This is an archive of past discussions about Montreal Expos. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I'm confused about what an "Expo" is, in this context. Is it known what the name of the team means? I think this could be added to the article, if so. -- Creidieki 23:49, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
It refers to Expo 67, which was held in Montreal. Adam Bishop 23:55, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Category help
I've got a question with categories. We have Category:Montreal Expos players, but we also have Category:Los Angeles Dodgers players. Since the teams themselves are almost always referred to in a plural form (i.e. Montreal Expos) shouldn't the teams, when named in category, reflect this? It seems very inconsistent. Anybody want to take a stab? Rhymeless 05:31, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I would go for Montreal Expos rather than Montreal Expo. Looking around the web references are almost entirely to Expos rather than Expo. I find it easier to think about a name such as 'Anaheim Angels'. In this case the single form would be 'Anaheim Angel Players' which seems to suggest there is a single angel. Angels feels more like a club, which is mainly a collection of players. I would though definitely prefer a single standard rather than inconsistency. MarkS 12:41, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The history of the Montreal Expos does not belong in Washington.
The history of the Montreal Expos does not belong in Washington.
Yes it does. it is the same franchise. Kingturtle 21:18, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
All this harping about consistency and insisting on it being the same franchise leaves me cold. I may not have a long history of modifying Wikipedia articles, but it seems to me that insistence on consistency smacks of authoritarianism, whereas exceptions reflect the anarchic nature of reality more accurately. It has been remarked that Wikipedia is not a democracy; well it certainly isn't an autocracy either. Rules are made to be broken. Live a little...--Exshpos03:14, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
Second that thought. Well written. --Madchester 02:45, 2005 May 5 (UTC)
If it was authoritarian, then I'd just create a redirect to Washington Nationals and then LOCK the article so no one could touch it. If you've at all been paying attention to the debate that took place at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Montréal Expos, this has been a very democratic process. over 70 people made their opinions known - and it took place without edit wars and without marginalizing the integrity of the Montréal Expos article. Kingturtle03:30, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
Expos = distinct team from Nationals
The history of the Expos can be kept on its own page as the are other examples of this happening. cf: Boston Braves, Washington Senators
Those examples involve situations in which two separately distinct franchises shared the same name. there were TWO Washington Senators, and that article explains the difference. Kingturtle 04:07, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I agree with kingturtle. Like it or not the Nationals and Expos are the Same franchice. We do not have sperate articles for the Brooklyn Dodgers and LA Dodgers
That is an oversight. The Brooklyn Dodgers deserve their own page as well. - Pioneer-12 02:32, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The expos deserve their own page, so I created it.Txredcoat 04:47, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Can't wait to see the Expos back in their own standalone page.--Madchester 05:53, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)
From the official MLB site: "On deck: Nationals right-hander Zach Day (1-2, 5.09 ERA) will take on Jeff Weaver (2-2, 6.23 ERA). Weaver is 1-0 with a 2.40 ERA lifetime against the Nationals franchise, while Day is 0-2 with a 5.54 ERA against the Dodgers." (emphasis added).--Canoeguy8103:21, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
I think that relocated teams deserve a separate page about the team's history in that city. The Nationals didn't always play with "Washington" on their shirts. The Nationals franchise might have started in 69, but the Nationals only started in 2005.
To me, it's just common sense to have this page up. Montreal isn't just another city that lost its team; it's the only French-speaking city (and one of only two Canadian cities) to have ever had a Major League Baseball team. Funnyhat06:39, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
From what I've seen, MLB is pretty much treating the "Washington Nationals" as an expansion franchise as opposed to it being a franchise that was relocated. Except for records, everything about the franchise is different. The name, team uniform, mascot, etc. are all different for the Nationals compared to the Expos. Accoring to the Wiki article, even Expos' retired uniform numbers are being issued now. The Expos are a different team from the Nationals in every respect. Darwin's Bulldog08:27, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
MLB is not treating them as an expansion franchise. MLB recognizes them as the same franchise, and the Nats consider themselves to be the same franchise as the Montreal Expos. They consider Gary Carter to be the only Hall of Famer for their franchise (meaning that he went into the Hall as an Expo). He certainly didn't play for them in Washington. A franchise can change its name, but it's still the same franchise. The Washington Bullets became the Wizards. They're certainly the same franchise. The Nationals can decide to unretire jerseys, but that still doesn't change the facts. However, I don't have a problem with having two different Wikipedia articles, as long as it's clearly mentioned in both that they are the same franchise, which they do.Politician81816:53, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Not to be forgotten -> Expos All Stars
The "Not to be forgotten" mini-list is nonencyclopedic, but the players listed are historically significant. The section should be replaced with "Expos All Stars". This will made the list selection criteria objective, and should also included most or all of the players currently on the list... and maybe one or two who aren't currently on it.
Oh, and don't forget to move Tim Raines's name to the Hall of Famers section when that happens in a few years. That boy is Cooperstown material. - Pioneer-12 02:29, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It seems that the Montreal Expos page has been redirected with most of it's info deleted and redirected to the Washington Nationals page. The Expos should have their own page with all the info was that listed prior to all this editing !!!
Pearson Cup
This article definitely needs a mention of the Cup contested between the Jays and Expos in the 80's and later in the 2000's. This page also needs emphasis on Prime Minister Pearson's association with the team, he served as honourary club president for a number of years.
Although it should be mentioned in other articles, Pearson Cup should be its own article. Kingturtle 18:07, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The vote here was utter idiocy. This article, pursuant to every other moved franchise article, needs to be merged with Washington Nationals. It's time for the powers that be (i.e. the wiki supreme court) to step in and do it for Wiki's sake. If not, we set a horrible precedent for two articles about the SAME DAMN THING
==Zpb52 06:32, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
The way I see it, I would agree with you IF the Nationals celebrated their franchise's legacy, like what the Dodgers do with its Brooklyn days. Instead from what I'm seeing, they're celebrating the legacy of Washington baseball with little or no mention of the team's Montreal days. It's exactly like what the Milwaukee Brewers did after moving from Seattle in 1969 (The short lived Seattle Pilots). To me, that's two completly different things. When you're talking about sports teams, I believe you have to take into consideration onto weather or not a team acknowledges its own roots, and I think the Nationals would do all they can to forget their Expos days in order to start all over again. That said, I think this article deserves to stay. Dknights411 19:52, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
Can you really blame them for trying to forget Expos' history? LOLPolitician81817:00, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
The Nationals have issued the number 30 to Mike Stanton. This number was retired by the Expos franchise in honour of Tim Raines. This is yet one more example of how the Washington team does not intend to honour their franchise history. --Exshpos17:48, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
As I've pointed out elsewhere, there are no Wiki Gods! This is not an authoritarian regime and exceptions make the rules. Indeed other franchises should be allowed (i.e. unharrassed) to have seperate pages to document the history of each franchise in each of its incarnations. The fact is that there have been few, if any, franchise moves in any sport since the rise of wikipedia. That makes this uncharted territory. None of this was an issue in the past for obvious reasons. Wikipedia is an evolving memory project, not a fixed history text with rigid POV's. Kudos to those who are responsible for the whole idea of Wikis in general. Exshpos 5 July 2005 16:12 (UTC)
"Quebecois identity" inclusion or excision
I removed the following comment which does not belong in this article. "This search for a uniquely "Québécois" identity later stirred the creation of the separatist movement in the 1970s." A. Lafontaine14:45, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
No, we need to debate that excision. Quenec history and its course and its repudiation of "English" baseball for Canadiens "hockey" was a factor in Montrealers in not supporting the team. It was not the only one but yet a significant factor. It is implied and should be re-instated.
I disagree yet many have called it an "English or American" sport. This debate is what makes the Expos unique to any other MLB team. No other MLB team has to put up with this "misperception" by the media and the local masses.
I tend to agree with A. Lafontaine that the comment, being a debatable conclusion, doesn't belong here. It's also a subject that is best pursued elsewhere. You're right (whoever you are), of course, that it's a debate, but debate belongs on talk pages and not article pages. Perhaps providing a link to the appropriate page for such discussions would be a good compromise. Compare Québécois and Talk:Québécois.
--Exshpos20:23, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
\\
Ben Franklin speaking:
It was me of course, but logging in is a major pain for me. Per Drapeau's bio, he was under the influence of Lionel Groulx, the French Canadain nationalist. We all agree Drapeau was one of the fathers of the Expos. Lionel Groulx was a Catholic promoter of French Canadian rights. He was a major mentor of Mayor Drapeau. This led Drapeau to improve Montreal including the raising of French Canadians in the MOntreal EAST AREA, where it is an economic blight. Anyone who had spent time there before or now (except for Angus) will have to agree.
Brian Mckenna's biography "Drapeau" documents this ideology.
They were of course Federalists as far as I know. Now afer 1979, the separtist Parti Quebecois came in and PQ was never really a big fan of the "anglophone" Expos. No other MLB team had to put up with the realities of Quebec Politics. To not even mention, these dynamics from the Quiet Revolution to Bouchard's pulling of funds, would be negligent of the socio-poltical landscape. This would be a disservice to history. I did not ask for more than one short mention. It should be re-inserted, but I'm open to a re-phrasing. The Nationals do not have to jump throught these hopes. Arguably the French business community kept some distance from the Expos esp. after 1994. No one wanted to save the team anymore. "anglo" Bronfman was out.
It is a unique history that cannot be lumped for the economic reasons of the Dodgers moving out of Brooklyn for instance. If believe that the Expos should be a separate entry, then you must also see its special history that is so different from any other American sports team. BENFRANKLIN. This wiki thing does not stamp my name, despite my registration. Go figure.
