The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus. PeterSymonds (talk) 00:39, 18 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Compare discussion at Talk:Airport Parkway#Rename to Airport Parkway (Ottawa). Anthony Appleyard ( talk) 05:29, 10 August 2008 (UTC) reply

• Unnecessary disambiguation — Pwnage8 ( talk) 23:22, 30 July 2008 (UTC) reply
  • Originally posted at WP:RM and ruled controversial. — AjaxSmack 21:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC) reply
  • Bronson Avenue (Ottawa) → Bronson Avenue
  • Heron Road (Ottawa) → Heron Road
  • Merivale Road (Ottawa) → Merivale Road
  • Richmond Road (Ontario) → Richmond Road
  • Bankfield Road (Ottawa) → Bankfield Road
  • Hawthorne Avenue (Ottawa) → Hawthorne Avenue
  • Preston Street (Ottawa) → Preston Street

Previous discussion

Text copied from WP:RM ( link) — AjaxSmack 21:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

• Unnecessary disambiguation in terms of no other articles existing with the names, yes, but unnecessary in the grand scheme of things, no. Contested. JPG-GR ( talk) 02:58, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Do not move: there are likely streets with these names in dozens or hundreds of towns and cities across the world. Anthony Appleyard ( talk) 05:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Move per Wikipedia:Disambiguation "Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts in article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic, making that term likely to be the natural title for more than one article." The very point of disambiguating is to resolve conflicts with existing articles. -- Pwnage8 ( talk) 21:09, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
      • This is a more a matter of Naming convention rather than disambiguation. {{WP:DAB]] describes how to disambiguate existing articles with similar titles and does not prescribe how articles should be named. Apart from the general WP:NC pages, some deference is often given to Wikiprojects for consistently naming articles. older ≠ wiser 03:47, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
        • Agree with User:Pwnage8. "Move per Wikipedia:Disambiguation...the very point of disambiguating is to resolve conflicts with existing articles." I doesn't matter if there are thousands of other similarly named roads if they're not notable and/or don't have Wikipedia articles. — AjaxSmack 05:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
          • I honestly don't care much whether these particular articles are moved or not, but Wikipedia:Disambiguation is the wrong policy to appeal to--once again for emphasis-- Wikipedia:Disambiguation describes the process of disambiguating existing articles with similar titles--it says nothing about what articles should or should not be titled--that is the within the purview of naming conventions. older ≠ wiser 00:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
            • No, WP:Disambiguation is being used correctly but simply in the negative or in a implied or logical sense. If multiple articles require disambiguating then the absence of multiple articles would hold that disambiguation is not needed. Statements such as "When there is risk of confusion, there should be a way to take the reader from an ambiguous page and title/term to any of the reasonable possibilities for that term" when read in the negative make this clearer. If there are no other "reasonable possibilities for that term," i.e. no other articles laying claim to that name, there is no need for disambiguating. Yes, titleing is within the purview of naming conventions but, when the conventions do not address disambiguation of nonexistent articles, recourse to WP:Disambiguation is appropriate. — AjaxSmack 01:14, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel state your position on the renaming proposal including a preferred title by beginning a new line in one of the sections below with #'''Support''' or #'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support. All of the targets currently redirect to the articles in question. No other articles with these titles currently exist and unless there is an alternative meaning that is highly notable but has been heretofore overlooked, preemptive disambiguation is not needed. — AjaxSmack 21:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC) reply
• Support per AjaxSmack - DigitalC ( talk) 03:50, 5 August 2008 (UTC) reply
• Support per AjaxSmack. Station1 ( talk) 05:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC) reply
  • Addendum: Because Richmond Road, Sydney has been written since this discussion started, I withdraw my support with regard to "Richmond Road" only. I still support the other six moves. Station1 ( talk) 07:37, 13 August 2008 (UTC) reply
• Oppose. I did a quick Google on one of the street names, and came up with notable roads by this name not only in Australia (which I did expect) but also in the USA and the UK, all on the first page of hits. If this move goes ahead, we're just making needless work for ourselves in the future. Andrewa ( talk) 18:44, 5 August 2008 (UTC) reply
  • My talk page is here . When the new articles are written, contact me and I'll do the work. — AjaxSmack 20:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC) reply
    • As the original nominator, I am more than willing to do the work if another Richmond Road article is created. However, for the time being, the targets redirect to the articles, so the disambiguation is not needed, and it just looks dumb, in turn, making Wikipedia look dumb. Furthermore, most of these roads really are unique to Ottawa, and will never need to be disambiguated. I would not have nominated them if that was not the case. -- Pwnage8 ( talk) 05:45, 6 August 2008 (UTC) reply
      • See below for some evidence which doesn't support this claim of uniqueness at all. Andrewa ( talk) 10:09, 6 August 2008 (UTC) reply
        • The names may not be unique in the world at large, but, as AjaxSmack noted, "No other articles with these titles currently exist" on Wikipedia and therefore disambiguation is not required. If another street(s) with the same name is notable enough for an article at a later date, than yes, the name should be disambiguated at that time, but it's not required otherwise. Station1 ( talk) 23:16, 6 August 2008 (UTC) reply
          • That's not what the disambiguation guideline says, see below. Andrewa ( talk) 19:26, 7 August 2008 (UTC) reply
• Oppose - The world has numerous Richmond Roads and Preston Streets, and probably multiple instances of some of these other names. If these unambiguous names are renamed to the ambiguous form, they will only have to be renamed back to their current form in the future. -- Orlady ( talk) 15:47, 8 August 2008 (UTC) reply
  • read my post in the google search section which refutes this common argument. In any case, I'd gladly take the work upon myself. It's just that.. I won't have to :P -- Pwnage8 ( talk) 17:54, 8 August 2008 (UTC) reply
    • It's not necessary to sift through Google results to see the need to maintain disambiguation of these names. Search "Richmond Road" in Wikipedia. You will find that there are references (and redlinks) to streets called "Richmond Road" in London, Adelaide, and New York City, and possibly other places in the world, and there is an article about Richmond Road ground. Or try "Preston Street" in Wikipedia; you will find Preston Streets in Maryland (see articles including Route 5 (MTA Maryland) and List of streets in Baltimore, Maryland), Louisville (see articles including St. Joseph, Louisville and Roads of Louisville, Kentucky), Houston (see articles including Preston (METRORail station)). Wikipedia also reveals a Bronson Avenue in Los Angeles and Hawthorne Avenues in Omaha, Dallas, and Long Island, New York. I admit that I didn't find any other Bankfield Roads mentioned in Wikipedia. -- Orlady ( talk) 19:33, 8 August 2008 (UTC) reply
      • It's one thing whether they exist or not, but whether they even belong in Wikipedia is quite another. Have a look at my lengthy post. I provide google maps of these supposedly notable streets that might need articles. -- Pwnage8 ( talk) 20:13, 8 August 2008 (UTC) reply
        • Google maps or no Google maps, I believe there's already a disambiguation issue for at least one of these street names. After finding the Richmond Road ground article and several redlinks that apparently have been created as placeholder pointers to future articles about streets named "Richmond Road" in other world cities, I believe that Richmond Road (which is currently a redirect to the Ottawa road) needs to be converted to a disambiguation page. (I would have done the conversion, except that I didn't want to interfere with this ongoing discussion.) -- Orlady ( talk) 22:42, 8 August 2008 (UTC) reply
• Oppose per the discussions below. These are not the only notable roads using these names. Vegaswikian ( talk) 23:11, 8 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Discussion

