Talk:Welland - Wikipedia

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. 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 move request was: move JaGa^talk 06:04, 17 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

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Welland → Welland (disambiguation) — Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, the Ontario city (and by extension, the canal) is the most famous use of "Welland". Since the River and Canal are not simply referred to as "Welland", it only comes down to either the English... crossroads?... or the Ontario city. Certainly the city is more important than an indescernible village, yes? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:25, 12 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

• Welland, Ontario → Welland

• Support per nomination. Clearly more notable than the English village and the Australian neighbourhood. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 22:23, 12 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
• Comment this appears to be incorrectly formatted. 184.144.164.14 (talk) 00:33, 13 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

  How so? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 01:06, 13 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

  It appeared as "Welland, Ontario → [[:]]", with the reason missing, on Wikipedia:Requested moves. I think I've fixed it now. Peter E. James (talk) 14:54, 13 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

• Mild oppose. Surely the Welland in Canada is named after the Welland in England? And it's not a very big city. Deb (talk) 12:26, 13 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Being named after something doesn't make the original something the primary topic. The place in England is barely notable. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:19, 13 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

• "Welland" can refer to the river, just as "Thames" can refer to the River Thames, which is the primary topic for that title. However, the city appears to be the primary topic (and as it's a city, this is sufficient according to naming conventions) so I support the proposed move. Peter E. James (talk) 14:13, 13 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

• Oppose for now at least. While it seems that this is the most notable Welland, that's not enough. It's a small enough city that it's unlikely to be widely known outside of Canada, with others listed in the DAB similarly known locally. Assuming that's true this would be a classic case of no primary meaning. If the guidelines say otherwise, they should be changed. Andrewa (talk) 16:14, 13 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Its also the central hub of an international shipping canal, that is certainly known around the world (maybe not commonly, but anyone who works around ships would be aware of it). How is being the most notable Welland not enough to be the primary topic? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:19, 13 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

I seem to be repeating myself, but the answer to your question is: If there is no primary topic. See WP:DAB#Is there a primary topic?. Andrewa (talk) 17:41, 13 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

The village in Worcestershire may be the primary meaning in some of the neighbouring villages and towns. In the UK, Welland is likely to refer to the River Welland, but the full name is more likely to be used. Welland in Australia appears to be only a small area of a large city, so is unlikely to be the primary topic outside of the city. Internationally, the main topics are probably the canal (not usually abbreviated to "Welland") and the city in Ontario, so the city is probably primary topic. Peter E. James (talk) 17:38, 13 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Again, this seems to assume that there must always be a primary topic. This is not the case, see above. Andrewa (talk) 17:41, 13 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

The issue is that the English village and Australian neighbourhood are definitely no contest to Welland, Ontario, as the primary topic. The river in England is probably very notable, but it is still River Welland, which incidentally isn't a redirect. Likewise, the Welland River in Ontario occupies its own title. Welland wouldn't link to these rivers or the canal unless they were simply referred to as "Welland". - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:51, 13 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

All that is true, but it's not enough. It establishes that if there is a primary topic, then it is the Canadian city. But we still need to ask, is the Canadian city notable enough that appreciable numbers of people in the English-speaking world generally would even know of it? It seems borderline at best, despite the association with the similarly named canal. I'd certainly heard of the canal, but I had no idea whether it was named after a city, or a river, or perhaps after a Mr Welland who built it. The city would have been my last guess. Andrewa (talk) 02:12, 14 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

I live a few hours away in Ontario and I've never heard of the city, only the canal. Srnec (talk) 18:05, 14 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Support. I actually read WP:PRIMARYTOPIC differently. I don't see any notability qualification there. The guideline says that it is often the case that one of these [ambiguous] topics is highly likely — much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined — to be the subject being sought when a reader enters that ambiguous term in the Search box. If there is such a topic, then it is called the primary topic for that term. It's a relative inquiry, not an absolute. WP:Notability is a separate question. But if a topic is notable enough to have its own article, then it can be the primary topic, as long as 50+% of readers are looking for that topic.