More info on Lionel Groulx:
"Lionel Groulx called the Canadian Confederation Canadian Confederation, or the Confederation of Canada, was the process that ultimately brought together a union among the provinces, colonies and territories of British North America to form the Dominion of Canada, a Dominion of the British Empire, which today is the federal nation state called Canadan a disaster and espoused the theory that Quebec's only hope for survival was to foster a Roman Catholic Quebec as a bulwark against English power. He also developed a Quebec history curriculum that ignored the fact that France chose to keep Guadaloupe and hand over Quebec to Great Britain in the 1763 Treaty of Paris Treaty of Paris was signed on February 10, 1763, by the Kingdom of Great Britain, France and Spain with Portugal in agreement.
. Groulx was very successful promoting his brand of ultramontanism Ultramontanism literally alludes to a policy supporting those dwelling "beyond the mountains" (ultra montes), that is beyond the Alps—generally referring to the Pope in Rome. In particular, ultramontanism may consist in alleging the superiority of Papal authority over the authority of local temporal or spiritual hierarchies.
..... Click the link for more information. . Through his writings and teaching at the university, and his association with the intellectual elite of French Quebec he had a profound influence on many people including Michel Chartrand Michel and Dr. Camille Laurin !!"'Bold text'
- If you want to make it a superficial Expos entry without a hair of a mention of Quebec history, then that's fine. But this is the very same approach by MLB and those who want to annex Expos under Washington. You are bleaching the Expos clean of its unique history. As they say in Quebec, Je me souviens. and that haunts the lack of Expos support as one factor. The Angels never had to put up with this history and they have Guerrero and Cabrera, former Expos players. I'm a Federalist but I recognize the unique situation of Montreal. Four or five words that hint of this is not much to ask. I know of CKAC, the French listeners complained "Baseball is not a Quebecois sport" and no one called to refute that "view". I of course disagree but the customers didn't. I think their failure to draft Gagne shows the Expos did not know how to market the team the way Alouettes do when they draft one or two Quebecois to their teams. They drafted 3 LAVAL graduates this year. Larry Smith knows Montreal, the way MLB managers never bothered with. I hope you don't make the same mistake.
==========
"Maybe the most interesting influence on Montreal in the sixties was provincial level involvement. Jean Lesage’s Liberals came into power with the rising tide of the Quiet Revolution, armed with slogans like “It’s time for things to change” and “Maitre chez nous,” marking the transformation of Quebec “from a folk to an urban society,” as described in the exhibition. Part and parcel of this transformation was the rise of Quebec nationalism – an awakening that helped drive the enthusiasm of a distinct society. On the ground, this resulted in the development of projects like Complexe Desjardins. Perhaps the single most important person in all of this is Jean Drapeau. Montreal’s politically ambitious mayor from ‘54-57 and ‘60-86, Drapeau brought his city onto the world stage through many development projects, particularly his involvement in bringing the World Fair to Montreal in 1967."
http://mcgilldaily.com/view.php?aid=3285
BEN FRANKLIN
"Drapeau preferred the big show. In 1969 his labour relations grew so bad all but 47 of his 3780-member police force struck. The army was summoned to quell the looting and nationalist street riots. Yet the same year he single-handedly brought Montréal a major league baseball team, the MONTREAL EXPOS. More circuses, said his critics. Said the mayor: "What the masses want are monuments." He declared they were his contribution to La Survivance, the survival of French Canadians. But the nationalism of his youth was so tempered he stayed neutral during the 1980 referendum on Québec independence."
Ben freaking Franklin again. wiki time stamps suck.
here is proof I logged on Sept 10, 2005.
Ben franklin I re-instated the sentence since there was no debate. i want to include that in 1979 many fans left the province, any problems with that ? some call it a factor in the loss of an expos fanbase.
Ben Franklin October 18, 2005 . day of the expos' recognition at the Bell centre.
* BenFranklin
* My talk
* Preferences
* My watchlist
* My contributions
* Log out
The list is easy to read- all names should remain in memory of the Mtl Expos. Xpogrl Nov 28 2005
The word "ironically" is misused in this article.. I changed it to "coincidentally." It's listed under historic games, but I didn't want to make a whole new topic page just for one example of improper word choice. [[[User:Johnbish|Johnbish]] 22:35, 15 May 2006 (UTC)]
Move Page/Accent on Montreal
The spelling of Montreal as "Montréal" throughout this article is just silly. I appreciate that Montréal is the official name of the city, but Montreal (without the accent) is a perfectly valid English-language equivalent. This is, after all, the English-language Wikipedia, and for the same reason that articles refer to Warsaw (not Warszawa), Munich (not München), Prague (not Praha) and Beijing (not 北京), references should be to Montreal, not Montréal. My experience is that most articles in the English-language Wikipedia use Montreal (and similarly, as does this article, refer to Quebec, rather than Québec) (although I am sure that anyone, if they dug around, could find exceptions).
I am certainly not trying to be anti-francophone here, and would never suggest that say, for example, Three-Rivers be used instead of Trois-Rivières. Wikipedia should be consistent, however, and even the main Montreal article uses the English name (except to mention the French spelling, and except when using French terms such as "Ville de Montréal" or "Communauté Métropolitaine de Montréal", etc.) Frankly, the use of Montréal comes across as an affectation where the norm in this context is to use the English version. It also reaches new heights of absurdity when the article refers to the "Montréal Gazette" -- someone probably went through the article adding accents without regard whatsoever to context.
Having said all that, it might be appropriate to refer to the team as the "Montréal Expos" since I believe the team logo had the accent, and the official name of the team might have been changed to appeal to francophone fans. I will leave that one to others who are more familiar with franchise history. But the name of the city, and certainly the name of the city's English-language daily, should be accentless.
As always, I'm happy to discuss this point further. I couldn't find a Wikipedia guideline on this point, but would obviously be interested if there is one. Skeezix100019:50, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
As an anglophone Montréaler, I always use an accent on Montréal and Québec. However, surely the test here is what did the Expos use in English. If you go to their old websiteyou can see they didn't use an accent. I'll do an edit here. It's pretty clear there shouldn't be an accent! Nfitz21:37, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Their old website is pretty good evidence. As for "Montréaler", the Canadian Oxford spells it "Montrealer" without the accent. I think obviously some people choose to use an accent (sort of a hybrid between "Montrealer" and "Montréalais(e)", and perfectly suited to the city) but proper English-language spelling does not contain one.Skeezix100013:57, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Ah, can't move the page ... someone must have moved it from there, to here. I've put in a request to move it. If anyone has any comments please add them here Nfitz21:52, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Wow. Someone did move it... several times.
There are three pages involved:
Montréal Expos (the accented page)
Montreal Expos (the unaccented page)
Washington Nationals, a page to which both of the others have from time to time been controversially redirected, thus concealing the existence of the other page from other editors.
The move from the unaccented to the accented page name was back on 21 November 2004. This was unilateral and unfortunate, but could have been easily fixed.
Then on 3 April 2005 an anon recreated the page at the unaccented name, possibly a newbie unaware of the correct procedures. Again, at this stage it wouldn't have been hard to fix.
The problem is that the histories were then complicated by revert wars over whether or not the pages should redirect to Washington Nationals. Some of the participants and other editors at the unaccented name seem to have been in ignorance of the existence of a more comprehensive page at the accented name. As a result both pages now have major and probably significant overlapping histories; Why I say probably is it's not obvious whether the content represented by the history currently at the unaccented name found its way into either of the other articles, but if not there is likely to be useful material in the history currently at the unaccented name that has not been merged anywhere. It is extremely unlikely that no useful material was innocently added to the unaccented page during any of the several periods it was not a redirect, and existed in parallel to a more comprehensive article at the accented name.
It is not possible to merge the histories. To do so would be an irreversible mistake and result in an unrecoverable mess, and we would probably then be asking a developer to recover the pre-merge versions from backup. The lead time for doing this has been over a year in some cases, and we would then still have an even worse mess to sort out. Let's not go there.
What I therefore propose is to (carefully) swap the pages and histories between the accented and unaccented names. There is an enormous amount of work in sorting them out, but we don't need to do it fortunately. All we need to do to satisfy the GFDL is to preserve both histories so that someone could do it if they wished. This also preserves any useful and unmerged material.
The cost is, it further complicates an already complex story. Hopefully, these comments will be useful for anyone seeking to understand it in the future. Further comments welcome, I'll leave this a few more days before actually doing it. Andrewa19:33, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
It's not now easy to demonstrate, but take my word for it, these two versions of the article had overlapping histories. The result of merging these overlapping histories is that we now can't tell who contributed what. Pressing the prev link in the history next to an edit may now give a meaningful difference, or it may not. If the two versions being compared are both from the moved article, or are both restored edits from the deleted article, it will be. But if they don't match, it won't be. We can't easily tell which is the case, although we can often guess, so from the point of view of the GFDL, both histories have been destroyed.
Sure, that's a fair assessment I guess. To be honest I don't remember that much overlapping history - just the redirects from the unaccented version, but maybe it is best to get clarification on it...
Thanks - I was going to go on IRC tomarro, but that may be a better course of action. Thanks again and sorry for the confusion :). WhiteNightT | @ | C03:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Requested move
Montréal Expos → Montreal Expos – This article has been bounced back and forth between the the two article names a number of times (making a mess of the article history). The latest unilateral move was on February 5, 2006. Let's decide this for once and for all.
Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~
Support. The name of the team did not have a diacritic, although the name of the city does. No evidence that the diacritic is correct. Andrewa18:24, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Support. But we did do this properly back in December! We had a discussion here, no-one objected. We put it on the Requested move page. And it was done. We shouldn't have to do this every time a vandal changes the page! Just move it back. The logic is all discussed further up this page. Most importantly if you got to the Expo's old English-language website from before the move, you can clearly see that they didn't use an accent! It doesn't get much clearer than this! Nfitz18:17, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
There is no consensus at this time as to whether diacritics should be used in article titles, and under what circumstances if so.
Some believe that diacritics should never be used, and often cite Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) as their justification for this, resulting in several edit wars at that guideline and others over the years and an enormous archive of its talk page.
Some believe that all loan words should have diacritics if these are part of the original language.
Some believe that there are cases each way, and that each case should be decided individually (which is what we are doing here).
Some believe that there are cases each way, and that there should be policies or guidelines to cover some restricted areas (such as asteroids), but AFAIK there have been no instances of consensus on such rules despite many, many attempts.
I am in favour of option four, that we should have some rules but not an overiding one, and fall back to option three in need. But the lack of consensus on particular rules is no surprise considering that some strongly promote each of the first three options. So in practice, we are back to option three in all cases. Andrewa18:24, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
As I keep pointing out, the Expos used Montreal Expos not Montréal Expos consistently on their English-language website. Had they used the latter rather than the former, I have no problem in using the accent on the name of the article. However they didn't. Nfitz22:50, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Good, that's more evidence. But the evidence so far seems very one-sided. Apart from the {obviously invalid IMO) argument that as Montréal has an accent, every term derived from it should have an accent too, what's the reason for regarding the accented version as correct, I wonder? Why does WikiFanatic think it was the name of the team? The silence so far is deafening. Andrewa06:43, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
There seems to be a dispute of fact here. What was the name of the team? The name on the team badge doesn't tell us either way, as it's in block (all capital) letters, and these don't have accents in French anyway. The old website seems to indicate that there was no diacritic. What other evidence is there?
It's true that some people think diacritics should always be used, that's exactly what I said above. And others think they shouldn't be. Álex Rodríguez is a case in which I'd use the diacritic, as he does (even if his usage is "incorrect", it's his name). But this isn't an example of a rule, because there are no rules covering the use of diacritics, despite many efforts to write some. Andrewa00:57, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
My general view is that the diacritic should be used in the case of a proper name (e.g. Jean Chrétien) or where it is a generally accepted English spelling (e.g. façade). For place names, however, the diacritic should not be used where there is a well established English version of the place name that is more commonly used among anglophones (therefore: Montreal, Munich, Copenhagen -- not Montréal, München, København), and it's an affectation to do otherwise in an English language text absent special circumstances, or (as noted above) the place name is part of a proper name where context requires the use of the diacritic (e.g. Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal). Where there is no generally accepted English-version of the name, the diacritic should be used (e.g. Trois-Rivières). And it is really not a good thing when diacritics are used indiscriminately in English-language terms, such as Québec City (sic) or Montréaler (sic).
Having said all that, I would agree with Andrewa that it is difficult to come up with a hard and fast rule for proper names like "Montre(é)al Expos". But unless the evidence/usage suggests otherwise, I am usually inclined to side with not using the accent on Montreal in an English language text. Skeezix100003:02, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I think we can and should come up with some rules, and the summary you've just given above would be an excellent first draft for them! It's just that Wikipedia's governance makes it impossible to get them approved for the moment, unfortunately. Andrewa06:37, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Result
We now have a strong consensus to use the unaccented name. The page was moved back to this name by the admin who moved it in the first place.
I cleaned up this article. The Expos were not the NL East Champs in 1994. Even mentioning that it was unofficial, in my opinion, is not warranted. It simply shouldn't be mentioned at all that they won their division in 1994. Listing them as "Major League Champions" in 1994 is also incorrect. The 1994 season had no champions. Perhaps the people who wrote this in are diehard Expos' fans who simply don't want to come to terms with the fact that their great season went down the drain with the players' strike. That's sad, but that's life. In any event, MLB doesn't recognize the Expos with having won anything in 1994. However, Felipe Alou did get to manage the NL All-Star squad in 1995.Politician81816:57, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Now that I think of it, isn't it a waste to have separate articles on the Expos and the Nationals? Why not just one article that lays out the entire history of the franchise, including both Montreal and Washington? Simply redirect people who type in "Montreal Expos" to the Washington Nationals.Politician81807:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
If you took the time to read the rest of this talk page as well as the deletion debate, you would realize that keeping the Expos as a seperate entry has been justified and decided. MLB is treating the Nationals as an expansion franchise, regardless of policy. The history of the Expos as a Montreal team is worth documenting seperately. IMO the Dodgers, Giants, Athletics, Braves, etc. should all have seperate pages for their different homes (In these instances at least the teams kept the same names!). If there is interest, open discussion, and debate, then let it be...--Exshpos16:35, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, wrong. They're not being treated as an expansion team. You don't have to be obnoxious either. They're one continuous franchise. Two separate articles are actually a waste. It's like having two separate articles for "John Wayne" and "Marion Morrison." Different names, same guy. And no, those other teams shouldn't have separate pages. In the interest of accuracy, there shouldn't be separate pages for this single franchise on Wikipedia. People are letting their emotions run high, as opposed to simply reporting the facts. This may have been decided, but it's not really justified. Please don't condescend to me. I'm much smarter than you.Politician818 00:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Ex, you're obviously being a crybaby because your pathetic team moved to Washington. No wonder the Nats don't want to mention their franchise history. The Expos have no history. They're one of the worst franchises in the history of baseball. They've done nothing. If I used to be the Expos, I wouldn't want to admit it either. In fact, Wikipedia should just ignore that there ever was a team called the Expos. Bwahahaha. So get rid of this article, and ignore the Expos' history on the Nats' site. We don't want to bore people who read Wikipedia. Lol. I was nice at first, but you got obnoxious, so I feel that this rant is justified. Have a nice day.Politician818 00:27, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Do not talk down to me. I'm better than you.Politician818 00:28, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Ex, it's spelled "separately," not "seperately."Politician81801:38, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
First of all, from a practical standpoint, a combined Expos/Nationals article would be too large if merged at this point. Second of all, Exshpos was not being obnoxious at all. He was meerly pointing out that an earlier vote had taken place saying that the Expos and Nationals articles should remain seperate, and that was the end of it (The articles for Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker went through this as well if I'm not mistaken). Not counting the fact that I'm originally from Montreal, I think the two articles should remain seperate, if anything for history purposes. There are a few team articles that have a seperate history article (the Lakers for one), and this article falls under that category.
Moreover, a major part of being a Wikipedian is civility. Just because you feel someone is being a dick does NOT give you permission to insult the guy. Remember, NO PERSONAL ATTACKS!!! (this is an official Wikipedia policy IIRC) Please be more civil next time.Dknights41100:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Wrong. A combined Expos/Nats article would not contain too much information. Together, they have thirty-eight years of history. The Giants have 124 years of history, and yet there is just one article on them. So that's b.s. and idiotic logic. Secondly, Ex was being obnoxious. BTW, I know of the vote. I have a right to disagree with it, though. I believe that in any sport, there should be just one article on one franchise. Good day.Politician818 00:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
What does "meerly" mean, btw?Politician818 00:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
The St. Louis Browns and Baltimore Orioles are one article if I remember correctly, and the Browns had much more history than the Expos.Politician81800:54, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
When I said "too large", I was refering to the actual size of the article (I think 40kb is the max Wikipedia allows). Also, the lack of a seperate St. Louis Browns page is a crime. The Browns deserve their own page. And you can substitute the word "meerly" with the word "only" if you wanted (they mean the same thing in this case).Dknights41101:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I meant that "meerly" is incorrect spelling. You meant to say "merely." I know what the word means. If the article would be too long, then condense it. Like I said before, this franchise has accomplished nothing. That means that too much b.s. is being wasted on losing seasons.Politician81801:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Wow. That's probably one of the worst reasons for condensing an article. If that's the case, then we might as well delete the entire Los Angeles Clippers article, or the Chicago Cubs for that matter if we were to follow that train of logic. Yes, the Montreal Expos have won almost jack squat. However, that doesn't mean that it must be neglected at all costs. I'd rather have the so-called "b.s." here since it acknowledges the existance of a team that had one of the most unique stories in baseball history (First non-U.S. MLB team, based in a primarily French environment, an impressive alumni list for example). There's more to a team's history than just winning and losing. Dknights41101:49, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Again, you misunderstood what I said. I said that if an article can't exceed more than forty kilobytes, then it must be condensed. That's all. Why would I be for deleting the article on the Cubs? Is the Cubs article not less than forty kilobytes? What more can you print about the Expos being the first Major League team outside the U.S. other than that "they were the first Major League team outside the U.S."? BTW, it's spelled "existence," not "existance." There's enough room to list important information about both the Expos and Nationals in one article.Politician81803:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Minor Edits
Do not revert my minor edits. The "DC" in Washington, DC should not have periods. It's a postal abbreviation. Postal abbreviations have no periods. Another interesting thing to mention in either this article or the Nats' article is just why the Nationals have ignored the retired Expos' jerseys. Have the Nats explained this? That would be very interesting.Politician818 01:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Dknights, again, you mean "consistency," not "consistancy." Who is Wikipedia, BTW? Wikipedia includes all the editors, including me. "DC" should not have periods. That's incorrect grammar. "CA" (referring to California) has no periods. If you're concerned with consistency, then let's take the periods out of all articles containing "Washington, DC." Wouldn't you rather be correct than consistently wrong? Correct grammar will make Wikipedia look more respectable. You need a better reason for that last revert. Your own poor grammar isn't exactly helping your cause.Politician818 03:15, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
This article should also list that stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico as a "home stadium" for the Expos. This article needs some grammatical cleanup. Can't we get a robot to do that? I'm getting tired of correcting grammar in all of these Wikipedia articles.Politician818 03:20, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm tired of people with atrocious grammar and spelling condescending to me. It's really annoying. My vast intelligence should be welcome here. I know what I'm talking about, and I'm helping Wikipedia.Politician818 03:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm a god in here (no offense to the real God). Everyone should bow down to my greatness instead of fighting with me.Politician81803:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
FYI, I put the periods in D.C. because of the fact that the name of the article is Washington, D.C., not Washington, DC (even though it is a postal abv.). And when I say Wikipedia, I'm talking about the community. And just as an aside, your 'Wiki God' complex will not help you here, or anywhere else on Wikipedia. Dknights41103:57, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
If you search for SkyDome, it redirects you to that damn Rogers Centre. So Montreal Expos should redirect you to Washington Nationals. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.193.133.22 (talk • contribs) .
