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disputed

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I added disputed tag to the article as it appears to be factually incorrect. My attempts to correct the article may have been imperfect, but there has been discussion for about 6 months and no resolution of some basic facts. I thot my recent edit clarifying what I believe to be true was accurate, but it has been reverted.

It is currently stated in the article that:

  • Marion is a neighborhood in the town of Southington in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States.
  • The neighborhood includes the Marion Historic District

My edits to state that the Marion Historic District extends into Cheshire, which is in New Haven County, have been reverted. It is not possible for the HD to be in two towns, yet be wholly contained in a neighborhood which is solely in one town. So something has to give. It's okay by me to leave this as a disputed article. I won't expect to comment further. doncram (talk) 20:11, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Marion, as it is commonly used, does extend a bit across the Cheshire town line (the area around Marion avenue north of I-84). Because the center is in Southington, it is not unusual for this to be simply known as a Southington neighborhood but that doesn't preclude the community from sprawling across the town line. --Polaron | Talk 23:37, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User:Orlady commented elsewhere:

The Marion, Connecticut article is currently prominently labeled with a "disputed" template. This was placed there by Doncram to indicate that he does not believe the statement that the Marion historic district is "in" Marion. Since the Marion article consists only of a general geographic description and zip code information (the history section was moved to the HD article), it looks odd to label it as "disputed." Since the only sources cited for the Marion article are the GNIS and zip code databases (additionally, the NRIS database is the only source cited for the HD-specific content in the HD article), it is difficult to see a basis for disputing the accuracy of the assertion that the HD is in the neighborhood it is named for. I think the easiest resolution of the "dispute" would be to indicate in the Marion article that the approximate southern boundary of the Marion neighborhood is I-84 in Cheshire (this is what Polaron says to be true, and his personal knowledge is at least as good in this case as anything cited in the article), then delete the disputed template. Can this be considered? --Orlady (talk) 01:27, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

To respond: the National Register's NRIS database is a generally reliable source which provides the info that Marion Historic District is in two towns, in two counties. My edits that the district extends into Cheshire, which is in New Haven County, have been reverted. It is not possible for the HD to be in two towns, yet be wholly contained in a neighborhood which is solely in one town (which is what the article asserts about the neighborhood). This is a repetition of discussion further above, perhaps not read or not understood. Hope this helps others understand why this is a disputed page. --doncram (talk) 15:13, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What you're not getting is that that bit of Cheshire around Marion Avenue north of I-84 containing several houses is considered part of the community of Marion. It also used to be that the Cheshire town line was a bit further south than the modern town line. Further, I doubt there are more than five houses in the historic district that are in Cheshire and I don't think that's enough to say these two entities are completely different. --Polaron | Talk 15:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It would definitely help towards resolving the disputed tag, if you could provide a sourced statement in the article explaining that Marion extends into Cheshire. And it would help further discussion about merger/split if you could clarify the relationship between Marion and the Marion Historic District. --doncram (talk) 15:39, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Funny, the disputed tag disappeared with no discussion. I restored it, as the factual accuracy of this article remains in dispute. Also funny that a previous lack of development in the somewhat related article about a historic district was used to justify some argument; it would seem better for the editor to put some development into this article. Hopefully a local editor or other new participant could come in with more authoritative knowledge and actually provide sources to resolve the definition of this place. --doncram (talk) 14:41, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I intend to remove the "disputed" template again. The alleged "dispute" is ridiculous. It's abundantly clear from the National Register nomination form that Marion is a Southington neighborhood that includes the historic district, and that the fact that the HD includes two houses on the Cheshire side of the town line (both of which houses are next door to historic properties on the Southington side of the line) is a minor footnote that does not change Marion's association with Southington.
Furthermore, I see this dispute template as being very much like certain Freemasonry editors' disruptive insistence that a building listed on the National Register as "Masonic Temple" or "Masonic Hall" cannot be included on a list of Masonic buildings unless the specific nature of that building's association with Freemasonry has been certified to the personal satisfaction of those Freemasonry editors. --Orlady (talk) 16:41, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't exactly see how the analogy applies--I think there are some differences. When I put the disputed tag in, there was heavy-handed editing going on that was supporting technically false statements, and tagging seemed a better alternative than edit warring or otherwise battling to correct the situation. But I agree that language in the Marion article can be approximate/imperfect as long as there is a separate article about the historic district where the specifics are clarified. I do object to the Marion article being technically inaccurate if the clarifications are not provided somewhere, and I note there still remains a proposal to eliminate the separate article. Thank you for clearly opposing the merger proposal. --doncram (talk) 15:11, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

