Talk:YMCA (disambiguation)

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National Register of Historic Places

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NRHP listings

Listing every single YMCA building that's been designated as a NRHP on this disambiguation page seems unnecessary to me, in light of the purpose of a disambiguation page. I don't think there's any ambiguity between the national organization YMCA and any one of the specific YMCA buildings; it doesn't seem reasonable that a user would type in YMCA and expect to be taken to, for example, an article on the Downtown Denver Central YMCA and Annex.

I suggest that the list (by which I mean, I think, everything under "United States") be moved to something like List of YMCA buildings designated as Historic Places, and linked from this page. Propaniac (talk) 19:32, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't think that would be a good idea now, unless there is someone who really wants to seriously develop a list-article at that topic name. There has been a horrendous process running for a couple months now about a list-article of Masonic buildings (see Talk:List of Masonic buildings and its archives) which pre-existed but overlaps with needed disambiguation pages about Masonic Temples and other sets of places named exactly the same. I don't want to develop such a list-article. I do want for there to be decent disambiguation, which is different, for NRHP-listed places.

This is currently just a dab page, covering the multiple places named "Y.M.C.A. Building" and similiarly. This is a combo dab, having YMCA and YMCA Building and other repeatedly used name variants redirected to here. You can argue some of the ones not named exactly the same as any other place need not be listed here. I happen to think this helps and does not hurt, to have them listed here. To serve readers looking for a given YMCA building who find their way here. I see no problems here. Disambiguation has some importance, but dabs are not articles, and relative to article-development, refining dab pages is less important. I would hope we could just leave this alone and not make a big issue, and work on mainspace articles instead. --doncram (talk) 04:27, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You know, I was prepared to say that you seem to have a point about this being the same issue as the Masonic building thing (which I've avoided getting involved with), and that I could live with leaving this and the YWCA page alone for now (although the point of my proposal was that anyone who did type in YMCA looking for a specific building would be able to click on the list link and find the exact same information, without cluttering up this page with meanings that are not ambiguous).

But for you to say that I, or anyone else, should not seek to improve disambiguation pages because articles are more important is grossly rude, insulting, stupid, and counterproductive to the Wikipedia project, which is incredibly dependent on people doing thankless cleanup for navigability, usability, readability, and other purposes. Perhaps if you consider disambiguation pages so unimportant, you could stay the hell out of them and spend your time on something you consider more valuable, rather than obstructing those of us who do think there is benefit in making them better. I think there are a lot of people would be thrilled if you acted on your belief that disambiguation work is a waste of time. Seriously, I don't know where you think you get off saying simultaneously that you oppose my suggestion for improvement of a disambiguation page, and that working on disambiguation pages is a waste of time. If it doesn't matter to you, then get out of the way. If it does matter, then stop pretending to belittle it and those who work on it, because the response you'll get is a lot briefer and more profane than, "Gee, you're right, disambiguation doesn't matter, so I'll just agree with whatever you think is best and then I'll go write a bunch of articles about old buildings!!" Propaniac (talk) 14:30, 30 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think you read more into my statement than I ever felt or meant. I too have spent an incredible amount of time developing disambiguation, because I do believe it is important. I just am not eager to have a lot of churning over potential improvements that could also be losing useful information for some readers, and that push the info to a possibly contentious new list-article that has no known champion to develop it, and that could lead to a whole series of new AFDs and arguments spilling over multiple notice-boards etc, as happened with the Masonic temples' disambiguation and lists. My basic wish is not to have to get involved in a whole new can of worms. I'm sorry you take offense, I'm sorry that I offended you. --doncram (talk) 04:24, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking about it more, actually i agree with Propaniac that starting a separate list-article, and then reducing down the disambiguation page, would be an improvement. I would suggest going broader in the title, say titling it List of YMCA buildings, to allow for notable modern buildings and notable historic-but-not-NRHP-listed ones, in any country, to be added. I think the YMCA buildings are clearly distinctive and significant additions to many cities, and I expect there are extensive sources available which document their distinctive nature. Also, I think the contention about the Masonic buildings disambiguation pages and its list-article has a lot to do with the specific editors micro-managing the Freemasonry-related pages. There are some principles from the debates there which would apply here, too, but here there may be no YMCA-focused editors opposing development, so development could possibly proceed easily. --doncram (talk) 17:43, 2 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]