Last time I checked, Montreal was in Canada. If I want to look up the Expos' stats for the '95 season, DON'T SEND ME TO THE DAMN NATIONALS' PAGE!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.69.137.27 (talk • contribs) .
Yes, but in the interests of not biting the newbies and also of improving the article(s), I'm interested in the point they were trying to make here. Is there a scenario under which this could happen?
It seems to me that there's not currently, but that some of the above proposals might lead to it, and that's the point the unsigned anon above is making. And it's a valid one. Andrewa19:33, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree that I don't think one currently needs to look to the Nationals page for Expos information. I assumed the anon was refering to the above two comments above merging the article (I think you've made the same assumption). I believe that the earlier merge discussion, which I linked to above, came to the same conclusion as the anon was making. BTW, I don't think it is biting the newbie to kindly ask that he review certain Wikipedia policies, given the tone of his response to the above two suggestions/questions (whether his point was valid or not). Skeezix100020:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
Removed unsourced and irrelevant statement
I edited out the following because it is irrelevant and not supported by a reliable and verifiable reference:
"Quebec was a deeply Catholic, agrarian society. In the 1960s, socio-economic changes under the Quiet Revolution saw massive social upheavals and improvement of the status of French Canadians. The arrival of Expo 67, the new Metro subway and the Expos allowed Montreal and Quebec to see itself as international and "major league." This new-found pride and sense of "Quebecois" identity led to many social changes in the province, including giving rise to the Quebec nationalist and sovereigntist movements, and the presence of the Expos franchise paralleled these developments."
I think the question of whether or not to merge the Expos/Nationals articles depends on one thing and one thing only: Are they the same franchise with a new name, or was the Expos franchise terminated and a new Nationals franchise created by everyone affiliated with the Expos? If they're the same franchise, then it's plain and simple: combine the articles. L2K22:16, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
I think you severly fail to completly understand this issue. It's NEVER that simple when you're talking about a sports team, and that something I feel Wikipedia fails to recognize, not just here, but across the board. The Expos and the Nationals are two completly different incarnations and are completly unrelated. To lump the two articles together like that would make it the whole thing look awkward. As far as the Nationals are concerned, the Montreal Expos never existed, and you can almost surely bet that they would never even so much as mention the city ever again. It would just be a mockery and a huge disservice to ignore the Expos history like this. I personally believe that every single incarnation of a sports team deserves their own Wikipedia article, including having seperate articles about the Brooklyn Dodgers, or the New York Giants, or the Milwaukee Braves. Different incarnations of a franchise goes through different things in different cities with different fans and different traditions, and each and every one of these deserves to be featured in their own seperate articles, no matter how big or small they may be. These articles should be seprated be incarnations, not franchises. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dknights411 (talk • contribs) 05:45, 3 April 2007 (UTC).
It should depend on one thing and one thing only: what do we do with every other team that moves? Answer: include that team's history in the article for the present-day franchise. There is no basis for maintaining this article as a separate item. Vidor18:58, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
This issue has already been canvassed, and the consensus was to have separate articles. If anyone disagrees with the conclusion that was previously reached, they should feel free to formally propose a merger. Otherwise, these one-off comments won't really ever go anywhere. Skeezix100019:05, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Just one Comment---as a Washingtonian who has lived through the loss of both of the previous Washington MLB teams, I can understand the discussion that is taking place here. To correct the record somewhat, the team's Montreal history is mentioned from time to time in radio and TV broadcasts of Nationals' games. I don't know what the "official" position of the team's new ownership will be as time goes on, but, for now, Washingtonians consider the Nationals as the same franchise- relocated. This situation is not the same as the Cleveland Browns- Baltimore Ravens NFL situation, as in that case, the Ravens were forced by the league to leave their Browns history ( and records) in Cleveland. An expansion version of the Browns was permitted to pick up the name, history and uniform of the former franchise. In this case, the Expos and Nationals ARE the same franchise. --- Walt C.02:45, 31 May 2007 (UTC)69.140.234.198W
I know it has been resolved already, but one thing I think alot of people are missing is that a team/franchise isnt just the players who play for it or the guys who own it. It's an identity. And when you move a team, you change that teams identity. A perfect example is the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Dodgers went from the team for the little guy, the immigrant of every stripe in an ethnically diverse neighbourhood, the team that broke the colour barrier, the very name, street car Dodgers, Dem Bums, evoking all things urban, gritty and also ran, to a team of arrive late, leave early effetists who drive to the game and buy sushi in their seats. Its no different with the Expos/Nationals. They have vastly different identities and ARE seperate teams. Maybe not personell wise, or owner wise. But they ARE different teams. If you dont understand that, you just dont understand what it is to be a fan. -Andrew —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.89.74.17 (talk • contribs).
To Address Andrew's Point
To address your point, being a fan has no bearing on writing an encylopedia article. In fact, what you said only makes your opinion void to many people because it showcases a blatant bias. Wikipedia has a very necessary rule about nPOV, you may want to read that in order to better yourself in the field of Wikipedia edits. I myself am not perfect, so don't think im patronizning you, the smartest people are those who accept help to accomplish their goals.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by WalterWalrus3 (talk • contribs).
You missed my point. I wasnt saying that the article should be written from a fans perspective. Obvioulsy thats agaisnt the standards of Wikipedia. What I'm saying is that in the eyes of fans (IE: People reading wikipedia) The Expos and Nationals are two different teams (for the reasons I stated above). So merging the two topics doesnt make sense. - Andrew —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.89.74.17 (talk • contribs).
L in logo?
I always assumed that the white area in the Expos logo was an L, for "le baseball"; it certainly seems to be "elb" rather than just "eb" together forming the uppercase M. The description in the article doesn't mention this. It's possible also that the English "explanation" of the logo simply drops the reference to the L. Closest discussion I can find is this: [2]. ProhibitOnions(T)16:14, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
This has never been stated by the team, and I don't think it would make sense, any more than putting a "t" within an MLB logo to stand for "the" baseball. Isaac Lin02:19, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
The white area is just one half of the letter "M", which stands for Montreal. Therefore, the logo stands for Montreal Expos Baseball. Dknights41119:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Although the intent was good, it usually isn't a good idea to make wholesale changes to a talk page such as moving comments out of chronologicl order. In this case, it got a bit confusing, as editors started adding new comments to the top of the page, where you had group archived the old merge discussions, rather than placing new comments at the bottom of the page where they belong. WP:TALK recognizes some very limited circumstances when one can edit the comments of other editors, but merging various threads to be read together isn't one of them. WP:REFACTOR suggests that the best approach is to provide a summary of previous discussions, and this page would likely benefit from a set of links to prior discussions, which I can add. Skeezix100013:28, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Previous merge discussions
The questions at to whether or not this article should be deleted and/or merged with Washington Nationals has been the subject of numerous discussions, including:
The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. 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 proposal was no merger, as per Madchester's closing of discussion below.
Addressing this subject, the Montreal Expos are the Washington Nationals. In no way, shape or form do they need to have seperate pages. I would have just gone ahead and deleted this article and merged it myself, but not being an expert on DEFUNCT Candadian baseball teams, (Note: Most DEFUNCT Teams don't need their own encyclopedia article, if you are confused, see wiktionary's definition of Defunct, here). The Kansas City Athletics, Brooklyn Dodgers, Los Angeles Raiders, and Tennessee Oilers all have one thing in common, they all link to an updated page, because, no matter your mode of thought, they don't need a page.
Either your semantics are that they are defunct and don't exist anymore (don't need their own article), or that they still exsist as another team (still, don't need their own article), in either case they should be linked to the currnet incarnation's page. I am going to fight this until the page gets merged, as long as there is an article about the Montreal Expos baseball team on Wikipedia, I will fight to wedge it in with the correct Washington Nationals page.
In all due honesty, and without insulting or signaling out anybody in particular, I personally find this whole practice of merging old franchises article into new ones to be completely stupid. Doing this completely undermines an entire chapter of a team's own history. Are they the same franchise? I'll admit that they are. But when a franchise adopts a completely new identity after a move, like the Nationals, or the Tennessee Titans, then they cannot be considered as a same incarnation. Should the history of the Quebec Nordiques be lumped into the same history as the Colorado Avalanche? I don't think so. The Nordiques have their own identity and history that is completely seperate from that of the Avalanche. The same is true for the Jets and the Coyotes, or the Whalers and the Hurricanes. It does no harm to recognize the older incarnations with their own SEPARATE articles, so I cannot understand the reasoning behind just simply merging everything together like that. I mean, would it make sense to merge the ten Doctor Who articles? I mean it is the same character. But they are kept separate because the ten doctors are completely dissimilar from one another in quirks, aesthetics, and personalities. The same thing can be said for the Expos and the Nationals, or the Oilers and the Titans. And I need to also point out and clarify one thing here. The Anaheim Angels, Washington Bullets, and Houston Colt .45 examples does not fit here. These teams just simply renamed themselves, while these other teams completely relocated. These are two completely different scenarios that CANNOT be put into the same category.