In this case, it seems that most people agree that this city would be the primary topic for "Welland". So, I'm in support. Dohn joe (talk) 19:14, 14 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

I know it's not entirely reliable, but Google Hits don't support that view. Deb (talk) 10:00, 16 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Google hits turn up local results. So if you live in Wales (an assumption based on the wikiproject banner on your userpage), you're going to get more results that are British in context. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 13:36, 16 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Assuming you're not British, what do you get? Deb (talk) 16:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

I live in Toronto, about 100 km from Welland. The results I get when I type "Welland" in are:

1. Official City of Welland page
2. Tourism Welland
3. This wikipedia article
4. The Welland Tribune (local paper)
5. Welland Canal website
6. Tourism Niagara entry for Welland
7. Niagara College, in Welland
8. Seaway Mall, in Welland
9. Welland / Pelham Chamber of Commerce

All 10 results are related directly to this city. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:42, 16 February 2011 (UTC)Reply

Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, that's why you should be using a neutral google search, with &pws=0 in the url. See my Oppose comment below. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:36, 15 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

• Support - The move meets the applicable naming convention at WP:CANSTYLE. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:37, 22 February 2011 (UTC)Reply
• Oppose (support one but not the other) Certainly Welland (db) page should be the search result. "Welland, Ontario" should stay as such though, as should "Welland, Worcetershire" as I do not think there is a primary here. Although the search parameters for google can be weighted, when using "UK" or "Canada" that sorts them out as roughly 4:1 against UK. Wiki page traffic (sampled three random months) also is slightly lower, though by far the highest traffic is on "Welland Canal" at almost 2:1 against "Welland, Ontario" - does this mean that "Welland Canal" should be the main?. Chaosdruid (talk) 16:26, 5 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

• The canal isn't referred to as just "Welland" though, the city is. The English junction barely deserves an article at all; I doubt it has any secondary sources discussing it. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 16:36, 5 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

• Support. Searches on Google India (a "neutral" site) and on Google Books point to the Ontario city as the primary topic as well. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:42, 6 March 2011 (UTC)Reply
• Support Oppose I was about to comment in Support based on JHJ's comment, but then I did a neutral google search (using &pws=0 in the url) and discovered that while the Ontario use is most popular, it hardly meets WP:PRIMARYTOPIC criteria, which is, "much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined—to be the subject being sought when a reader enters that ambiguous term in the Search box". Although the Ontario use is the first subject returned in the results, it hardly dominates even the first page of results, much less the subsequent pages, which is normally the case for primary topics. I just don't see it. --Born2cycle (talk) 02:32, 15 March 2011 (UTC) Floydian is correct (below). Though the Ontario use does not dominate the raw generic google search results, it does if you manually filter out uses that are not topics covered in Wikipedia. In terms of what people are likely to be searching for in Wikipedia when they enter "Welland", it does appear that the Ontario use is primary. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:39, 15 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

Could you remove the red please? Makes sense, but keep in mind that most of the results are irrelevant company names and websites which aren't notable and would never have an article on here. They don't exactly establish the likelihood of the other uses which we are currently considering. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 04:17, 15 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

Is green better? Seriously, I'm experimenting with using Support and Oppose to see if the practice might catch on. --Born2cycle (talk) 16:39, 15 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

It's more that it makes your comment stand out against the rest. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:29, 15 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

A temporary transitional setback, if the practice catches on. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:52, 15 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

• Comment. (Back on topic...) If you look at article traffic statistics (I chose to look at last November), "Welland, Worcestershire" had 170 visits, "Welland, South Australia" had 182 visits, and "Welland, Ontario" had 3,867 - more than ten times those two combined. So of the places named Welland, Ontario dominates Wikipedia usage. Of the other pages on the Welland disambiguation page, only "Welland Canal" had more visits than "Welland, Ontario", with 6,694. And has been said, there's no evidence that people call the canal simply "Welland". Thus, it seems that "Welland, Ontario" is indeed the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for plain "Welland", and this page should move there. Dohn joe (talk) 16:54, 15 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

Good point. I think it's reasonable to assume that those searching for the canal are likely to be entering "Welland canal", not just "Welland", and, if they're entering just "Welland", it's out of laziness to reduce typing, most likely expecting to get to a page from which they are one click from the canal. That said, since the canal gets so many hits, it should probably be linked in a hatnote at the top of Welland. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:55, 15 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

• Oppose - Welland, Ontario does not appear large enough for the province name to be dropped from the title. Dough4872 23:03, 16 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

But what is being considered is whether this Welland is the primary topic amongst the other uses. I can point out, for example, Coboconk, an unincorporated village with a population of 800 which doesn't have ", Ontario" at the end of the title (as per WP:CANSTYLE) - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 23:35, 16 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

If Canada chooses to use this convention, then I am neutral to this move. Dough4872 00:00, 17 March 2011 (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. No further edits should be made to this section.