Talk:Horton Township, Elk County, Pennsylvania

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 moved per discussion. - GTBacchus^(talk) 18:28, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Horton Township, Elk County, Pennsylvania → Horton Township, Pennsylvania – Relisting. General discussion underway at WT:NCGN#U.S. township articles and pre-emptive disambiguation versus consistent naming. Favonian (talk) 21:56, 10 August 2011 (UTC) Unnecessary disambiguation. I tried to move this myself but it was reverted without discussion. Powers ^T 22:11, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. The extra disambiguation is clearly unnecessary, unless someone can show that there is another "Horton Township" in Pennsylvania. Jenks24 (talk) 22:45, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose If this one gets moved, we are going to need to move the rest. Then we'll have to fix many, many redirect pages. This is reversing a project that was undertaken several years ago. I am pretty sure that it's not limited to Pennsylvania. Gerry D (talk) 01:36, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose all Pennsylvania township articles were consistently named this way a few years ago. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:15, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. Looking at Category:Townships in Pennsylvania, I can see that Gerry and Ruhrfisch are correct. It would probably be best to withdraw this RM and start a broader discussion. If you do, please drop me a note. Jenks24 (talk) 07:16, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Where would I go to start this discussion? Powers ^T 17:09, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think that Wikipedia:WikiProject Pennsylvania is the place to go. Like I said in my initial post and when I moved it back. This has been discussed and it will be reversing a move that was made awhile back. Gerry D (talk) 21:07, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pennsylvania#Township article titles is where I started the discussion; Jenks24, take note! Powers ^T 12:26, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Note taken! Jenks24 (talk) 23:35, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I found the original discussion Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Pennsylvania#Townships. Gerry D (talk) 21:12, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Support How did this ever happen in the first place? To what end? It's unnecessary disambiguation and it's not even consistent with how other US places are named, or how other Horton Townships are named... see Horton Township. Regardless of what happens with the other articles, this discussion is already underway, and the argument in favor of moving is sound. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:14, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. This title follows the consistent format of similar articles.   Will Beback  talk  22:54, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. It's not disambiguation: townships are part of counties in the same way that counties are parts of states, so we include the county name for consistency. Moreover, this is the way that virtually every township nationwide is named — Michigan is the only state that has township articles consistently at "___ Township, Statename", due largely to vocal opposition from one user; you'll note that the only other US township by this name also has the county name appended. It's also more convenient to have the county name appended in all cases: you're not likely to know whether a township name is unique, so having the same naming format for all townships makes it simpler to understand and simpler to expect the way an individual article to be named. There's no blatantly obvious reason to include the county name for some and not for others: all of us in this discussion are aware that some townships originally had the county name because multiple townships of that name existed in Pennsylvania, and others didn't because their names were unique statewide, but for a first-time user, reverting to the previous situation is likely to be quite confusing. Nyttend (talk) 06:03, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well first of all, New York also does not pre-emptively disambiguate towns. I'm not familiar with other states. But while townships are indeed part of counties, it's very unusual to refer to them by county name in normal conversation or normal writing -- and that's what sets this apart from the "City, State" convention. People often say "Erie, Pennsylvania", but they almost never say "Millcreek Township, Erie County, Pennsylvania". Powers ^T 12:25, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I hadn't planned on weighing in since it doesn't affect me all that much either way, but since my name was dropped into the mix I feel an obligation to weigh in. It is a patently false statement that inclusion of the county name is not about disambiguation. When the articles were created, the ONLY reason the county names were included in the titles were precisely for disambiguation (i.e., the only articles that had the county name were those that required disambiguation). Much later, a very small (and not unanimous) group of editors decided to ignore WP:Naming conventions for US places and rename township articles for consistency. Also, townships are no more and no less a "part" of a county than other municipalities in Pennsylvania (i.e., a person is a resident of both a county and a municipality). It is more a historical footnote that townships were originally created as subdivisions of county. They are in a contemporary context merely a type of municipality. Also, it is false that Michigan is the only state that does not preemptively disambiguate townships. In addition to New York, which LtPowers already mentioned, Townships in New Jersey are not preemptively disambiguated. In short, there is no reason to include the county name except when disambiguation is necessary. older ≠ wiser 16:12, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. This probably should be a broader discussion (perhaps at WP:NCGN), since it affects more than this one township, and more than this one state. Here's what I found regarding current WP usage.

1. There are 17 states that use the term "township" as an administrative unit. Of those, 13 (OH, IL, PA, MN, IA, SD, AR, IN, KS, MO, NE, NC, ND) include the county name in the WP article title, while 4 (NH, NJ, UT, MI) do not.
2. There are 7 states that use the term "town". Of those, one (WI) includes the county in the article title, while the other 6 (NY, VT, CT, RI, ME, MA) do not.
3. Delaware uses the term "hundred" for the same concept, and does not include the county name in the article title.

   All told, 14 states include the county for WP article titles, and 11 do not. Make of that what you will. Dohn joe (talk) 19:45, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support in the faint hope that this discussion sets a precedent and moving the rest of the articles becomes uncontroversial. Unnecessary disambiguation goes completely against WP:AT. Jenks24 (talk) 23:35, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Didn't you already support this? Dohn joe (talk) 23:45, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Yep. How embarrassing, I thought that I'd only commented, but now I see that I'm the first supporter. I've struck this !vote, my thanks for noticing. Jenks24 (talk) 04:34, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. For the record. For explanation, see my comments at the ongoing discussion at WT:Naming_conventions_(geographic_names)#U.S._township_articles_and_pre-emptive_disambiguation_versus_consistent_naming. Dohn joe (talk) 23:45, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Here's an example of the requested title in action: [1]. Dohn joe (talk) 23:29, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Seems to be against convention to have such an unnecessary DAB, at the expense of the length of the article. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:06, 7 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: Talk:Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania#Requested move quietly and non-controversially reached a consensus to remove the county name, just a few weeks ago. Powers ^T 13:32, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. WP:Precision is relevant here I think. The current title is overly precise, and needlessly awkward as a result. Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pennsylvania#Township article titles also appears to support the move, so far at least. Andrewa (talk) 18:06, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per naming conventions. This extra layer of disambiguation adds nothing to the article name and flies in the face of too many conventions and policies. When it is clear that disambiguation is not needed, previous WP:RM requests have simplified the names of townships so this rename follows established consensus. I would take it a step further to remove township unless it can be shown that this is the common name. But that is another discussion. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:41, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Seems pretty clear-cut that this is unnecessary disambiguation. We don't name towns this way. Pennsylvania townships don't need to be an exception to the way we name articles for everything else. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 04:02, 26 August 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.