merge of historic district

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The following is an archived discussion concerning a merger proposal.Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was Not merged. --Doncram (talk) 00:02, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There has been no local development of the Marion Historic District article in over a year. Both it (aside from a passage taken from the town article, which applies equally well to the neighborhood) and the neighborhood article are very stubby. Merging the two would provide historical context for the locale and serve the readers better. --Polaron | Talk 20:54, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's been no development by you, no response to explicit request for helpful development, above. For the record, towards preventing you making a claim of no opposition as in a related case in which you have acted sneakily, i oppose merger. If there is an actual, informed discussion by editors actually developing material, I would be happy to revisit this opinion. --doncram (talk) 21:08, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's not my job to develop this. My point is nobody is interested in developing it so that is why it is better merged. --Polaron | Talk 22:22, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There has been lots of development of CT NRHP articles, both individual places and historic districts, since then, including almost all of Fairfield County and the city of New Haven and much elsewhere too. Editors will show up here, too, if there is not undue contention driving them away. The big agreement you agreed to is that here there should be separate articles; that editors should be free to arrive and develop. And you're not interested in developing! Not here or in any other NRHP HD case where the big agreement was to have article structure merged, as you seem usually to prefer. There's no benefit to changing the decision then. --doncram (talk) 23:44, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you merge, then there will be no more contention. If you let this be merged, I will endeavour to develop the article. How about that? You act like the sole gatekeeper of all Connecticut historic districts. Do I have your permission to merge? --Polaron | Talk 01:14, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If there were a merger, there would be an unfortunate situation of having an uninformed, combo article about two topics which would best be developed separately. Potential editors would be misdirected towards believing a good article about the historic district and its architecture and other history would not be welcome, when in fact it would be welcome. Happily, another editor has now visited and taken pics, and some development is happening (e.g. i added the NRHP nom doc reference and added a bit). It remains to develop discussion of more of the individual contributing properties in the district, but I think now it is clear that the merger tags are argumentative-only, not serving a useful purpose. To remove the unhelpful legacy of past contention, i'll remove them. --doncram (talk) 14:29, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The merger should always be towards the more developed article. I'm sure that when one adds the history of the Marion historic district, one has effectively discussed everything that makes Marion significant. I'm for redirecting the neighborhood article to the historeic district article, which is now more developed. --Polaron | Talk 14:35, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Funny one side of the merger tags was already gone; i removed the other. I was going to say this seems over. But, no, about new suggestion to eradicate the neighborhood/section article; that does not seem appropriate either. We should not mislead other editors who might develop the probably-notable separate topic of the neighborhood/section. --doncram (talk) 14:41, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Funny the merger tag on just the HD article was restored, by Polaron, just after P indicated above that is not his preference. The old proposal is done, over, by apparent consensus of two (P and me). Honestly i think further discussion and proposals are not needed, but if someone really thinks the wikipedia would be better served by further discussion about some new proposal, then make a new proposal now focussed on what you now believe best. If the proposal is for a merger, do it properly with posting notices where needed (not just tarring this developing HD article). Thanks. --doncram (talk) 14:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This has never been resolved and needs to be discussed more widely with Connecticut editors. The main point of the tag is to point to a place of discussion. If you're so strict in the wroding of the tag, let's fix it but please don't unilaterally remove tags when there is no agreement to remove it. --Polaron | Talk 14:51, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose merger. These are two separate topics. The topic of the Marion, Connecticut article is the community/neighborhood/section called Marion, including its history and present existence. The topic of Marion Historic District (Cheshire and Southington, Connecticut) seems to be the historic district and the 57 buildings that were in that district as of 1988. (If the fates of buildings in the historic districts in Cheshire[1] are any indication, it is likely that some of those 57 buildings are no longer extant.) I've just spent some time expanding both articles to include information that I think is particular to one article or the other. Some information (such as the history of Rochambeau's visit) belongs in both articles, but I think it's time to let these two articles develop separately. --Orlady (talk) 16:31, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If one excludes the historic district, there is nothing of real significance in the swath of suburban homes surrounding it. I challenge anyone to find anything of significance written about the non-core parts of Marion. I think the best solution would be to have a Marion place article and discuss the historic district as the core part of that place. Anything historically significant after all took place in the core area. Unless we are headed for one article about the history of the village and another about a list article about the contributing buildings as I have suggested elsewhere, then there is no point in having two articles. --Polaron | Talk 18:57, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To the contrary, notability in Wikipedia is not necessarily about "significance." As a community with its name on a post office, Marion is the sort of place that ought to have an article, even if that article is a stub (which this one no longer is, IMO, in spite of the label on it). Also, the last time I was in the area I saw that there are Interstate highway signs pointing to Marion, which seems to have a bustling commercial district due to its proximity to the I-84 and I-691. (See this map to a pizza place in Marion). Furthermore, I found that the NRHP nom form documents information about Marion (for example, about the fast pace of suburban development in the two decades previous to 1988) that is not at all relevant to the historic district.