I think I've said enough, but my point here is that the Expos and the Nationals, as well as any other articles that fit into this category, should be kept split to preserve their seperate identities. Just because they are the same franchise doesn't mean that they should be merged automatically. Dknights41100:54, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
First of all, I have crossed four off those list for one obvious reason: They are the same incarnation of the same team. They simply renamed themselves. The rest are relocated teams, I believe, which seems to be your intent here. And in that regard, I am vehemently opposed to any kind of merge. The Montreal Expos history is unique to that of the Nationals. The 35 years the team spent in Montreal creates a very large amount of history that is completely impossible to adequately merge into the Washingtion Nationals article. And even if size constraints wasn't a problem, there is no reason to merge. In fact, I would actually vote the other way - these existing redirects should be canceled and full articles created at all of them. Resolute04:04, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Also, per this comment: "Either your semantics are that they are defunct and don't exist anymore (don't need their own article)". Given that World War II is over, do you plan on AfDing it as well? History deserves to be preserved, even if you have some kind of bias against sports history. Resolute04:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I believe there was already a merge up on this before and it was shot down by a pretty large margin because like the above two people mentioned there is a huge difference in history between the two. As in other articles when they get to big you split pieces off. In that respect this part of the history of the Nationals has been split off into its own page. Needless to say I am completely against this. --Djsasso05:40, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
As with the above, I think the Expos article should remain separate from the Nationals article. This is for a couple reasons. One, as time goes by, the history portions of the article will only get longer and longer. To keep the article susinct, the history section will have to be broken out into several sections. Look at the Manchester United F.C. page for an example of this (even though the team hasn't moved). The Los Angeles Dodgers article currently is at 81K. While not a huge issue, it would be trimmed if a page were kept for the Brooklyn Dodgers. With this, both parts of the Dodgers franchise articles could be expanded as necessary. Another reason is that once something is notable, it will always remain notable, even if it becomes defunct. In addition, each franchise move for each of the sports has it's own categories (players, managers, etc). To keep in synch with this, there should also be articles. While rare outside North America, there is at least one example of clubs moving, that being Wimbledon F.C. and Milton Keynes Dons F.C.. MK Dons were Wimbledon and articles are separated for both (a third article for A.F.C. Wimbledon, the amateur club born in Wimbledon, also exists). There are examples for two stadiums occupying the same plot of land having separate articles (Wembley Stadium and Wembley Stadium (1923)).
For your examples above, other than those where the franchise remained in the same city, only the Seattle Pilots would not deserve their own article. The reason being here is that I don't think a good article could be written for a team that lasted only one season and their history could easily be included with the Brewers. If someone could write a good article on the Pilots, then I would support a separate article for them as well. Patken423:07, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
I am also opposed to the proposed merger. Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, so if there is valuable content for the Expos article and the subject is noteworthy, then by all means have a separate article. Whether MLB treats the Expos and the Nationals as the same franchise is irrelevant. What matters is that the Expos have a storied history in Montreal and Canada that has the potential to be a great article. Skeezix100017:44, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Opposed to proposed merger. Status quo looks fine to me. Only argument I've seen in support during my skim is structural. Given that the Montreal article has the length and notability within Canada to stand on its own, it would seem impractical to force a merger. Canuckle22:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Oppose - nothing new is being argued since the previous merge attempts were dismissed. The Nationals article is large enough without merging in the 35+ years of distinct Expos history, and its specially-notable international significance. Dl200022:47, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Opposed to proposed merger. The Nationals page will just get bigger and bigger and having a separate article for all of the Expos history just makes sense. Keep things the way they have been. --AyrtonSenna06:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Opposed to proposed merger. The three comments above mine summarize my feelings almost perfectly. Jcb1004:46, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Opposed This is not the first time I have weighed in on this issue (indeed, I was one of the first), so I'll try to say something new. I will use the example of the Dodgers. That page is too big already and deserves to be split into separate pages. How to split it? Naturally of course: Brooklyn deserves it's own page. This is normal on any page where the size begins to exceed a certain amount of material. See Wikipedia:Article size. That's not to say that the article should pretend that it is a different franchise, just an incarnation deserving of its own page. Peace, out...--Exshpos16:04, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Opposed This issue has been debated to death no less tha 15 times. Both articles are long enough as it is. Bouchecl22:53, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Comment (as an admin) Seeing that the poll has been open for a week, the overwhelming consensus is to keep the current article; as had been the case in the previous AFD discussion. --Madchester03:32, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
The Montreal Expos deserve their own page/section
I am against this proposed merger. The Montreal Expos have over 30 years of history and are a distinct entity. This was the first professional major league franchise awarded outside the United States of America.
The Montreal Expos also known as Nos Amours retired the numbers of Rusty Staub, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson as well Tim Raines.
The Washington Nationals do not even recognize the team's past as well as their previous star players.
Claude Raymond, of St-Jean, Que., thought something was askew when he dropped in on the Nationals' spring training camp in Melbourne, Fla., after the team was relocated for the 2005 season.
"I went to a game with my son and I looked on the field and there's Royce Clayton wearing No. 10, Marlon Anderson with No. 8 and Mike Stanton wearing No. 30. What is the thinking behind that?" said Raymond, a former Expos reliever, broadcaster and coach.
"Those numbers were retired but there they were on the field. That's not right. We had some great teams and we weren't bush leaguers. That makes me mad." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Expos007 (talk • contribs).
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.
Compromise for clarity's sake
I believe that the issue that has caused so much furor here can be rectified by a simple addition to the beginning of the article. In order to provide clarity on the identity of the current franchise while preserving the historic nature of this incarnation, I believe the following should be addded to the top of this article. Montreal Expos / Franchise: Washington Nationals
I have suggested that this be done in the case of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers as well. See Talk:Los_Angeles_Dodgers.
A related discussion is taking place at Talk:Dallas_Stars.
Cheers.--Exshpos21:27, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't seem necessary, imo. The opening paragraph clearly states the franchise relocated to Washington to become the Nationals, and the infobox says the same as well. It is already clearly noted that the Expos are a previous incarnation of the Nationals. Resolute21:33, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
I also agree that such an addition would be completely unnecessary for the same reason -- that is what the lead paragraph is for, and here the lead paragraph makes clear the franchise moved to Washington. Such a heading would be unusual, and would, frankly, not look great. I am not sure why a compromise is necessary, since the overwhelming consensus was to have two separate articles -- given that consensus, I'm not sure that any out-of-the-ordinary header is required. Skeezix100011:45, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Contradiction on article
I have posting this notice about a Contradiction in the article. It shows 2 different Average Attendance Figures in Montreal. One of them being 10,031 and was cited by "Montreal Expos (2003). Expos Media Guide 2003." and the other being 12,081 and was cited by "Montreal Expos (2004). Expos Media Guide 2004.". This leads me to believe that the 2nd Figure of 12,081 was the 2004 figure and shouldn't have been in the section on 2002-2003 "Purchase by Major League Baseball" section and should have been mentioned on the Final Season section. Sawblade05 (talk to me|my wiki life)15:06, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
It is not a contradiction, but the wording is confusing. The paragraph starts of saying that despite an increase in attendance in 2002 (from 7900 to 10,000), the team was forced to play some games in San Juan. It then lists the 2003 averages. I had to read it twice to catch on that 7900 is the 2001 average, 10,000 is the 2002 average, and 12,000 is the 2003 average. I'll see about rewording it. Resolute15:08, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I have assessed this as B Class, given its level of detail and organization, although it requires more referencing and in-line citations and some sections could stand to be expanded. I have assessed this as Mid importance as the team plays a strong, but not vital, role in Canada. Cheers, CP15:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
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Though it is true the Expos had the best record in MLB in 1994 when the season prematurely ended, this is not equivalent to a World Series Championship, and so should not be included within the section in the summary box listing the number of World Series Championships. I propose removing this note from the summary box. The ranking of the Expos in 1994 is noted within the article itself. Isaac Lin (talk) 00:04, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
True, it's not a World Championship, which is determined by the winner of the World Series between the AL and NL champions, but I cannot understand why it was never claimed as a division championship. They were leading the division at the end of the sesaon, no? By giving out awards and honouring contracts, MLB acknowledges it as a complete season, so why is it not a division championship? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Djob (talk • contribs) 16:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Merge with Washington Nationals
The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
With all due respect to Montreal fans, this page should be merged with Wachington Nationals. Other than them being the same team, another reason for the merge is the Expos did nothing their entire history. Is 1 division championship worthy of a seperate page? Another is the lack of consistency. The New York Giants won 5 World Series titles before moving to San Fransisco, but yet have no page. If Montreal deserves one, than New York does to.--Carolinapanthersfan (talk) 13:57, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