Any additional comments:

My concern is that these should be listed individually since the answers could be different for each one. I'm thinking that if there are other notable streets with the same name then a dab page should replace the redirect. If this happens, then the move should not be made. If none of the other streets are notable then the article can be moved over the redirect. Vegaswikian ( talk) 00:01, 6 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Alternatives to the move

Perhaps, if it turns out that these street names are not unique to Ottawa after all, the immediate solution to not making Wikipedia look dumb is to create some disambiguation pages to replace the redirects at the unqualified names?

We might also want to think about the alternative spelling Merrivale Road ( 91,200 ghits excluding Ottawa, another 96 mandating it but they're probably all spelling errors). There's one of those quite close to me in Sydney. Millionaires mainly (I'm not at all close in that sense). Andrewa ( talk) 13:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC) reply

A minor point but Merrivale Road would be disambiguated from Merivale Road by spelling alone, no parentheses required. Of course, a hatnote on each would be appropriate. Station1 ( talk) 23:26, 6 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Agree. The point is that, if we do set up a disambiguation, we need to somehow consider the likelihood that the person searching for one of these articles has the wrong spelling. The 96 hits on the double R version of the Ottawa street name support this. I'd have a single disambiguation page covering both Merrivale and Merivale, but two with hatnotes would be another solution, and there are precedents both ways.

Please note what I'm trying to do here. There's a valid concern above that the current redirects look dumb. I'm after a solution to this that doesn't look even dumber. Wikipedia is not an Ottawa street directory. Andrewa ( talk) 19:45, 7 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Some Google searches

I did Google searches on each of the street names, first excluding and then mandating Ottawa. Results:

Excluding Ottawa:

• Bronson Avenue 10,100 ghits
• Heron Road 27,200 ghits
• Merivale Road 9,570 ghits
• Richmond Road 906,000 ghits
• Bankfield Road 6,460 ghits
• Hawthorne Avenue 80,000 ghits
• Preston Street 150,000 ghits

Including (mandating) Ottawa:

• Bronson Avenue 21,000 ghits
• Heron Road 9,900 ghits
• Merivale Road 44,000 ghits
• Richmond Road 78,100 ghits
• Bankfield Road 637 ghits
• Hawthorne Avenue 2,390 ghits
• Preston Street 26,500 ghits

My interpretation of this is that, assuming that Bankfield Road in Ottawa is notable, there's at least one other notable street by each of these names. Moreover, in only two of the seven cases is it likely that the Ottawa street is the most notable street by that name.