The historic district is part of Marion, so the HD article could reasonably be merged into the Marion, Connecticut article, but the reverse is not true because there's more to Marion than the historic district. Since the HD article is now well-focused on the buildings in the district, it seems to me that it's a good idea to keep the two articles separate.
However, after reading through the NRHP nom, I have the impression that the HD article places too much emphasis on Rochambeau's visit. The buildings named in the article in relation to Rochambeau did not exist in their present form when Rochambeau came through. Asa Barnes did entertain officers in his tavern, but that building burned in 1836 and was rebuilt in a different style by Levi B. Frost, a 19th-century industrialist. The site of Rochambeau's encampment and a monument commemorating the encampment also are included in the HD. However, Rochambeau's visit probably has at least as much to do with the history of Marion as it does with the HD. --Orlady (talk) 20:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. My original contention was to merge the historic district history into the place article and have a list article detailing the buildings in the historic district. But I suspect the owner of the two articles in question would not approve. --Polaron | Talk 21:32, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Orlady's edits to the article, to reduce and clarify the Rochambeau-related material, seem good to me. Polaron, the reasons you stated August 13 for original merger proposal no longer completely apply. You re-added merger proposal tags. Could you please state your reasoning for your new proposal, or otherwise clarify if you oppose or support merger now? --doncram (talk) 15:43, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Because the historic district is not totally distinct, a merge into the place article is still appropriate. As I suggested above, a merger of the historical narrative here and a separate list article if one wants to go into architectural details of each property probably makes the most sense. But you probably won't be convinced to allow for the merger no matter what anybody says anyway. Are you willing to give this a try? --Polaron | Talk 16:04, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it could still make sense to merge the HD article into the place article. However, it's not worth fighting about it. If merged, there wold be a push for the place article be revised to make the HD the centerpiece of the place article, which I think is too much emphasis on the HD. Also, as long as the owner of the HD article is interested in padding the HD article with bilge like "The Lester Beecher House, 1166 Marion Avenue, has been termed a Queen Anne style house for its irregular massing and 3 story tower", I think the place article is better off without the content of the HD article. --Orlady (talk) 16:24, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) To Polaron: Thanks for replying. I gather you do now support merger. I agree with Orlady's thoughts prior to your last in this statement of her opposition to merger, specifically that the two topics are different topics, well treated in separate articles. You also suggest the possibility of splitting a list article out of the historic district article. I don't think that is necessary. There are quite good historic district articles which have very extensive coverage of the historic properties included in them (some given in discussion linked at Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Editor help#Historic districts). There may be a few cases where splitting out a list-article makes sense, but the historic district article is not too long or detailed, IMO. I think the information in the two topics is now fairly well enough developed, at least to make it clear that the article structure (i.e. having two articles on the two topics) works well and will accomodate more development. I wouldn't now want to ask you to develop some alternative, if you are asking me to ask you, as the current structure seems good and best. Thanks. --doncram (talk) 16:41, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To Orlady: I don't think that is "bilge". To clarify perhaps, the Beecher House does not look like a Queen Anne style house, as its square tower and i think some other features do not seem conventional for Queen Anne. That's why i worded the statement about it to state that it "has been termed", i.e. to emphasize that counter to appearance in the photo, some expert source has deemed this to be Queen Anne, it's not just a wikipedia editor's personal judgment. Anyhow, it's a short description about one property, intended to be matched by short descriptions of other historic, contributing properties. In the past also you have expressed a lot less interest in architectural details, which is fine, but the historic district is designated primarily for its architecture (criterion C on NRHP nom), so i think describing the architecture is highly appropriate. Good, i guess, that we continue to agree on the topic of this discussion. --doncram (talk) 16:41, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose merger To be clear, i oppose merger. The merger proposal was re-added by Polaron, who apparently wants for others to discuss this for no reason that i can understand, and P does not himself currently want merger. I believe there is no one now in support of merger. --doncram (talk) 14:59, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I gather that Polaron does now support merger. I still think the current two-topics-in-two-articles treatment is good and best. --doncram (talk) 16:41, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Ready to close with decision not to merge. 2 editors oppose with explanations. Reason for merger proposal never really explained, in my view, and development of the article(s) since has now made such a proposal even less appropriate. --doncram (talk) 19:14, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as the archive of a merger proposal. Please do not modify it.