35 years of history most certainly is worthy of a separate page. And quite frankly, the fact that the baseball project has it all backwards is no good reason to merge this article. The New York Giants should be at their own page. As should every other iteration of relocated teams. WP:NOTPAPER and all that jazz. And, as noted, if you go to the talk archive here, you will see this has been proposed numerous times, and rejected by a sizable margin each time. Though hell, if we go with your argument, the Washington Nationals article should be merged into this one, since the Nationals have done even less than the Expos did. Resolute18:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
I'd argue that the 29 other MLB articles, should be split. For example, the Oakland Athletics article split into 3 articles: Philadelphia Athletics, Kansas City Athletics & Oakland Athletics. GoodDay (talk) 22:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
Actually its not, because Cassius Clay and Muhammad Ali are the same subject. The Montreal Expos and Washington Nationals are not the same subject, only the same franchise. -Djsasso (talk) 20:47, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
How do you figure that? Everything on the page talks about the time in Montreal, not their time in Washington. That to me indicates that the subject of the page is the time in Montreal and not the Franchise itself. The subject of the Washington Nationals page however talks about the time in both places which indicates that it is talking about the Franchise. -Djsasso (talk) 03:20, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I was talking about the Nationals article. You are correct that the Expos article is not about the franchise. It is simply disingenuous to call it "Montreal Expos" because there is no substantive difference between the entity called that and the entity called "Washington Nationals". They are the same entity. -Dewelar (talk) 03:54, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
It's also easier to start out demerged than to have to re-demerge the articles when the subject matter gets long enough. Remember pages get split when they get to be a certain size. A reasonable place to split an article is after a move. I find it very disturbing that a baseball project would support an action which would cause information about baseball to end up being cut from the encyclopedia, which is what this merge will do in the long run. -Djsasso (talk) 20:53, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. Cutting 35 years of history down to a couple of paragraphs utterly robs the reader of the unique history of the Expos. Wikipedia should not be about destroying history to suit an arbitrary decision. Resolute21:08, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Oppose I also object to merging as 35 years of history is its own subject matter. Merging the articles achieves nothing, there is no benefit of merging the articles, however there is a very large negative to merging the articles in the subject matter has to be cut out. People who search the Expos in the search box are not necessarily searching for the Nationals and the other way around. For those people who are, wikilinks in the article itself will solve that problem. There is a very large precedent for treating them separately in both sports and in other subject areas as well. Baseball teams and some football teams that are merged together are actually the exception rather than the rule and those other baseball teams should be split to fit with the norm for most other articles in wikipedia. -Djsasso (talk) 20:46, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Support merger, as all the other MLB re-located franchise articles are merged with their former incarnations. The Brooklyn Dodgers & New York Giants (to name a few) have had 'long histories' aswell. GoodDay (talk) 20:50, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Oppose still. Bad decisions regarding other articles does not require that same bad decision be perpetuated here. If nobody wants to split the other articles, that is fine, but laziness is an absolutely terrible reason to merge these two. The arguments presented in the last merger discussion, as well as a previous AfD remain completely valid. More simply, there is no good reason to merge. Resolute20:54, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Oppose, and please God could we stop talking about this again, and again, and again...:This issue has been debated to death (although it has been strangely silent for two years). The questions at to whether or not this article should be deleted and/or merged with Washington Nationals has been raised a number of times, including:
The last discussion (June 2007) was pretty conclusive against a merger. Although there is nothing wrong with raising the issue again (consensus can change), so far no new arguments have been raised here that have not already been rejected numerous times in the past. In my opinion, as long as we have enough good material to make up a compelling article on the Expos, there is no reason to merge. There is no "one size fits all" rule about franchise mergers, and the fact that some other articles might be merged is not a particularly convincing reason to do so here. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:14, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Oppose I'll transpose my comments from the Baseball Project talk page here. My take on this is when the Nationals acknowledge the fact they are the descendants of the Expos, I will support the merger into the Nationals page. However, all retired numbers were forgotten, all team records (according to last season's Media Guide, I haven't got the new one yet) were split into a pre and post move era indicating that the Nats consider 2005 to be Year 1, not a continuation of the lineage and the written history includes very little regarding their time in Montreal, but rather incorporates the various incarnations of the Senators. If anything, the way the Nationals see their history, the pre-Texas and pre-Minnesota Senators history should be merged into here instead of the Expos.
Plus, isn't Wikipedia's goal to keep pages small? Adding in the entire Montreal Expos page, which I believe is inherently necessary under a merger, would make the page too large. The way I would think we should handle teams that move is to create separate pages, wait until the next season and see how the team views their history, if they see the team as the continuation of the lineage, then merge the pages. In this circumstance, the Brooklyn Dodgers should deserve their own page as the LA Dodgers, only talk about their history in LA for the most part in their media guide. The New York Giants on the other hand have their story weaved into the San Francisco Giants' history in their media guide. Instead of creating a hard and fast rule, why not evaluate on a case by case basis? As history is never changing, the easiest way to deal with it is to see how the current incarnation deals with it. If the people in this project are convinced that calling the page the Montreal Expos is an injustice to the glorious history of the Washington Nationals, then why not rename the page History of the Washington Nationals/Montreal Expos Pre-2005? That way the title indicates that this franchise is the Nats, but also allows for the Montreal Expos to be indicated.
The other thing I would point out is that I believe when the franchise moved, the history was given to Quebec Baseball ala the Baltimore Ravens/Cleveland Browns. So by doing this, didn't MLB indicate that the Expos ceased to exist and the league "expanded" to Washington? That's how I would read said actions. Shootmaster 44 (talk) 21:17, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Strongly Oppose. Notice that on the Washington Nationals alternate logo, they put established 1905: [3] At the moment the Montreal Expos article is probably the most comprehensive article anywhere on the Expos and their history. Removing all that encyclopedic information would be like committing vandalism. If you're looking for an article to merge into the Washington Nationals article this isn't it. Try merging the sections in the Minnesota Twins and Texas Rangers that speak of the original two Washington Senators teams.You can evenm ake a seperate article, such as "History of baseball in Washington, DC". However, due to the fact that the Nationals ignore the 35 years of Expos history, there is no reason why the two articles should be merged. As far as I'm concerned, they are separate entities. --MTLskyline (talk) 21:42, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
What you don't understand is that human nature is that people will write more about recent and less about old if things are merged into one article. you can already see this just by looking at the Washington Nationals article. If you apply the standard of undue weight to the article it completely and utterly fails. If the Nationals page were written "correctly" there would be about 7 times the amount of information on the page about the Expos than there is about the Nationals. It currently sits the other way around, which is exactly why a merge should not happen. -Djsasso (talk) 03:25, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Strongly Support The Expos are now the Nationals, as the former Nationals franchises are now the Twins and the Rangers. --Muboshgu (talk) 22:00, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes. While there were three previous Washington Nationals teams, none of them lasted long enough to move (one, one, and four seasons). -Dewelar (talk) 22:19, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Strong support. As said above, bad decisions -- in this case, like the one made for the aforementioned hockey franchises -- should not be used as precedent for this merger. As I said above to Djsasso, the article is about the Washington Nationals franchise, whose history includes that of the Montreal Expos, just as every other baseball franchise article is about the franchise. For the article about the current Washington Nationals team, see 2009 Washington Nationals season. -Dewelar (talk) 22:19, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
You know, I've never once heard an explanation of why the baseball project does it this way. "It's just how we do it." So, please tell me, why does your project toss aside history for convienence? Resolute23:46, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
I cannot speak for the project at large, as this decision was made long before I was a part of it, but I agree with the decision. For myself, I am a firm believer in the idea that baseball franchises each have a unique history. Indeed, I believe that for sports franchises in general. A franchise that folds and is subsequently replaced by another franchise (which, while it hasn't happened in baseball since the 19th century, happened during that era quite often) should be treated differently from a franchise that simply moves and/or changes its name, as the Expos/Nationals did. That is why, for instance, the San Francisco Giants page contains historical information for the New York Giants, but not for the Troy Trojans, whom they directly replaced in the National League in 1883. Had the Expos been allowed to fold and were replaced by a new expansion franchise in Washington, my opinion on this would be very different. -Dewelar (talk) 00:30, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I agree with the idea that each franchise has a unique history. I simply disagree with the idea that this necessitates cramming it all into one article. I think we do a disservice to the reader because inevitably, the practicality of jumbling each incarnation into one article strips value from the previous teams, as the current iteration would obviously get the most focus. Using the hockey sphere as an example, Calgary Flames does include a section on the Atlanta Flames history. But, if I wanted to know more about the team's history in Atlanta, the separate set of articles allows me, quite easily, to know much of the team's history in Atlanta, who it's leading scorers were, who played for the team in Atlanta, who it drafted, etc. All of the articles make very clear the links between the Atlanta portion and the Calgary portion of the Flames franchise, but if you want to focus in on one iteration of the franchise, you can. This allows the reader a much more defined picture of each aspect of a franchise, and allows us to maintain a much more valuable history of the franchise, and the league/sport as a whole. Resolute01:23, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Well, as proposed, the history would not be crammed all into one article. Each iteration of the team would get their own section, or even their own entire article, within a "History of (Team X)" superstructure. Typing in the team name would bring you to that section.
