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Hi Richard, Nomally I favor merges, but here, I think the topic is broader than horse grooms (note the WP Trans tag). I think there is a historic use that is sufficient to distinguish the 'ostler from the modern groom. But I'm open to other thoughts. Montanabw (talk) 23:05, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
From 2005 to mid-2010, this article contained information about the railroad occupation known as hostler. In June 2010, User:Richard New Forest removed that information, calling it "trivial" in his edit summary. Since that time, at least three other editors have attempted to reintroduce that information to the article, myself included, [1] only to be reverted by Richard New Forest, who believes that this article should be about the occupation, not the dictionary definition of the word.
And that's exactly my point. In the United States, if you walk into an employment agency and say "I'm looking for a job as a hostler," the agency is going to assume you want to work for a railroad, not a horse stable. If you open up the classified section of a United States newspaper and look for the word "hostler," chances are that you'll find it in advertisements from railroads, not horse stables.
This is not simply a slang term or something made up by railfans. Hostler is the official name of the railroad-related occupation. Ask any railroad employee, railroad manager, or railroad CEO in the United States what a hostler is and he'll tell you it's a person who moves locomotives from one track to another track within a rail yard or locomotive shop.
We need to come to a consensus on this issue. Until that happens, please do not remove the tags at the top of the article. Thank you. – BMRR ( talk) 16:42, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
Centpacrr, I don't think you've yet quite understood WP:DICTDEF. The problem is not that the article defines a subject: both a dictionary and an encyclopaedia do this. The problem is (and always was) that the article defines two different subjects. Dictionaries deal with words, and therefore include every definition associated with a word. Encyclopaedia articles deal with things, and therefore describe just one thing using whatever word or words that are commonly used for it. It is not the phrasing of the definitions but the number of things which makes these dictionary definitions, not encyclopaedia definitions.
Yes, we do need to consider whether we keep either of these subjects in Wikipedia. You're quite right that at present there is not enough material to make an article, and we must decide whether it's likely that further material will appear in due course. If it will, we can have one or both articles as stubs, pending further material. If it won't, yes, we delete one or both articles. Regards, Richard New Forest ( talk) 21:00, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Hi Richard, Nomally I favor merges, but here, I think the topic is broader than horse grooms (note the WP Trans tag). I think there is a historic use that is sufficient to distinguish the 'ostler from the modern groom. But I'm open to other thoughts. Montanabw (talk) 23:05, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
From 2005 to mid-2010, this article contained information about the railroad occupation known as hostler. In June 2010, User:Richard New Forest removed that information, calling it "trivial" in his edit summary. Since that time, at least three other editors have attempted to reintroduce that information to the article, myself included, [1] only to be reverted by Richard New Forest, who believes that this article should be about the occupation, not the dictionary definition of the word.
And that's exactly my point. In the United States, if you walk into an employment agency and say "I'm looking for a job as a hostler," the agency is going to assume you want to work for a railroad, not a horse stable. If you open up the classified section of a United States newspaper and look for the word "hostler," chances are that you'll find it in advertisements from railroads, not horse stables.
This is not simply a slang term or something made up by railfans. Hostler is the official name of the railroad-related occupation. Ask any railroad employee, railroad manager, or railroad CEO in the United States what a hostler is and he'll tell you it's a person who moves locomotives from one track to another track within a rail yard or locomotive shop.
We need to come to a consensus on this issue. Until that happens, please do not remove the tags at the top of the article. Thank you. – BMRR ( talk) 16:42, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
Centpacrr, I don't think you've yet quite understood WP:DICTDEF. The problem is not that the article defines a subject: both a dictionary and an encyclopaedia do this. The problem is (and always was) that the article defines two different subjects. Dictionaries deal with words, and therefore include every definition associated with a word. Encyclopaedia articles deal with things, and therefore describe just one thing using whatever word or words that are commonly used for it. It is not the phrasing of the definitions but the number of things which makes these dictionary definitions, not encyclopaedia definitions.
Yes, we do need to consider whether we keep either of these subjects in Wikipedia. You're quite right that at present there is not enough material to make an article, and we must decide whether it's likely that further material will appear in due course. If it will, we can have one or both articles as stubs, pending further material. If it won't, yes, we delete one or both articles. Regards, Richard New Forest ( talk) 21:00, 20 February 2011 (UTC)