Requested move

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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: page not moved per discussion below. - GTBacchus(talk) 21:21, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Marion, Connecticut → Marion (Southington) — Looking at Category:Neighborhoods in Connecticut, the convention seems to be to not disambiguate CT neighborhood names unless disambiguation is required (per WP:TITLE, WP:D and WP:PRECISION), and, when disambiguation is required, to disambiguate according to the pattern, NeighborhoodName (CityName). I moved this accordingly, to make it consistent, but it was reverted, so it's apparently a controversial move, and here we are. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:07, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Dough4872 that Marion, Southington, Connecticut might be an okay name, although I think this is the only Marion in Connecticut so Marion, Connecticut is both clear and precise enough. Given your view, Dough, I suggest you then clarify that you do not support the move as proposed. Change your !vote, please. --Doncram (talk) 03:04, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I believe there is no policy/guideline on neighborhood names, but the "Marion, Connecticut" naming makes sense as being most consistent with city naming rules.
I noticed and objected to B's moving this and a couple other CT neighborhoods, along with an assertion on his part that there is a CT "convention", which i see now he gets as an idea from a recent edit by Polaron. B believed the false assertion in P's several edits, as if there is a convention, which there is not. Polaron has on several occasions explained to others that he paid no attention to naming conventions when creating articles, and disavowed there being any order here. Now it may suit him to argue that there is a "convention", i dunno. It suits Born2cycle's argument at the big RFC if there were an odd convention in Connecticut, but there is no consensus, no decision, there is just a random set of names currently existing in Category:Neighborhoods in Connecticut. Which could be cleaned up by moving them all to conventional names, like "Marion, Connecticut" or perhaps "Marion, Southington, Connecticut". The trend has been that way, except for recent moves by Polaron and now Born2cycle.
To Born2cycle i called for some central discussion, perhaps at wt:CONN, instead we get this. This move discussion is in effect a split of discussion from the RFC. I guess it could become a new center of valid discussion about CT neighborhoods, altho i prefer for no big proposal for a lot of page moves. There has been a history of contention in CT place name articles, involving proposals to merge them into articles that are on the different topics of NRHP historic districts. --Doncram (talk) 03:04, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Citations, please, for each of the following claims:
  • "Polaron has on several occasions explained to others that he paid no attention to naming conventions when creating articles"
  • "The trend has been that way [by moving them all to conventional names, like "Marion, Connecticut" or perhaps "Marion, Southington, Connecticut"], except for recent moves by Polaron and now Born2cycle."
  • "To Born2cycle i called for some central discussion, perhaps at wt:CONN," (I just found this on my talk page - sorry I missed it." --Born2cycle (talk) 07:51, 28 December 2010 (UTC))[reply]
  • This move discussion [involving CT neighborhood naming] is in effect a split of discussion from the RFC [about the U.S. city naming guideline]. (what does one have to do with the other?)
--Born2cycle (talk) 07:35, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
About the first, perhaps Polaron or other CT editors could point to such examples. I do recall that several times (perhaps once in response to question from Nyttend about why some places have "(CDP)" in their article name?).
About the second, i have noticed moves by Orlady and myself and i think others, towards "Name, Connecticut" formatting. Markvs88 is one other active CT editor who has just commented further below in this vein.
About the third, u answered.
About the fourth, they are very related: I and many other editors accept the Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names) convention for city-names, and then it's a good argument that neighborhood names should be consistent. (If ", Connecticut" is required as part of all CT city names, even where they are uniquely named with just one word, shouldn't it be included in neighborhood names?). --Doncram (talk) 17:42, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. There may be some neighborhoods/communities, particularly those with their own zip codes, that are commonly referred to as NeighborhoodName, StateName, and Marion may be one of those, but I think it's fair to say that, in general, that is not a common way to refer to most neighborhoods and communities of cities in the U.S. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:31, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The standard form for municipalities and unincorporated communities in the United States is Placename, State (the "comma convention"). In general, census-designated places follow this convention and neighborhoods within cities do not, unless disambiguation is needed.