Food for thought? Andrewa ( talk) 10:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC) reply

And in fact if you examine these hit lists, of course there are many streets by each of these names. The claim above that most of these roads really are unique to Ottawa, and will never need to be disambiguated needs some supporting evidence IMO, particularly as the nominator continues I would not have nominated them if that was not the case. Andrewa ( talk) 10:15, 6 August 2008 (UTC) reply

That's actually not true. What I meant by "exclusive" is that since Wikipedia topics are notable, and these other streets aren't, the names are exclusive on Wikipedia. Sure, there might be little neighbourhood streets that share names in many different cities. That's to be expected, in fact. But they're not appropriate for inclusion on Wikipedia, not even on a disambiguation page, because Wikipedia is not a directory, and disambiguation pages are for articles. This brings us back to the rationale for this nomination. There isn't anything else... anywhere, that would require these streets to be disambiguated.

Examining the google hits, I find that first off, the numbers are off. When I clicked the links, I got:

Excluding Ottawa:

• Bronson Avenue (7,480 hits)
• Heron Road (27,100 hits)
• Merivale Road (9,540 hits)
• Richmond Road (902,000 hits)
• Bankfield Road (this one is actually the same!)
• Hawthorne Avenue (79,000 hits)
• Preston Street (148,000 hits)

Pretty far off the numbers you gave. Not saying there is any malintent, but it would help to provide the real figures, that don't inflate the supposed notability. Examining further, I see that a lot of these hits are not for the streets themselves, but ads for businesses/homes for sale along these streets. If hits like that determine notability, then every possible street could have an article, and that's just not reasonable. Of course, this isn't the case with our notability guideline.

The numbers I gave are accurate, and I'm happy to assume yours are too. Google takes geographical locations into account sometimes. So your figures are no more real than mine, and if Google somewhow associates you with Ottawa, they'd actually be less real. Andrewa ( talk) 22:14, 8 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Ah, yes, and I notice you're from Canada, so your figures will be badly skewed in favour of the Ottawa roads, as you have seen. Andrewa ( talk) 03:42, 9 August 2008 (UTC) reply

I think a better way to determine notability is to google map these streets, and see how they stack up. The first one that comes up for "Bronson Avenue" excluding Ottawa is the one in San Jose. And it's a tiny residential street. Not notable. Case closed. The one in Los Angeles is also nowhere near notable. The second hit is a trivial mention in a book unrelated to the subject. And eventhough you specified to exclude Ottawa, the fifth hit on the first page is about the one in Ottawa anyway. That shows you how widely associated Bronson Avenue is with Ottawa. The next closest potentially notable subject isn't even a street, it's a park, so there is no potential title conflict, and a hatnote would clear up any possible confusion if an article was created on it. I think I'll stop beating this dead horse and move on to the next one. Heron Road: The first street I see mentioned is the one in Catalina, Australia, and it looks to be a short residential road in a resort town? In any case, not notable. Next we have the Heron Road in Belfast, which is a minor road inside the airport that will never have an article. The one in London is even more laughable. Let's move on, shall we? Merivale Road: The first hit, merivaleroad.com, is about the one in Ottawa, eventhough you were excluding it in the search. Did you not realize that? The only other one I could find was a rural road in Australia that isn't notable. Richmond Road in London is yet another non-notable neighbourhood street, and would be deleted if an article was made on it. The one in Auckland is quite minor, and could (probably is already) be covered in the article on its neighbourhood. The only other "Richmond Road" that is notable is U.S. Route 60 in Virginia, and it already has an article under a different, more appropriate name. Bankfield Road in Liverpool, again, just a tiny side street. Same with the one in Manchester. Hawthorne Avenue in Newark is just like all the other streets.. nothing! Finally, the first hit for "Preston Street", again, is for Ottawa, eventhough you were excluding it in the search. Preston Street in Edinburgh is much shorter than the one in Ottawa, and very unlikely to have an article. And that's the only one that's closest to being as notable as Ottawa's street (I didn't even bother with the other ones because linking to tiny residential streets can be tiresome).