You see, the problem here, really, is that there is not now an independent entity called the Montreal Expos. To have an article called "Montreal Expos" implies that the Montreal Expos are a different franchise from the Washington Nationals when they are not. I used the example of Muhammad Ali above, and it is still pertinent here. If I want to know about a man named Cassius Clay, why should I be brought to the Muhammad Ali article? Why shouldn't I be brought to an article named "Cassius Clay" that covers the person's history up until the time when he became Muhammad Ali? For that matter, why is it that when I type Kresge's into the search field, I am brought to a page for Kmart? I want to know about Kresge's, not Kmart, right? This whole "shouldn't be brought to a page with a different name" business is, quite frankly, ridiculous, and not the way Wikipedia works. -Dewelar (talk) 01:49, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
As I proposed the formal merger on the other talk page, I strongly support this merger, on the grounds that the franchise is the franchise, regardless of name and location. Baseball-Reference's franchise encyclopedia says it all. The precedent in the baseball project is different from other projects because we value the continuity of the franchise. Are the Milwaukee Brewers of the American League different than the Milwaukee Brewers of the National League? Indubitably and indisputably NO. Why is consensus on this one article different than consensus on EVERY OTHER article under the project's bailiwick? It should not be. KV5(Talk • Phils)22:53, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
I find it rather sad that the baseball project values convenience ("continuity") above history. If I am searching for the Montreal Expos, I do not mean the Washington Nationals. I don't want to hunt and peck through the Nationals article to find the couple paragraphs dedicated to 35 years while almost everything related to their history is thrown away because one wikiproject is bloody lazy. Same as if I wanted to look up the Brooklyn Dodgers or St. Louis Browns. Don't make me hunt and peck through some other iteration of the franchise's article for what little history the baseball project has chosen to preserve. Also, your Brewers argument is a red herring. Aside from being one continuous franchise with a continuous history, there is no practical independence between the two leagues. Shifting leagues in this case is no different than any other team shifting divisions, as has happened numerous times throughout the history of all four major leagues. Resolute23:44, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
You do realize this isn't the only project that the expos fall under correct? You also realize that every other sports team that has moved in quebec and of course falls into the quebec wikiproject has its own page correct? So why should the baseball wikiproject overule the quebec wikiproject or the montreal wikiproject which is also in the same position with all sports teams in its scoop having seperate pages. It seems to me that the baseball at worst has a very bad case of ownership issues and at best has a very bad arguement of WP:ILIKEIT. There have been very many logical and well supported reasons for keeping them seperate but the baseball project can only seem to offer well thats how we like it and thats how we do it. What benefit is there to a merge. No one seems to be able to answer. -Djsasso (talk) 03:28, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Strong Oppose - There is a great deal of unique history relating to the Expos as Expos. The information contained in this article is far too lengthy for a merge and deserves its own page. A "see also" to Washington is sufficient. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.6.176.168 (talk) 23:03, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Oppose. I haven't participated in the past discussions of this issue, and I think it's unfortunate that the discussion tends to get bogged down in emotion-laden questions such as whether the Nationals are respecting the Expos history. I approach this issue differently, trying to think about the point of view of the readers whom our articles are supposed to be serving. I can remember when I first started using Wikipedia (before I became an editor), I would be reading an article and see the blue links such as "St. Louis Browns" or "Boston Beaneaters" and click on them, expecting to see an article on the history of these teams. Naturally, I wound up looking at the "Baltimore Orioles" or "Atlanta Braves article." As a lifelong baseball fan, I knew that the Orioles franchise used to be the Browns, but that wasn't what I was expecting when I clicked on the link. After getting the unexpected article, I needed to search through the table of contents for the history section. In some cases, I then had to click through another link to finally find an article like "History of the Atlanta Braves." Maybe I'd eventually find the history I was interested in, but mostly it seemed like too much bother, so I quickly learned to stop clicking on the team articles. The point of wikilinks is to provide readers with the information they're likely to be interested in as directly as possible. If I'm reading about Rusty Staub and click on "Montreal Expos," that article is much more likely to be what I'm interested in than if I get the Nationals article and then have to click on another link for "History of the Nationals/Expos/whatever." This point is entirely independent of whether the Expos and Nats are the same franchise (which I concede). I just think the encyclopedia would be more user friendly and more useful if there were separate articles named "Kansas City Athletics" and "St. Louis Browns," in which the lead paragraph made clear that these teams were the same franchises that we now know as Oakland and Baltimore. BRMo (talk) 23:45, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
The other option to solve this issue is one that has previously been discussed, and that is to change the team-name redirects to the appropriate section of the team history article, which would be more appropriate and pertinent. KV5(Talk • Phils)00:33, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I don't see why it wouldn't be better to have full articles. I think we'd probably have better coverage of the St. Louis Browns if they had their own article, rather than being limited to a few paragraphs in the Orioles article. Also, it's generally more difficult to encourage and maintain complicated links to sections of articles than to simply have an article with the historical team's name. BRMo (talk) 00:45, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Who says they are "limited"? The coverage may currently be limited, but that's probably because it's in the wrong location. Rather than a "few paragraphs" in the main team article, there is much more room to write appropriately encyclopedic coverage in a history article (and there is definitely room for expansion in History of the Baltimore Orioles). This should then be summarized in a paragraph or two in the main. We do a disservice to the franchises by not keeping them together. What would the article "Tampa Bay Devil Rays" be? Likewise the "New York Highlanders", the "Houston Colt .45s", and the "Philadelphia Quakers"? KV5(Talk • Phils)00:57, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
You're introducing straw men arguments. I don't favor of separate articles for the Rays/Devil Rays or the Highlanders/Yankees, etc. And I'm not suggesting that we eliminate the apparently sacred franchise histories—there's no reason the St. Louis Browns can't be covered in the main Orioles team article and in more depth in a separate "St. Louis Browns" article. In fact, I don't think the "Washington Nationals" article has a problem in maintaing the franchise history—there's a short section on the history of the Expos along with a link to the in-depth "Montreal Expos" article for those who want to learn more about the Expos history. And unlike the other MLB team articles, a wikilink to "Montreal Expos" takes the reader directly to the most appropriate place. In contrast, getting to the history of the St. Louis Browns takes about 4 clicks. A link to "St. Louis Browns" takes you to a disambiguation page, from which you click on "Baltimore Orioles," then you scroll down to "Milwaukee Brewers" to find the link to "History of the Baltimore Orioles" (but don't click on "St. Louis Browns" in the TOC, or it will take you past the link), and finally, when you get to the "History of the Baltimore Orioles," you can click on "St. Louis Browns" in the TOC. The one click approach seems much more sensible. BRMo (talk) 02:38, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Support I don't see some of the wiki-issues being brought up as arguments against a merger (article size, linking, moving material to "History of..." artcles, etc.) don't seem to be particularly difficult issues to deal with and overcome. The real crux of the "oppose" argument seems to be what Resolute said above, that merging "robs the reader of the unique history of the Expos," which is an argument really coming from the the spectrum of WP:ILIKEIT/WP:IDONTLIKEIT and well into the realm of the subjective. Bottom line is that the Expos aren't unique (other than the fact the Youppi is a uniquely terrible mascot, though when I see Wally the Green Monster on TV, I realize that maybe he wasn't that unique after all, but I digress...), and that as a franchise they and the Nationals are one and the same. I don't see any reason why the entirety of the current Expos article can't be moved to the appropriate history articles. Also, I concur with the arguments put forward above by Dewelar and KV5. - Masonpatriot (talk) 01:32, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Truth be told, the only two arguments supplied by supporters, at present, are WP:IDONTLIKEIT and WP:WAX. Neither of which comes remotely close to addressing my concerns about the effect it will have on the coverage of the history of the Expos (or any other franchise). I would also add WP:NOTPAPER as a reason to oppose, while honestly, you have not offered a single reason why the articles should be merged, aside from "that's the way we do it". Resolute01:36, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
The reason the articles should be merged is the same reason "Cassius Clay" and "Muhammad Ali" are the same article, and "Kresge's" and "Kmart" are the same article. They address the same subject. There is no need to present anything further. -Dewelar (talk) 01:52, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
And yet, Province of New York and New York State are separate even though it's the same land mass, so WP:WAX isn't exactly a trump card in your favour. Or how about Byzantium, Constantinople, and Istanbul? We could play that game forever. Also, there is a world of difference between a person taking on a pseudonym and a franchise relocation. As to your comments above, I see no reason why your "History of..." superstructure can't include an article at the name of the previous incarnation of a franchise. Going back to my argument above, what do you think provides more information to the reader? The way the San Francisco Giants article cluster is set up, or the way the Calgary Flames/Atlanta Flames clusters are? Resolute02:09, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
On the contrary, this is not WP:WAX. This is, essentially, about a violation of [first guideline of article creation - don't create an article for something that already exists. Granted, it's a bit ex post facto, but I'm sure I can find other Wikipedia guidelines about duplication of subject matter if I search enough. Province of New York is different from New York State because they were different entities. The three names for the city you list were part of different entities as well. The differences among them are far greater than simply the changing of their name. I assume that if I continue to list examples, you will continue to falsely cite WP:WAX, but how else does one demonstrate the validity of this type of argument. Your particular argument is no less WP:WAX than mine at the moment, and possibly considerably moreso.