Please note that the words in yellow were not my words. They were not there the last time I edited the guideline in Sep of 2009, and they were there when I started editing them again on Nov 8, 2010. These words clearly state that "neighborhoods within cities do not [follow the "comma convention"], unless disambiguation is needed.

What I did do was copy edit. Namely, I moved the phrase about neighborhoods into a separate paragraph at the bottom of the guideline, to say this[4]:

Where possible, neighborhoods within cities use [[neighborhood]]. Where disambiguation is required [[neighborhood, city]] is used unless there is a conflict with that too, in which case the state is included in the title as well: [[neighborhood, city, state]].

Did this change the meaning of the guideline? No! It's saying the same thing, in more clear terms is it not? Really, I just boldly elaborated on how the names are disambiguated when disambiguation is required. But the original and my revised wording were perfectly consistent on the most controversial point: neighborhood names are not disambiguated except when necessary.
What happened is that these changes brought attention to what the guideline said, and consensus turned out to not support it, so it was all removed (which was fine by me, by the way), but please don't blame me for putting something in the guideline that was there all along.

If you're going to accuse someone of improper guideline editing, it's only courteous (and helpful) to provide the diffs showing the edits that you believe support your claim. If nothing else, that way you can at least verify you're correct about what you're claiming and avoid posting false claims like this. --Born2cycle (talk) 08:16, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to review all that. Fact is, Born2cycle, you are actively involved in advocating change in U.S. naming convention statement/guideline/policy, and you are actively editing in San Diego and now also Connecticut places, and you're making arguments both ways (that "convention" dictates a local treatment, and that local treatment supports a convention). Again i haven't reviewed all that, but I don't think MelanieN was out of line at all and i doubt that any entirely false claim was made. If u seriously think so, put it into some higher level dispute resolution. Thanks MelanieN for commenting here. --Doncram (talk) 17:49, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you don't think it's out of line to accuse someone of inappropriate editing without providing the diffs that support that claim, then we're just going to have to agree to disagree on that point. I sincerely hope nobody ever treats you like that.

At this point I don't see a need to escalate. I think Melanie was acting in good faith, but going by the impression she had based on what others said (much like you are now), rather than by actually looking in detail at the changes I made (as diffed above). In fact, I think a lot of the disconnect in these discussions stems from going by how things appear rather than digging deeper.

I suggest someone more interested in facts than disparaging someone with whom they disagree would take a few minutes to review the diffs I posted, and could easily evaluate whether Melanie's claim that I rewrote the policy to make it say what I wanted it to say is entirely false. In fact, Melanie knows (and you should be able to surmise) that had I done as she claims, my edits would have the guideline say to use NeighborhoodName (CityName) when disambiguation was required, but I never edited it to say that, because I knew there was no consensus support for that. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:31, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose - Many (but not all) of the named communities that are located within New England towns are unlike city neighborhoods elsewhere. That is, they are discrete villages (or distinct "sections of town") with well-established identities that are separate from the identities of the towns of which they are a part. An example that has been noted repeatedly elsewhere is Mystic -- it is part of the town of Stonington, but it would not make sense to call it "Mystic (Stonington)" because it has such a strong and distinct identity (it probably has higher name recognition than Stonington). Marion is not as well known as Mystic, but because Marion has a history as a discrete and distinct community -- and you can send mail to "Marion, Connecticut" (it has its own post office), I think that "Marion, Connecticut" is the obvious name for the article about it. --Orlady (talk) 14:44, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - As Orlady points out, Marion has a post office, therefore it exists to the federal government. I suggest this be the deciding factor. OTOH, places like Lordship, Connecticut, since they lack POs, are okay. Best, Markvs88 (talk) 16:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - pointless. Jonathunder (talk) 00:05, 8 January 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.
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