Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Irish stations)

Proposed naming convention

I've started this proposal for a naming convention for railway station in Ireland. It's an attempt to bring consistency to the way Irish stations are named and disambiguated. The text is largely based on what appears at the current guidelines WP:UKSTATION, WP:USSTATION, and WP:CANSTATION.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:32, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Merging naming conventions for stations

Hi. I am proposing a merger of all naming conventions for stations. Please give your opinion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains#Merging naming conventions for stations. Thanks. Szqecs (talk) 15:17, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Request for Comment on adopting Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Irish stations)

The following discussion 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.

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Should Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Irish stations) be adopted as a naming convention?--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:44, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Information

This is an attempt to create a formal guideline for stations in the Republic of Ireland comparable to guidelines for Canadian stations, Polish stations, UK stations, and US stations. It was written to follow existing unwritten practice and local use in Ireland.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:44, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Survey

• Support as nominator.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:44, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. Oppose strongly based on recent experience with editor Cuchullain and other train station focused editors, who have involved themselves in attempting to rename United States train stations from names supported in sources, to what they have asserted are generic names supported by their own personal preference for names assuming that "City station" is the default, no matter what is supported by actual sources about actual names. There is no need for a different standard for Ireland. I oppose bureaucratic creep. For any specific train depot, what is needed is proper review of actual sources. There should be no default to some strange standard. In the case of the United States, an asserted trains-oriented standard has recently led to weird, bullying-type assertions by train-station-focused-editors that generally-reliably-regarded-sources should be disregarded in favor of no sources at all for what names should be. --Doncram (talk) 04:03, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
  • To reiterate, virtually all Irish stations are using the format expressed here already. The main difference will be making the disambiguation consistent in the cases where it's needed, as there's little consistency now.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:47, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
• Comment. I am interested in identification of stations in Ireland, specifically Fire stations in Ireland, in order to add them to relatively new List of fire stations. There are currently no Irish members of that list article. Please help! Does "Mallow station" denote what would "obviously" (from the perspective of editors interested in firefighting) indicate a historic fire station in Mallow, or should it denote (from the perspective of editors interested in trains) indicate a train station in Mallow?????? --Doncram (talk) 04:03, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
  • @Doncram: In the United Kingdom out of context if someone asked for directions to "<place> station" they would be told how to find the most significant railway station in <place>. Only if there were one or more equally prominent railway stations in <place> (e.g. London, Birmingham, Dorchester, etc) or no open railway stations would clarification be sought. Only if the context was already firmly established as some other type of station (e.g. bus, fire, police, etc) would "<place> station" be taken to mean something other than a railway station. I would be astonished if the same were not true in Ireland. The first 20 hits on a google search for "Mallow station" -Wikipedia are all about the railway station. Thryduulf (talk) 19:12, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
• Support commonname is not always best, even if it comes with sources. Sometimes logic is better for navigation. Laurel Lodged (talk) 19:05, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. For three reasons, in decreasing order of importance:
  1. The first two bullet points in the disambiguation station contradict each other with regards to stations in the Republic of Ireland that are ambiguous with a station in Northern Ireland. The first bullet states that the RoI station should be named "Station (Ireland)" the second says it should be named e.g. "Station (County Cork)".
  2. The section about not deviating from the common name is slightly confusing. It would most likely help to give an example of a station that should be titled contrary to the established format to illustrate how it differs. Not doing this will likely lead to arguments and inconsistencies over whether to include the word "railway" in the title and similar.
  3. There should probably be some wording about the case where multiple stations are ambiguous but one is clearly primary topic over the other(s).

  Fix these relatively small issues (particularly the first one) though and I'll be happy to support. Thryduulf (talk) 19:24, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Good catch, thanks Thryduulf! I've updated the wording for your first point. For the second point, I actually can't find any examples that do this. The wording is included because it's there in related guidelines like WP:CANSTATION and WP:USSTATION, where this comes up far more often. I wouldn't object to removing it here (or alternatively, if someone identifies an example, to adding it here). I've also added wording about WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Let me know if you see anything else.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:55, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Thryduulf, what do you think about the changes? I could go either way on removing the common name wording.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:34, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

@Cuchullian: My first and third points are now resolved, but the common name wording is still confusing. I'm withrawing my opposition but not moving to support just yet. Thryduulf (talk) 16:39, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Thryduulf: Thanks. I just removed the line, if at some point someone finds a station that it would apply to, we can talk about adding back then.--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:50, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Now support per this thread. Thryduulf (talk) 10:44, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

• Are there actually any station names which exist in both the Republic and Northern Ireland? Stifle (talk) 10:07, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Stifle: Yes, enough that it's worth specifying. There's Kells railway station (Northern Ireland) vs. Kells railway station (County Kerry), Kells railway station (County Meath); Bridge End railway station (Northern Ireland) vs. Bridge End railway station (County Donegal); Carrickmore railway station (Northern Ireland) vs. Carrickmore railway station (County Donegal), and others. It's not uncommon with historical stations.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:08, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm really unclear on why we'd title an article "Dublin Connolly station", which would seem to go against WP:COMMONNAME - there aren't any other Connolly stations that I'm aware of outside Dublin. Why not just "Connolly station"? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 20:04, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Good question, I assumed it was named that to distinguish between the two "Dublin stations", but simply "Connolly station" is much more common, and unambiguous. I'll remove it as an example here, and it may be worth opening a move discussion about it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:28, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

