Talk:Mission Creek (Marion County, Oregon)

Page move?

There's at least one other Mission Creek in Oregon--I think Umatilla County? When I get a minute I'll check GNIS. So should we go ahead and move the page to Mission Creek (Marion County, Oregon)? Katr67 (talk) 22:31, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you're right about there being at least one other. I ran into this same sort of question when I created the Bridge Creek (Oregon) article. Since Oregon has multiple Bridge Creeks, I originally created the article under the name "Bridge Creek (John Day River)" to avoid ambiguity. Another editor later moved it to Bridge Creek (Oregon). I've been trying to follow the naming guidelines at WP:Rivers#Multiple rivers with the same name, but like all guidelines, they don't apply equally well to every case. Calling this "Mission Creek (Champoeg Creek)" would not be helpful. So, to head off confusion later when somebody does another Mission Creek in Oregon, yes, moving to "Mission Creek (Marion County, Oregon)" seems like a good idea. Finetooth (talk) 23:09, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Huh, I'm curious about that Bridge Creek page move. Yes, I had the same thought about the Champoeg Creek qualifier. Let's not move it until we can take a minute to turn the redir into a dab page. Katr67 (talk) 23:27, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, I boldly moved the Bridge Creek article back. I saw the rationale for it in your archives and though sensible, s/he didn't seem to feel too strongly about it. Since our naming conventions have been very consistent among all the Oregon articles--i.e. nothing is at "(Oregon)" unless it's the only one in the state (right?), I think that's a better argument. So for our other Mission Creek, it looks like a trib of the Umatilla River. So should we name it by trib structure instead of county, or should we be consistent within disambiguated names as well? Katr67 (talk) 23:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for changing that back. I've always thought the original was more clear but didn't want to argue about it. Another odd one is John Day River (northwestern Oregon) to distinguish it from John Day River. "John Day River (Clatsop County, Oregon)" would be more precise. Trib structure doesn't help with this one because both John Days flow into the Columbia. I think it's reasonable to argue that when the trib structure isn't good enough, the county-state name is the next best thing. In the case of multiple counties, perhaps just the mouth county would do so the name doesn't get too long. In the case of the Mission Creek in Umatilla County, I'd incline toward "Mission Creek (Umatilla River)" since that's enough to make it unique and because "Mission Creek (Umatilla County, Oregon)" is longer. I'm certainly not adamant about this and would, like a river, go with the flow. Finetooth (talk) 00:42, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I added a more complete course description, corrected my earlier mistaken assessment of the length, and boldly moved the page. This was only the second page move I've ever done, so if you see something amiss, please fix and post a note. Finetooth (talk) 02:43, 29 November 2009 (UTC)