User talk:DanTD/Archive. January 2016

Edit warring and personal attacks

Stop edit warring. Whether you like the guidelines or not, your moves are creating a mess with the redirects. And stop making personal attacks.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:46, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Then you stop making bad edits. And speak for yourself when it comes to personal attacks. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 19:50, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I've never attacked you. If you do it again, I'm bringing it to WP:ANI.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:52, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Didn't attack me, you say? I quote the following; "DanTD continues to make matters worse by revert warring." I'm just trying to preserve the structure of these articles, while you manipulate them out of existence. And when I posted that message to you personally it was not an attack. It was an attempt to show you that an effort to make another Aberdeen Station article for Maryland is being worked on by another editor. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 20:03, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

My comment was not a personal attack. Your comments repeatedly accusing me of "vandalism"[1][2] and calling me, in all caps, a "LIAR!", however, are personal attacks, and if you do it again, it's going to WP:ANI.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:08, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Actually your comment was a personal attack. You accused me of making things worse, which is not only far from the truth, but was in fact what you have been doing. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 20:11, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

The "NO, U" defense isn't going to win you much sympathy on ANI when you call people liars and vandals. So long as it doesn't happen again, you don't have anything to worry about.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:16, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Hey if the shoe fits. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 20:25, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Cuchullain, you continue to make unilateral controversial page moves based on a widely questioned policy without either starting a move discussion first nor fixing the technical issues that occur when you do so. This is entirely against Wikipedia policy for moving pages on both counts: potentially controversial moves require move discussions, and it is the responsibility of the moving editor to fix issues that occur after the move (including issues with Commons, which you have completed ignored). Regardless of either of your behaviors and name-calling, the way you have been doing moves is unacceptable. Like DanTD, I do a great deal of railroad history editing, and I too have been negatively affected by your moves. I am also angry that you - an editor who has not previously worked with US rail articles and do not understand the technical needs that motivated the older naming scheme - have been making these moves without proper move discussions, and I believe you need to step back, take a break from your moves, and continue only when you are willing to start proper move discussions first. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:30, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm even angrier with him because he's also an administrator, and should know better. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 20:35, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, so long as we're all being disappointed with each other, I'm disappointed with you, DanTD, and Pi.1415926535 (talk · contribs). WP:USSTATION is a guideline. I wrote the original version of it a long time ago and I still support it. Cúchullain was one of many editors who participated in the lengthy discussions who helped it become a guideline. As one of the major proponents of s-rail/s-line back in 2006-2007 I bear a considerable responsibility for the fix we're in, but the needs of templates should not dictate the names of articles. That's not how Wikipedia works. That's not what our policies say. TWP regulars cannot insist on maintaining preemptive disambiguation, in defiance of policies and the rest of the project. Attacking other editors for having the temerity to edit rail articles gives the worst possible impression of inflexibility, parochialism, and not-invented-here syndrome. Please, colleagues, we can and should be better than this. Mackensen (talk) 16:34, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I understand that USSTATIONS is a guideline. As much as I still oppose it, I respect that it is not going to change anytime soon and I won't try to stop that. My objections to moves - particularly those without discussion - are not based on that. The need for requested moves is based on the behavior of those who have been performing unannounced moves. There have been moves that don't even follow the guideline and result in names that are useless for editors and readers. There have been moves that fail to follow the principle of least surprise. There have been those that fail to consider the presence of multiple stations with identical names, not even including former stations. All of those are fixed by having move requests where other editors can comment. Witness the Edgewood move discussion, particularly Seabrook where the train station is not even close to being the primary topic for 'Seabrook station'. There has also been a spate of moving editors failing to perform the technical tasks they are required to do, like fixing redirects in templates and updating Commons category links. (Commons policy dictates, as far as I can tell, that the Commons categories should also be moved. But I don't see anyone who's willing to do the work that comes with their moves.) Move requests provide an opportunity for the community to hold moving editors responsible for the duties dictated by policy when they decide to move a page. That is also why I am wary when editors who do not have experience with rail articles perform the moves, because they very often do not know the technical changes they must implement. It's not about trying to be insular; it's that I'm trying to minimize the amount of my time I have to spend cleaning up after other people's edits. I hope that clears up what I was saying above. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 16:58, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

I have to go with Pi on the technical aspects. Even when the North Carolina Amtrak stations were all changed, the S-lines were screwed up big time. I often found it broken when I went from Raleigh, Fayetteville or Wilson stations. And honestly, I've always had the impression that USSTATIONS strongly advocated the use of qualifiers for related stations across the board, with some random exceptions. It made perfect sense as far as I was concerned. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 17:14, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

A few observations. S-line can and will be fixed. I made it; I know. That's a non-starter as an argument. As for qualifiers, WP:USSTATIONS does not advocate qualifiers for related stations. That was the whole point of the guideline; to eliminate preemptive disambiguation. That's why I started that conversation in the first place. Mackensen (talk) 17:20, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Oh, it doesn't?

• Disambiguation by system: This option is appropriate when there are ambiguously named stations serving different systems, especially those located in the same state or city. For example, Passaic station (NJ Transit) distinguishes the article from Passaic station (Erie Railroad), both located in Passaic, New Jersey. This may also be a good option when the system is likely to be more recognizable for readers than the city, for instance when a major metropolitan area's transit system has stops in outlying suburban communities.
• Disambiguation by line: This option distinguishes stations with ambiguous names in the same system. For instance, Church Avenue station (IND Culver Line), Church Avenue station (BMT Brighton Line), and Church Avenue station (IRT Nostrand Avenue Line) are all stations of the New York City Subway.

Here's another fact for you; Recently, User:epicgenius created a navbox for Metro-North stations that included a lot of former New York Central and Erie railroad stations pre-dating Metro-North that were subsidized by MTA. Castleton (Amtrak station), which was a former station built by a Delaware and Hudson Railway predecessor turned up as one of those stations, which was in fact supposed to be Castleton (NYC station). That Amtrak station is completely irrelevant to anything related to Metro North or New York Central which is why I tried to edit the station templates hoping it wouldn't show up. It didn't work. Those pre-Metro-North stations were all removed, but the fact that an irrelevant station can show up there doesn't seem very promising. To me this looks like a by-product of the anti-qualifier campaign. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 17:43, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Dan, I wrote that so I know what it says. These are options for when the simplest form of the name (e.g. Foo station), isn't available or is ambiguous. Further, as a guideline it obviously doesn't trump WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. As far as Castleton goes, I can't comment further because I don't know which template you mean. Mackensen (talk) 18:11, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Okay, here's the template. Check the history, and you'll see that the link that was supposed to be for Castleton (NYC station), directed users to Castleton (Amtrak station). Granted this and the other pre-Metro-North stations were removed, but I don't want anything like this to happen again, and I'm sure you wouldn't either. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 18:55, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Okay, sure. That happens. You fixed it in Template:MNRR stations, and you could have always just made a direct link instead. This doesn't seem like a big deal, rather a natural part of managing a project with thousands of articles and similar names. Mackensen (talk) 20:48, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

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