For comparison, I have included the google maps of the Ottawa streets:

• Bankfield Road
• Bronson Avenue
• Hawthrone Avenue
• Heron Road
• Merivale Road
• Preston Street
• Richmond Road - extends quite far from Island Park Drive to Richmond, Ontario

All of the streets are important arterial roads in the city of Ottawa, with no other streets coming close to being as notable, nevermind the fact that the targets already redirect to the articles. Make the only logical choice. Move. -- Pwnage8 ( talk) 17:40, 8 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Hmmm. And did your research come up with Richmond Road, Sydney? What were your conclusions about it? Andrewa ( talk) 22:21, 8 August 2008 (UTC) reply

There are a few Richmond roads in NSW. Although the article on Windsor Downs, New South Wales says it is a suburb of Sydney, it also has a distinct population of 1285. None of these Richmond roads look like they are notable enough to have their own article. - DigitalC ( talk) 23:51, 10 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Interesting results. It's my recollection that "Richmond Road" is the name of the main road from the city of Sydney (or somewhere near Sydney) to Richmond, through a heavily populated part of New South Wales. Presumably the reason you found evidence of multiple Richmond Roads in NSW is that the name is used locally in every community along the length of the road. This NSW government website says "Richmond Road is a 23.5 kilometre route linking Blacktown and Richmond. It functions as an arterial road linking major urban and rural areas." The article Metroad 9 suggests that the Richmond Road is also known as State Route 40. -- Orlady ( talk) 00:37, 11 August 2008 (UTC) reply

The other Richmond roads in NSW were not continuations of that Richmond Road, but 1) a small residential street in Seaforth (Sydney), 2) a small residential street in Rose Bay (Syndey), and 3) a short road in Homebush West (Sydney). Basically, state route 40 is named Windsor Rd for a portion, then Windsor-Richmond Road in the middle, and then Richmond road at the other end - a common practice for roads that connect small towns in (once)rural areas. Route 40 is only a short distance from (decommisioned) State Route 61 which is the 23.5 km route linking Blacktown and Richmond. - 59.167.74.69 ( talk) 01:26, 11 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Hmmm, yes, there is a part of State Route 40 which is known as Richmond Road. It's the Windsor end of the Richmond-Windsor Road, and isn't part of the Richmond Road which runs from Blacktown and is commonly known as Richmond Road throughout Sydney. It's one of the other six Richmond Roads in Sydney, see below, and is about 2km long. Andrewa ( talk) 15:17, 11 August 2008 (UTC) reply

See Richmond Road, Sydney (that's the naming convention adopted by Wikiproject Sydney). My Sydney street directory lists 22 Richmond Roads not counting a couple of dozen with similar names such as Richmond Street or Avenue, but of course thirteen of these are pieces of the major artery in the various suburbs through which it runs. The rest are unconnected to it; Two of them also have multiple listings, making in all seven streets by this name in Sydney alone. But I doubt that any of the others need articles, I could be wrong. Andrewa ( talk) 14:29, 11 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Hmmm, the Metroad 9 article did indeed state that both Richmond Road and Windsor Road (aka Metroad 2) were known as State Route 40, but it was wrong. They're parallel routes about 5km apart. I've fixed it. Andrewa ( talk) 14:59, 11 August 2008 (UTC) reply

I've tried Google mapping a few of the other streets, and I found that the results can sometimes be informative, but other times can be misleading. Take Bronson Avenue in Los Angeles. It's a long road, but it's interrupted in a few places. If you search "bronson avenue" in los angeles, ca, you get a link to what appears to be a short minor street, named South Bronson Avenue. If you search "bronson avenue" in inglewood, ca, you get a link to a different segment of South Bronson, that also appears to be a short minor street. If you search "bronson avenue" in hollywood, ca, you get a link to a completely different section of Bronson Avenue -- one that I think (from other sources) might have some notability in connection with movie history. If you search "bronson avenue" in beverly hills, ca (apparently Bronson Avenue does not go through Beverly Hills), you get a map of the Bronson Avenue sites -- on various different parts of Bronson Avenue -- that Google Maps users have uploaded (with photos). I don't know much about Bronson Avenue in Los Angeles, but it's clear that no one of these maps by itself (and possibly not all of them together) is a good basis for drawing conclusions about the road. -- Orlady ( talk) 15:42, 11 August 2008 (UTC) reply

What is the benefit?

I've been watching this discussion and the other that happened with the proposed Bank Street move, and I dont't fully understand the benefits of removing the word Ottawa from the title. I suppose it makes the street more prestigous, somehow? Or is it just for clarity? Because as of right now, it seems that it will just created more work (and discussion) than necessary for a small semantic change.-- Ducio1234 ( talk) 13:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Putting (Ottawa) behind the title is a form of disambiguation. There is no other article with the same title, so there is no need for diambiguation, and disambiguation should only occur where there is ambiguity. - DigitalC ( talk) 23:33, 6 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Actually several projects mandate disambiguation in cases where it avoids problems and is common enough to result in a naming convention that does not look random to the average reader. The US highway wikiproject is one of these. Vegaswikian ( talk) 08:06, 7 August 2008 (UTC) reply

True, but there is no such special convention regarding street names, so these articles should follow policy at WP:NC and guidelines at WP:DAB such as "...disambiguations are paths leading to different articles...." If there's no dab page and no possibility of a dab link as a hatnote, there's nothing to disambiguate; and "(Ottawa)" is obviously not part of the actual street name. Station1 ( talk) 18:11, 7 August 2008 (UTC) reply

There is plenty to disambiguate. All of the names in question are duplicated in other streets elsewhere in the world, some and perhaps all of them including streets more notable than the Ottawa examples. Those who wish to use the undisambiguated names for the Ottawa streets have yet to provide any evidence that this is appropriate in terms of WP:DAB.