• OpposeNeutral: articles which have been subject to a lot of vandalism recently seem to be getting some more.Djm-leighpark (talk) 17:06, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Making disambiguation consistent and compliant with WP:AT is hardly "vandalism".--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:13, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

The policy seems to result in some stupids where the station would be guessed to elsewhere that where's it at. Nut there we have it. I've examined some use cases and guess I'll get used to it but I'll stay clear for a bit.Djm-leighpark (talk) 00:56, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

If you have specific concerns, I'm sure we can hash them out. The issue is that station disambiguation wasn't consistent in Ireland: you had Island Road (Sligo) railway station, Westport railway station, Mayo, Sutton railway station (County Dublin), etc. It was much harder to guess where a station article might be before. This guideline just makes it consistent and in line with WP:AT, WP:DAB, and related railway station guidelines.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:54, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

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.

Heavy rail and other

• The WP:UKSTATION article is quite clear about when an article is called a station when two different forms of transport are at the station. WP:Naming conventions (Irish stations) is not and actually only covers heavy rail (railway station) and others (station). It does not actually specify direction when both are present.Djm-leighpark (talk) 20:00, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Good catch, I've updated the wording.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:42, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Prefixing station with location name

Current practice by railway companies appears to be to prefix a mainline station with the city whether the station is not named after the settlement; and this is what appears in timetables, train destinations boards etc etc. However this does not appear to be in the guideline. Examples include Cork Kent, Sligo Mac Diarmada. (One counter is NIR's treatment of Great Victoria Street). For the Dublin stations heavy rail uses the Dublin prefix; whereas LUAS (Obviously in Dublin) omits the Dublin. I'd also note how Iarnód Éireann (www.irishrail.ie/travel-information) currently using Sligo (MacDiarmada); Cork (Kent) and Limerick Colbert. Surely article guidelines should be to prefix the name wit the city? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djm-leighpark (talk • contribs) 10:14, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary. What we're really looking for is the WP:COMMONNAME rather than the WP:OFFICIALNAME.---Cúchullain ^t/c 20:43, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

For the Dubs then I'd you'd be referring to Connolly .. farther from Dublin that might be less clear and from outside Ireland even less so. The UK practice seems to be London Victoria and London Waterloo though I'd call them Victoria and Waterloo respectively. Berlin Zoologischer Garten railway station where the common name is the Zoo. I'd suggest the trend is towards the official name which normally precedes with the location.Djm-leighpark (talk) 22:23, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

The station is called London Victoria because there is also Manchester Victoria (and fifty years ago, several others), but if you're in the ticket office at Bolton or East Croydon and ask for a ticket to Victoria, you won't be asked which one you mean. The problem probably doesn't occur in Ireland, where there are few stations that are suffixed - and of those that are, I don't know of any where stations in two different places share a suffix. For example, there's only one Central that I can find. I would say that it's best to go with the station signage. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:22, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Well I suppose after image viewing of Connolly & Pearse and perhaps consideration of the Irish Language practice and perhaps more Kilfree Junction is not exactly near Kilfree I may be more moved to dropping the location if only to given happiness to the template and navbox editors ... I do hope the Station signwriter is not married to the timetabler preparer though. Quite frankly I'm more concerned about how many O's in Fry Model Railway.Djm-leighpark (talk) 19:53, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Naming convention for Irish translations

Possibility of including a small note for Irish version of station names? Right now across articles it's a bit of a mess, and I'll admit I've partly contributed when correcting incorrect Irish names - the problem is Irish names are a bit more long winded, so for infoboxes I've mostly left out the town/city for names of major stations (Connolly, Daly, Ceannt, etc.). The problem I've mostly encountered with Irish naming besides typos is naming that doesn't comply with the beloved tuiseal ginideach - namely surnames (Ó → Uí & Mac → Mhic) and placement of the place name before the station name. I propose including a table like so:

English	Irish
Bray station	Stáisiún Bhré
Daly Station	Stáisiún Uí Dhálaigh
Bray Daly	Ó Dálaigh, Bré
Daly Station, Bray	Stáisiún Uí Dhálaigh, Bré
Bray Daly Station
Bray railway station	Stáisiún traenach Bhré
Bray Daly railway station	Stáisiún traenach Uí Dhálaigh, Bré

It may also be worth mentioning that station signage and even names as they appear on Irish Rail are not always something to go by, as these can sometimes include the same mistakes (e.g. Stáisiún Í Phluingcéid (incorrect) vs Stáisiún Phluincéid). EthanL13 | talk 15:09, 30 January 2024 (UTC)