Talk:Straits Steamship Company

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On 20 July 2025, it was proposed that this article be moved from Straits Steamship Company Limited to Straits Steamship Company. The result of the discussion was moved.

Requested move 20 July 2025

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: moved. (non-admin closure) Tenshi! (Talk page) 00:04, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

– Historical companies with fundamentally the same name, first one was based in Singapore and the other operated in the Salish Sea. The Singapore company should be the primary topic; disambiguation for the second company open to discussion. See discussion for further elaboration. — 2406:3003:2007:1F3:B4FC:62FA:6BF7:F6CD (talk) 23:46, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support (as proposer).

The present title of the article on the Singapore company Straits Steamship Company Limited violates naming conventions in that the legal status suffix ("limited") is not generally included in the article title. Although the naming convention for companies allows including the legal status for disambiguation, this seems to be intended for situations vs something that is not a company (e.g. Apple vs Apple Inc.) It is inadequate for differentiating between the two articles in question, leading to confusion/conflation. I've fixed 9 wikilinks to [[Straits Steamship Company]] intended to point to the Singapore company. Before the existence of the newer article on the Singapore company, information/images pertaining to it was erroneously put in the other article as well as its wikidata entry — all the authority control identifiers listed pertained to the Singapore company! (has now been fixed by swapping the wikipedia entries associated with d:Q7621167 and d:Q130618937). Errors propagated further with the house flag of the Singapore company also being added to wikipedia and commons pages on geographical places in Washington state.

A "most common usage" is not readily determinable: sources appear to use a mix of "Straits Steamship Company" and "Straits Steamship Company Limited" (sometimes with one or both contracted forms "Co."/"Ltd."), occasionally shortened to just "Straits Steamship" after the first occurrence, or in news headlines. In any case, WP:COMMONNAME doesn't offer any solution that aids disambiguation.

Singapore company as primary topic based on usage:

Sources for "Straits Steamship Company" are overwhelmingly about the Singapore company: Google (books, scholar). Authority control: based on listed works, LCNAF and Yale LUX identifiers titled "Straits Steamship Company" refer to the Singapore company; no identifier found for the Salish Sea one.
Existing article mentions: out of 55 mainspace mentions of the phrase "Straits Steamship" (excl. the two articles in question), only one relates to the company in the Salish Sea, whereas 52 pertain to the Singapore company (plus one draft page mention). Incoming wikilinks: 46 vs one (wlh count is massively inflated due to inclusion in 3 navigation templates and does not reflect links from article text)
Aforementioned mistargeted wikilinks to [[Straits Steamship Company]] when Singapore company was intended.

FWIW, traffic stats show no appreciable difference since the newer page came into existence.

If consensus instead finds that there is no primary topic, Straits Steamship Company (Singapore) would be my second choice.

For the other company, Straits Steamship Company (Washington) or Straits Steamship Company (United States) seem to be natural choices, but I'm slightly concerned these options might be too speculative considering no headquarters location or place of incorporation is explicitly mentioned in its article — if this is not deemed an issue, then prefer "(Washington)". Alternatively, disambiguate using the area of operations: Straits Steamship Company (Salish Sea) or Straits Steamship Company (Pacific Northwest). Other suggestions welcomed.

— 2406:3003:2007:1F3:B4FC:62FA:6BF7:F6CD (talk) 23:46, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support 1st as primary topic. Rename the other one to Straits Steamship Company (North America) (as it also served Canada). -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:23, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks for (North America), much better than my own proposals. 2406:3003:2007:1F3:B4FC:62FA:6BF7:F6CD (talk) 17:26, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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.