And there seems to be an equal disregard for what this disambiguation guideline says: When an article title could refer to several things, a disambiguation page is needed. Note that could. Whether these articles yet exist is irrelevant. Andrewa ( talk) 19:25, 7 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Whether the articles exist or not is relevant. (You say "yet" but there is nothing to back that assumption). Implicit in a lack of other articles is a lack or relative lack of notability. I would agree that if at least a disambiguation page existed for these names there might be argument for a dismabiguator for the Ottawa streets. However, as of this discussion, all of the the names redirect to the Ottawa streets. So even if the "(Ottawa)" disambiguator remains, there will be nothing mentioning other cities' streets. — AjaxSmack 20:08, 7 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Disagree with most of this. Let's start with the biggie: Implicit in a lack of other articles is a lack or relative lack of notability. If that were true, we might as well disable creation of new articles completely. But in fact there are many, many articles still to create. All the existence of these articles and the lack of articles about the other streets by these names shows is that someone has created a lot of articles about Ottawa streets. It's very weak evidence that these streets are notable, or that others by these names are not, and begs the question.

Agree that the current situation with the redirects needs work. Suggest that the proposed renames would make the situation worse, not better. That's why we're having this discussion. Andrewa ( talk) 22:07, 8 August 2008 (UTC) reply

• @Vegaswikian: Many U.S. highway numbers are duplicated elsewhere. We're talking about there being no other roads with the same name. Quite different.
• @Andrewa: There is NOTHING to disambiguate. Wikipedia is not a directory of non-notable roads without articles. See my post in the google search section which completely demolishes your argument. -- Pwnage8 ( talk) 17:51, 8 August 2008 (UTC) reply

IMO this obit is a little premature, reply in the section. Andrewa ( talk) 22:24, 8 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Please read the comments above about other roads using the same names. Maybe we need to create dab pages to make this point clear. Vegaswikian ( talk) 23:09, 8 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Agree. Andrewa ( talk) 03:22, 9 August 2008 (UTC) reply

But what would you put on those dab pages? You can't have a page of red links. Station1 ( talk) 15:28, 9 August 2008 (UTC) reply

True, but read the rest of the section that you link to above: A link to a non-existent article (a "red link") should only be included on a disambiguation page when another article also includes that red link. There is no need to brainstorm all occurrences of the page title and create red links to articles that are unlikely ever to be written, or likely to be removed as insufficiently notable topics. If the only thing that uses the red link is the disambiguation page, unlink the "entry word" but still keep a blue link in the description. (my emphasis). There follows a rationale as to why red links are bad on disambig pages, but blue links are good.

Better, of course, to create articles on the more notable roads of the whole world, rather than just those of Canada. And that's the goal. Perhaps we need a Wikiproject roads. I see WikiProject Transport already has a WikiProject Highways as a descendent, and AHA! WikiProject Canada Roads is in turn its descendent. And the former WikiProject Motorways is now UK Roads. Interesting. Andrewa ( talk) 20:59, 9 August 2008 (UTC) reply

While this discussion has been ongoing, I see Bronson Avenue has been turned into a page of red links. Approximately 100 pages that link to "Bronson Avenue", which were previously automatically redirected to Bronson Avenue (Ottawa) now land on a dab page that contains one blue link to Bronson Avenue (Ottawa) and three red links to non-existant pages, none of which have any links of their own. Is there any benefit to that? Station1 ( talk) 05:12, 11 August 2008 (UTC) reply

It shouldn't be a page of red links of course, see WP:DAB. But nor should it be a redirect. There are at least two benefits to it being a disambig: Firstly, people looking for one of the other Bronson Avenues can conclude fairly safely that the information they want exists somewhere, but not here at Wikipedia, and secondly, it provides a framework for the creation of articles on these other streets. Andrewa ( talk) 13:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Wikipediability

The issue that keeps coming up is how we measure the wikipediability of a road. By wikipediability I mean that a topic can be:

• Unwikipediable or W-negative. That means that we don't want an article on it at all, or even a redirect.
• Weakly wikipediable or W-neutral. And this covers a multitude of possibilities, including ambiguous names and areas better covered by a section merged into a larger article.
• Strongly wikipediable or W-positive. That means that we do want an article on the topic, and it's the primary (or only) usage of the term, so the article belongs at the the undisambiguated name.

