Wikipedia talk:WikiProject NZR/Manual of style

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[edit] Conventions for disambiguating names

I've just noticed a small issue with the title of a few articles and I figured I'd discuss it before making any change to the Manual of Style or the articles themselves. When I wrote the Manual of Style, I frankly didn't even think of this as being an issue, so I apologise for that oversight on my behalf. Some articles are disambiguated with brackets: e.g. Oxford Branch (New Zealand) and Appleby Railway Station (New Zealand). I think this practice began when an American, presumably unaware of New Zealand naming conventions, disambiguated a couple of our branch lines, and has been continued by a couple of recent articles. This, however, is contrary to the guidelines at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (New Zealand), which calls for a comma. We would have Oxford Branch, New Zealand and Appleby Railway Station, New Zealand. Before this becomes a more widespread issue, I would like to resolve it.

Accordingly, here is my proposal:

• Lines, railway stations, and any other fixed infrastructural/geographically recognised features conform to the New Zealand place name conventions of comma rather than bracket usage.
• Locomotives and other forms of rolling stock, however, do not fall under these conventions. The naming conventions for geography naturally do not apply, nor would it be grammatical to enforce them (while it is grammatical, under New Zealand English, to enforce them on the Oxford Branch and Appleby Railway Station). Accordingly, they continue to be disambiguated by year in brackets, e.g. NZR A class (1873) and NZR A class (1906), with the special exception for all the railcars unchanged.

If no objection is made within five days, I will go ahead and add this to the Manual of Style. - Axver (talk) 01:17, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

The only objection I have to using commas is how clear is it what the real subject of the article is when it is necessary to have several levels of disambiguation? Using as an example the Appleby Railway Station article, the fact that there was more than one Appleby railway station in New Zealand could (theoretically) mean that it would be necessary to have Appleby Railway Station, Nelson, New Zealand and Appleby Railway Station, Southland, New Zealand articles. Is this considered to be a "better" way to name such articles rather than Appleby Railway Station (Nelson, New Zealand) and Appleby Railway Station (Southland, New Zealand) where it is clear what the subject is and what is intended as disambiguation?

This aside, I do entirely agree that all similar articles should be named consistently. I only elected to use parentheses after seeing other articles follow this convention and just assumed it was standard. -- Matthew25187 (talk) 05:49, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, no need to worry about circumstances like that. When there are more than two places in one country, they are disambiguated by region only. For example, see Douglas, Canterbury and Douglas, Taranaki, with Douglas, New Zealand as a disambiguation page for both of them. Accordingly, we would have Appleby Railway Station, Tasman and Appleby Railway Station, Southland. Though I certainly have no information to write anything about the Southland station, so for the time being, the current article on the Tasman station should be at Appleby Railway Station, New Zealand. - Axver (talk) 07:05, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I believe that I have adequately addressed Matthew25187's concerns and nobody else has commented, so as my deadline of five days has well and truly passed, I shall go ahead and add this to the Manual of Style. - Axver (talk) 23:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)