be unnecessarily disambiguated - that's "more precise than necessary". Keep the titles concise. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:33, 18 November 2010 (UTC)