Question 1: Are there any existing policies or guidelines to help us in determining the wikipediability of a road? Wikilinks please.

Question 2: Are these existing policies and guidelines adequate? What should they say that they don't?

Google search obviously has its drawbacks, see above. Google maps may not be a lot better, judging by the inability of the searches above to discover even the existence of a major Sydney arterial road (Richmond Road) even after its importance had been hinted at.

It would be good to avoid a repeat of the schools articles fiasco of past years. For those who missed it, many articles on schools, particularly secondary schools, were AfDd (we called it VfD in those days) and deleted in Wikipedia's early years, with lots of repetitive, lengthy and passionate discussion. Most if not all of these articles have been recreated as the rule has progressively relaxed.

The same thing could easily happen for roads. Let's not. Andrewa ( talk) 03:22, 9 August 2008 (UTC) reply

The Canadians seem very interested in their roads; As well as the two Wikiprojects listed above there's also a WikiProject Canada Roads.

A look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Street, Markham is interesting regarding road wikipediabilty in general. The article was kept and subsequently renamed to John Street (Markham). I can't offhand see any discussion of this move. But the AfD discussion regarding what makes a road wikipediable is what I was most interested in. Andrewa ( talk) 04:00, 9 August 2008 (UTC) reply

This entire argument goes to notability. By all means, nominate for deletion if any roads are "unwikipediable" but as long as the articles exist, this has nothing to do with article naming conventions. Station1 ( talk) 15:11, 9 August 2008 (UTC) reply

In good time, no doubt AfDs will take place as needed. But I don't think it's good use of anyone's time and energy to do it right now. First, I'd like other opinions on the existing policies and guidelines, and how they might apply. Andrewa ( talk) 20:46, 9 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes#Geography is also interesting in this regard: City streets are contested, but minor streets are not generally acceptable. Most numbered roadways are acceptable, but should only be created if they can be described beyond the route itself. Major, unnumbered streets and roads beyond the level of a side street or neighborhood roadway may be created, but are not guaranteed to remain, as outcomes have varied. An article that explains the social, cultural, historical or political context of a road in depth is more likely to survive AFD than one which merely describes the road's physical characteristics. Andrewa ( talk) 01:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Similar moves

There have also been a number of attempts to remove the disambiguator from the Bank Street (Ottawa) article, see the history of the Bank Street article, now a disambig. These attempts have included a formal move proposal, an undiscussed unilateral move, and several cut-and-paste overwritings of the disambig page. Have there been other similar proposals, successful or otherwise? Andrewa ( talk) 11:31, 9 August 2008 (UTC) reply

I opposed the proposal to rename Bank Street (Ottawa) becuase there are four other articles currently on Wikipedia that could claim the article name Bank Street, at least one of which brought into question whether the Ottawa street was primary usage. No similar circumstance exists with regard to any of these seven streets. Station1 ( talk) 15:16, 9 August 2008 (UTC) reply

But there are very similar circumstances, they are just being ignored. Wikipedia is and always will be a work in progress, and to argue that we should "fix" (my word) a redirect by moving the one article that exists on a subject that is highly ambiguous is appalling. In the case of Richmond Road, Sydney (and I only know about that because I live in Sydney) it's a long, major artery. Whether an article on the Sydney road belongs in Wikipedia I'm still not sure, but it seems about as noteworthy as the one in Ottawa on the evidence I have to date, and far more so than some other of the Ottawa roads. And it's reasonable to assume that these all fairly obvious names will have other occurrences in the English-speaking world, as others have pointed out.

Just assuming for the moment that these Ottawa articles all belong in Wikipedia (for lack of a clear guideline), then we should be encouraging the creation of articles on these other streets, not encouraging the Ottawa ones and discouraging any who come later. The way to do that is a disambig page, which is also what we want long term anyway.

The nominator clearly stated above most of these roads really are unique to Ottawa, and will never need to be disambiguated. I would not have nominated them if that was not the case. Now that this assumption has been shown to be false, they still want to grab the unqualified names for Canada, claiming now that it's all right because they'll do the work on reversing this decision in the future. I've a better idea: Let's not make Wikipedia look dumb (their phrase) in the meantime, either. Andrewa ( talk) 20:38, 9 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Current usage regarding Ottawa street names

A survey of "Category:Ottawa roads" shows 54 article names without a parenthetical disambiguator of any kind, as opposed to 21 article names with a disambiguator.

