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Common name

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The railway station in Dec 2019, using the spelling "Palai".

Pallai is not the common name, as claimed in this case:

The "railway station" suffix is used to filter out only Sri Lanka related results, and it seems there are no railway stations in non-Sri Lanka towns with the same name (do correct me if there are).

Further to the above, the fact that nearly all news articles online, and official state references use "Palai", I am going ahead and renaming this article to "Palai" again, along with the related railway station article. Rehman 04:13, 13 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Rehman: Isn't it odd that you should choose searches that give the result you want. This article is about the settlement, not the railway station. There is a simple way to get Sri Lankan results in Google, by using the "site:lk" filter. When we do this we get these results:
Therefore the most common name according to Sri Lankan sites is Pallai.--Obi2canibe (talk) 17:54, 19 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No,
  1. How can adding a .lk tld result in getting Sri Lankan results? You're merely filtering out website TLDs, and not relevant content within those websites. Furthermore, you've effectively removed Sri Lanka related results from even the most common TLDs such as .com.
  2. Even ignoring #1, you contradicted your own explanation and moved Palai railway station, with the summary "common name" when it is clearly not, and does not even pass with your method of filtering.
Care to explain both points? Rehman 02:30, 20 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Using .lk is a better way to obtain Sri Lankan results than using the "railway station" suffix. Most of your results were non-Sri Lankan travel/tourism sites, social media, Wikipedia mirror sites - mostly unreliable sources. Whilst my results may exclude Sri Lankan sources which use non-.lk such as .com, most Sri Lankan websites use .lk, particularity news sites, academic institutions and of course public sector bodies. In other words, reliable Sri Lankan sources tend to use .lk.
If the common name of the town is Pallai, anything named after the town should follow - see WP:CONSUB.--Obi2canibe (talk) 18:27, 26 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't it odd that you made up your own facts simply to support your own preferred spelling? .com is the largest tld on the internet, not even remotely comparable to .lk. Nearly all high-traffic websites, international travel websites, and the majority of reliable sources reside within .com. And you're still able to mash up some random words to conclude ".lk is a better way to obtain Sri Lankan results"?
And even strangely, you completely contradicted your first argument, ignored the quoted search results, ignored the fact that the railways station has multiple large boards with the correct spelling, and concluded your decision by now linking to a policy that really does not have much relevance to this particular situation.
While the results at first glance are very clear - that the Sri Lankan town is spelt "Palai" instead of "Pallai" (based on the first links), I don't have the time, tools, nor the interest, to prove that further in terms of clear numbers, at this point. That being said, I went ahead and included the alternative spelling in the lead, instead of blindly reverting over and over, and left the article title as it is.
With regards to the railway station, it is clear that that the correct spelling is Palai railway station: quoted results shows the same, your .lk method shows the same, and there is a printed nameboard showing the same. As such, I have moved that article to the correct name, and also mentioned the alternative spelling in the lead. Rehman 04:49, 27 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
WP:BRD requires you to wait until this discussion is over before renaming this article.
It was you who started this discussion by saying that you wanted to "filter out only Sri Lanka related results" and I responded by stating that the way to do this was to search for .lk results, not use "railway station" suffix as you stated.
You keep going on about the printed name board, ignoring WP:OFFICIALNAMES.
I have shown that common name of the town, as used by reliable sources, is Pallai. Then, for consistency, WP:CONSUB requires us to use Pallai in the naming of topics associated with town, such as the railway station.
This article has existed under the Pallai name since November 2009. For ten years no-one questioned the naming. Similarly the station article was named Pallai railway station for more than 5½ years without anyone questioning it. Then, in December 2019, you visited the north, took some pictures, saw a name board and decided to amend Wikipedia to what you saw.--Obi2canibe (talk) 19:54, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The article remained in this spelling for so long as it was probably the first mention of the small town on the internet, upon your creation of the article. Everything else (including external Wikipedia users such as map engines, weather, etc) is merely mirroring this spelling from Wikipedia. Surviving with an error for so long is in itself no reason to keep the error further. And to fix it means we need to base on local sources (which in this case, is the name board printed in the town itself). Common name would not make sense in this case per my argument above, as the reason the town current spelling may be common, is because of the spelling on Wikipedia.
I've requested a WP:3O, I'm fine leaving it either way depending on the volunteer's comments. Cheers, Rehman 13:40, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

3O Response: While I'm finding about 14× as many hits for "Palai", there is also a Palai in India and another in Pakistan, which I'm sure are skewing the results. Since this is contested and has seen some back-and-forth moves, I would strongly suggest keeping the page at its current location while I open a Requested Move (WP:RM). This will bring it to the attention of editors who are experienced in page naming, who know the policies and who also have tools to help them find usage in reliable sources, etc. I'm sure they can do a better job at resolving this. Please be patient. When a consensus forms, one of the WP:RM volunteers will perform move(s), if needed. Thanks! – Reidgreg (talk) 16:17, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: Feel free to add your own opinions to the move discussion below. Please be concise and begin your statement with a bullet * and typically either Support or Oppose. – Reidgreg (talk) 16:25, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 18 February 2020

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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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus (non-admin closure) BegbertBiggs (talk) 00:38, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]


There have been some back-and-forth moves between Palai and Pallai for this stub article on the Sri Lankan town (not the Palai (Assembly constituency) of India or Palai, Malakand, Pakistan) and the associated stub on its railway station. The editors contesting the COMMONNAME are mainly citing various Google search statistics, which vary depending on the method used to discount non-Sri Lankan results. The source for one stub uses the spelling "Pallai" while that for the other uses "Palai Railway Station". Consistency in spelling is desired between the two articles. – Reidgreg (talk) 16:17, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support per justification in the previous section. The town is known by this name/spelling locally. The reason why a number of pages online uses Pallai is because the Wikipedia article was created with that spelling. Prior to this article, and subsequent events relating to the town in the news, it is very unlikely that there was much/any mention of the small town online. Rehman 11:11, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose there are a number of historic publications that mention the town of Pallai dating back to the early 1900s such as Arnold Wright's Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon: Its History, People, Commerce, Industries, and Resources (1907); Percy Moore Bingham's History of the Public Works Department, Ceylon, 1796 to 1913, Volume 2 (1922); Ferguson's Ceylon Directory (1968); Henry Cave's The Ceylon government railway: a descriptive and illustrated guide (1910) - so it is incorrect to argue that the name Pallai only came about due to the spelling on Wikipedia. Also most of the newspaper articles clearly spell the towns name as Pallai as opposed to Palai. Dan arndt (talk) 00:19, 21 February 2020 (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.
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