Of those 21, seven are the subject of this proposal. Of the remaining 14, twelve currently have other articles on Wikipedia with the same name, so are correctly disambiguated by article name, leaving only two other article names that are currently unnecessarily disambiguated. Station1 ( talk) 16:14, 9 August 2008 (UTC) reply

If all those undisambiguated street/road article names pointed to streets in a United States city, they would be regarded as a symptom of U.S.-centrism and would have been changed by now. As it happens, I believe that there are other Ottawa street pages that should be changed to disambiguation pages, beginning with Airport Parkway, which should be renamed to Airport Parkway (Ottawa) so that Airport Parkway (disambiguation) can be renamed to Airport Parkway. Generic-sounding names like "Richmond Road" and "Airport Parkway" are not uniquely associated with Ottawa. -- Orlady ( talk) 16:37, 9 August 2008 (UTC) reply

A little investigation reveals that before early July most of those Ottawa street articles had names in the form "Blank Road (Ottawa)", but the articles were renamed en masse by the same people who proposed this current batch of proposed moves. So, not only is this argument a variant of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but the reason that the other stuff exists is (in essence) that last month's moves slipped by largely unnoticed.
Continuing anyway with the specious "other stuff exists" line of reasoning, though, I think that examination of articles in other geographic areas will indicate that many street articles include a place name for disambiguation, even though there currently may be no articles about other streets by the same name. In many of these instances, the undisambiguated name currently is a redirect to a specific street's article, but that could be easily converted to a disambiguation page if other articles about the same street should appear. Examples of this situation include Madison Avenue (Manhattan) (easily the world's best-known Madison Avenue, but the disambiguating "Manhattan" does no harm), Broadway (New York City), Edgware Road, London, Greenhill Road, Adelaide, and Glebe Point Road, Sydney (how many other roads with that name do you suppose there are?). In Wikipedia guideline terms, I interpret this as indicating that many Wikipedians assume that few street/road names are unique and, thus, are not willing to presume that a particular street in a particular city meets the test of being the primary usage of that street name. -- Orlady ( talk) 01:15, 10 August 2008 (UTC) reply

I didn't realize that many of these names were recently changed, as you correctly note. If I had, I wouldn't have written the paragraph at the beginning of this section, so I apologize for that and withdraw it. However, there's nothing automatically wrong, in general, with pointing out "other stuff exists" as evidence of consensus, or lack thereof, on Wikipedia, as the essay (not policy or guideline) seems to acknowlege; I agree it's not a conclusive argument and can be misused. Examing other geographic areas as you suggest, such as a random sample at "Category:Streets by city", shows dozens of counterexamples to your examples, e.g., Charles Street, School Street, Prairie Avenue, Madison Place, Fairfax Avenue (all in the U.S., by the way). At best the evidence is inconclusive. Station1 ( talk) 04:06, 10 August 2008 (UTC) reply

The evidence is strong that the current use of unqualified names for Ottawa streets is largely the result of poorly researched unilateral moves (for all I know in good faith), and should be reversed. (Sigh) But I suppose now we'll need to raise another move request to undo the damage. Andrewa ( talk) 04:19, 10 August 2008 (UTC) reply

See also Talk:List of roads in Ottawa, which has a large block of discussion moved from a VfD which appears to have been a proposal to delete a number of articles on... wait for it... Ottawa roads! Unfortunately, the block is incomplete, and doesn't say what articles were proposed for deletion, or even what the result was, and it does say it was moved but not really where from. And although I participated in this previous discussion I can't remember exactly what was going on, and the page history appears to have been corrupted somehow. Interesting discussion, just the same. Andrewa ( talk) 04:19, 10 August 2008 (UTC) reply

And in the time spent on this discussion, we probably could have created notable articles for at least one other street with each of the seven names. Then the only justification for the move would be removed. Since there is another Richmond Road covered in an article named as a state route, that one already needs disambiguation since we have two notable roads with the same name. So that leaves only six. Leave them where they are and let the other articles appear as needed. Vegaswikian ( talk) 07:44, 10 August 2008 (UTC) reply

That's true. Perhaps in hindsight that would have been a better way to go. There's lots about this discussion and the related ones that is disappointing, and I'm not to the point of escalating it down dispute resolution yet, but I'm certainly watching carefully to see whether we are approaching that point.

The bottom line is that this is wasting a great deal of time at no obvious benefit to the encyclopedia. The time to invoke DR is when the time likely to be wasted exceeds the time DR will take, no sooner and no later. Andrewa ( talk) 13:18, 10 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Need for a general discussion?

It seems the two sides of this debate are talking past each other a bit. In a sense, both sides are correct. Those who call for no disambiguator point out correctly that at Wikipedia there is only one article about a road with the given names and so there is no ambiguity and no need for preemptive disambiguation. Those who prefer to keep the disambiguator point out correctly that these are widely used names for roads and they are ambiguous in real life if not at Wikipedia. I still maintain that, under current guidelines, if there is only one article at a name, there is no need for disambiguation but I think that the sentiment of those who want disambiguators at names like Richmond Road is well founded.

And yet your vote is still in support of the move. Now that there are multiple articles with that name, don't you think you should at least oppose the move of the Richmond Road (Ottawa) article? Or do you still want to move it, so that you can then make good your offer and raise a requested move to move it back?

Yes, Is still support the moves except for Richmond Road (Ottawa) since Richmond Road is now a DAB page. — AjaxSmack 21:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Is there perhaps a need for guidelines changes to allow for disambiguators in the case of common road names even if there is only one article at that name. This would be a little like highway route number naming conventions where Route 994 is always disambiguated even if there is only one Route 994 with an article. Ideally road names with several notable cases but with no articles would have disambiguation pages but I'm not volunteering for the work so maybe a rules change to call for disambiguators in cases of obviously common road names is in order. Is this something that should be brought up at WT:WikiProject Highways or somewhere else? — AjaxSmack 01:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC) reply

There's obviously need for clarification. I think that the existing guidelines already allow this, and not just for roads. For example MOS:DAB#Red links seems to me to quite clearly imply that blue links from DAB pages to nonexistent articles on notable topics are a good thing. But obviously others don't agree on this. It would be good to sort this out. And not just for roads.

Meantime, I'll appeal to WP:IAR. The move of the Richmond Road article was never a good idea. It was based on false and very easily discredited assumptions. Andrewa ( talk) 04:01, 12 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Yes, MOS:DAB#Red links allows for disambiguators (in the case of common road names even if there is only one article at that name) when a disambiguation page exists with another redlinked entry. I was calling for something more specific that would officially put more burden of proof on those like myself opposing disambiguators. — AjaxSmack 21:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Isn't this splitting hairs? The MOS already specifically says that when you clean up a disambig, entries to non-existent articles should stay, just not as redlinks. The rationale given is that this will assist readers.

Apply this to the present context. Contributors from a provincial (as opposed to national) capital have requested that some streets of their city should be given undisambiguated article names, as part of a wider and ongoing campaign of theirs. The specific street names in this particular request include one (Bank Street) that also occurs in a large proportion, perhaps even a majority, of cities in the English-speaking world, and others of the form (Common Geographical Name} Street or (Common Surname) Street. The proposer makes the ridiculous claim that all of these will never need disambiguation, but provides no evidence. When I provide evidence against this baseless claim they then claim that I'm mistaken and have provided false figures, apparently basing this claim on their misunderstanding of Google. So I've now written a stub for the street by that name in my own provincial capital, which appears to have stumped them. But really...!

Oops... Ottawa is of course the national capital of Canada. Thanks to those who have pointed this out so gently...! Andrewa ( talk) 03:09, 15 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Another contributor sets up a disambiguation page for another of the names, in accordance to the MOS and displaying again, if there was ever any need, that the basic premise for the move is false. The move proposer then guts this disambig of all the entries that don't suit them, in defiance of the MOS.

Shouldn't this be a no-brainer? I suppose we need to clarify things, at the risk of instruction creep. But I'm a bit disappointed. And even if we do amplify the guidelines, how do we get people to read them? Andrewa ( talk) 21:06, 14 August 2008 (UTC) reply

The analysis in the first paragraph of this section is exactly right; it boils down to a difference in interpretation of current policy and an honest difference of opinion as to when article names for streets need a disambiguator in the title. As to what, if anything, to do about it, I have mixed feelings. Earlier in the discussion I was looking for something like a WP:Naming convention (streets) for answers to be spelled out, and maybe something like that would be helpful for consistency and to help avoid controversy, assuming it represented true consensus. An informal survey of "Category:Streets by city" seems to indicate, though, that most streets around the world that don't need a disambiguator don't have one (a major exception being Australian streets, I assume because of that wikiproject). I wonder if Wikipedia is better off with more or fewer 'rules' or if things will work themselves out eventually anyway. Personally, I would not like to see a whole bunch of dab pages with no articles, but this isn't the place to get into that discussion. As to this particular case, I assume/hope some disinterested admin will come along shortly, carefully read this discussion and everyone's policy citations, make a decision and close this up. Station1 ( talk) 07:30, 13 August 2008 (UTC) reply

One possibility would be to relist it with the suggestion that those opposing the move create the remaining disambigs, which would possibly produce a strong consensus. I think that might be the way to go, but I'm obviously not the right admin to close or relist this particular discussion. Andrewa ( talk) 03:19, 15 August 2008 (UTC) reply

There's nothing to stop those redirects from being created now. Assuming the additional redlinks are to notable streets, I, for one, would withdraw support.

I'm not sure which person said "all of these will never need disambiguation" but I said that "preemptive disambiguation is not needed," i.e., that no disambiguation is needed of there is not yet a DAB page or other articles on streets with the same name. If those articles subsequently appear, I would support disambiguation as I did at Talk:Airport Parkway (Ottawa). — AjaxSmack 01:53, 17 August 2008 (UTC) reply

The nominator stated above most of these roads really are unique to Ottawa, and will never need to be disambiguated. I would not have nominated them if that was not the case. The post was in reply to one of yours, actually. Andrewa ( talk) 13:13, 17 August 2008 (UTC) reply

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