Oh, and "Muhammad Ali" is not a pseudonym. That is the man's name, which he changed in 1964. Perhaps the Expos/Nationals situation is more comparable to that of Cat Stevens, who both changed his name (to Yusuf Islam) AND relocated (to Iran). -Dewelar (talk) 03:33, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Actually its not a violation of "don't create an article for something that already exits". The information that exists in both articles is different and always will be different which is what that guideline is about. Its about duplication of information. Yes, the franchise that allows the team to play is the same. But the team itself is different. -Djsasso (talk) 03:40, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
The "team" is different every time a player is added to or removed from the roster. That doesn't mean we need new articles each time either. The Expos article is about a historical era of the franchise now known as the Washington Nationals. The Montreal Expos have no existence outside that franchise. -Dewelar (talk) 03:54, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes, and there is extensive precedence in all areas of historical articles (on any subject not just sports) that different eras have different separate articles. Why baseball wants to be different than almost the entire wikipedia is beyond me. I would actually expect the baseball project to be the ones clammering to keep them separate because in the end a merge would hurt baseball fans in that valuable information would be lost. Our goal here is to have more information not less. I somehow don't see you copying this entire article into the Nationals article which is what WP:UNDUE would require you to do because the Expos had 35 years compared to the Nationals 5. Nationals fans would be outraged and would almost instantly start deleting stuff they felt was not important. -Djsasso (talk) 04:06, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I still don't understand why anything would be "lost" if the text of this article is moved to something like "History of the Montreal Expos" or similarly named page. No response needed until that gets explained to me. -Dewelar (talk) 04:19, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
A number of reasons, the information would be more suited to the main Washington Nationals page because its about the franchise after all isn't it? Relegating it to a history page introduces more clicks for a user to find it, ending up in a user giving up if all they are looking for is Montreal Expos information, which in turn leads to them being less likely to expand said information. Secondly there are page size guidelines, merging the expos page which is already at the upper limit of the page size guidelines with the nationals history would put the page well over the limit for page size which would mean the pages would have to be split into two pages or information would have to be deleted. Guess which one nationals fans who probably care less about the expos history would do? And even if they did choose to split, where do you think they would split the articles, where the team moved is the most logical which gets us exactly right back to where we are now. -Djsasso (talk) 04:26, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
You realize that quite a few baseball franchises already have "History of" pages, right? There's a whole navbox for it. In fact, Montreal Expos is right there on that template. That said, I am perfectly fine with a page existing detailing the Montreal Expos history. It just shouldn't be called "Montreal Expos". Pull out the parts about the franchise, add them to Washington Nationals as necessary, and move the historical breakdown to "History of the Montreal Expos" (or "History of the Washington Nationals, 1969-2004"). Problem solved, from my POV. -Dewelar (talk) 15:09, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
And WP:COMMONNAME says to use the name most people will type in a search box when looking for that information. People looking for information on the Montreal Expos are going to type Montreal Expos, not History of the Montreal Expos. -Djsasso (talk) 15:19, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
And typing in "Montreal Expos" will bring them either to the proper section of the current article for the franchise ("Washington Nationals") or the "History of the Montreal Expos" article (whatever it might actually be titled) or, at the absolute worst, the Montreal Expos section of the "History of the Washington Nationals" article. This is no different from any other redirect on Wikipedia. You've come back around to arguing in favor of having a separate "Cassius Clay" article. -Dewelar (talk) 16:38, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Actually I haven't because Cassius Clay is just name change and the subject of the article is still the same person, whereas the expos article talks about different subject matter, the history of the team while in montreal and the history of the team in washington. I don't actually see where there is a benefit to naming the article History of the Montreal Expos (or whatever) instead of Montreal Expos other than the WP:ILIKEIT statements you and other supporters are making. How is the article made better by changing the name. -Djsasso (talk) 16:47, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Because it would be more accurate. The Montreal Expos ARE the Washington Nationals now, in the same way that Cassius Clay IS Muhammad Ali now. The subject matter IS the same...unless you're saying that if Cassius Clay happened to also move from Louisville to Chicago at the same time he changed his name to Muhammad Ali, only THEN would we require a new article. -Dewelar (talk) 17:19, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Yes the franchise is the same, but a franchise just means the person has the right to place a team in the league. Just like you assuming you are old enough have the franchise to vote which allows you to place a vote in elections. But that does not mean your vote is the same vote each election because its the same franchise. The Montreal Expos ARE a separate entity than the Washington Nationals. They just both used the same franchise to be allowed to play in the league. I think the problem here is that people get confused between the actual meaning of a franchise and what common slang considers a franchise. -Djsasso (talk) 17:26, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
This is a valid point. As I implied above, the Giants are technically the same franchise as the Troy Trojans of 1880-82. However, there was no continuity of existence between the two clubs. The same is not true of the Expos/Nationals. Like it or not, they are THE SAME ENTITY. All the team did was move and change its name. -Dewelar (talk) 20:36, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Location changes are a big deal to a sports franchise. A total change in fan base, revenue, oftentimes ownership, etc. By comparison, almost nothing changed to the world's perception of Clay/Ali because of his name change. Wknight94talk17:31, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
If you honestly think that the world's perception of Clay didn't change when he became Muhammad Ali, then I think you'd best do some reading. -Dewelar (talk) 20:36, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
In the case of Muhammad Ali, his conversion to Islam was a milestone in his life, but splitting out all of his life as Cassius Clay into a separate article would hide key events in his life from his main article. This would make it difficult to follow the narrative of his life and how his character developed through the years, and so a split on this basis would not assist in the readability of his biography. Isaac Lin (talk) 21:25, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I don't disagree with this, obviously. What I don't see is how this makes it different from taking a part of the history of the Nationals, leaving behind a stub paragraph in the main article, and calling it good. If anything, for those arguing it, the current Washington Nationals article gives undue weight to its tenure as the Nationals at the expense of its history as the Expos. -Dewelar (talk) 22:15, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Although teams try to sell the illusion of continuity to fans, in reality the Expos of 1969 have nothing to do with the Nationals of 2009, and there is no narrative to maintain between the two incarnations of the franchise. Since the move is a natural point of divergence in the franchise's history, and one emphasized by the Nationals largely ignoring their past, it seems apt to manage the size of the article by splitting out the Montreal phase of the franchise. Isaac Lin (talk) 02:03, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
It occurred to me that there is a difference between this situation and other team moves. Since MLB purchased the Montreal franchise with the original intent to move eliminate the team, this was akin to revoking the franchise right from the Montreal owners, and moving the team instead essentially issued a new and then issuing a franchise right to the Washington owners. However, given that the most visible assets of the Expos, its players, were inherited by the Washington-based franchise, from a fan perspective, the Washington team maintains continuity with the Montreal team. Isaac Lin (talk) 06:47, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
Regarding changing the name of the Montreal Expos article to be more accurate, I am reminded of an earlier discussion on linking a team's name to a specific season page for that team, where Dewelar argued that it provided a more accurate context for someone seeking more information. There are some similarities to this discussion, where I think some are arguing that having an article called Montreal Expos provides greater context for someone following a link about the Expos. Isaac Lin (talk) 21:33, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
If they are, in fact, arguing that, I disagree that linking them to part of an historical superstructure is providing them less context than simply sending them to an article called "Montreal Expos". If anything, there is more opportunity to provide context in an historical superstructure, because we are not forcing ourselves to be limited to one article to contain all things Expos. This would be true of all other continuous franchises (a term of art I am now inventing to differentiate from "franchise", which Djsasso insists on interpreting as "franchise slot") that cared to use the same superstructure. -Dewelar (talk) 22:15, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Again, summary style applies, and there would be no need to be limited to just one article for all information about the Expos. Isaac Lin (talk) 01:47, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
This most certainly is WP:WAX on your part, because the best argument you have is "we do it this way on other articles so we should here too". Plain and simple. Your dismissal of the Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul example is comically hilarious in context. That's kosher because the change was "far greater than simply changing their name". Not only have you self-defeated your example of how our argument supposedly means Clay and Ali should have separate articles (just a simple name change), but you also set an argument that "more than a simple name change justifies separate articles". Well, I would suggest that a franchise relocation is considerably more than just a name change, especially when you consider this was country to country, and the historical significance of the Montreal Expos as an entity. Whether you like it or not, Istanbul by any name is the same city. Different overlords, different epochs in its history, but it is the same entity. As an analogue to a relocated franchise, I think it proves my point quite well. The Montreal Expos represent a different epoch in history of the franchise that is now the Washington Nationals. There is absolutely no reason to merge them together. Resolute03:54, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
First of all, I will admit that my knowledge of the city currently known as Istanbul is not what it could be, so my argument there may not be a good one. I can do some research and see if there is an underlying Wikipedia reason that the articles are structured as they are. If not, then perhaps I can admit you have a point.
In the meantime, though, I suggest you think for a while about what you say above. You realize that by saying this, you are implying that every Wikipedia guideline that exists can be boiled down to WP:WAX. I don't think you want to be making that argument. -Dewelar (talk) 04:04, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm sorry I am completely lost as to where he said that all wiki guidelines boil down to wp:wax. All I am seeing is him saying that your argument that because other baseball articles were done this way that the expos should be as well is a wax argument. Which is also true of some of your other examples. Basically what wax says, is that you should never point to other articles as reasons why an article should or shouldn't exist/be delete/be merged. You should argue it based on its own merits, basically you should have a reason why the article would be better off merged. What problem would merging the articles solve. Because I can list a very long list of new problems created if they were merged. So if we merge them there should be more problems solved than created. -Djsasso (talk) 04:14, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
It's hard to miss, because it's the very first sentence of his last response. "[W]e do it this way on other articles so we should here too" is pretty much the definition of the essence of most, if not all, wiki-guidelines. -Dewelar (talk) 04:19, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
My comment about WAX relates to arguments, not guidelines or policies. Ultimately, we are in agreement that they are parts of the same franchise. The argument lies in whether being the same franchise mandates that they be combined into one article. The only reason brought forth (not necessarily by you) to defend that position is "we do it that way". Resolute04:20, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough. As I've said, I believe franchises that have a continuous existence should have one article, for that specific reason. Breaking down a history into several articles, or perhaps even having a separate article for Washington Nationals franchise, with separate informational articles at both Washington Nationals and Montreal Expos specifying that they are part of a continuous history of that franchise, might be a way around this problem. -Dewelar (talk) 04:26, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Djsasso, regarding your comment on relegating information on the Expos to a history page: in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Baseball/Archive_12#Montreal_Expos you replied to a suggestion about renaming Montreal Expos to History of the Montreal Expos by saying, "Yeah I don't think most people disagree with doing this. It the simple wipe out of the history that merging the pages would mean that most people disagree with." Can you clarify your position? Isaac Lin (talk) 04:51, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Strongly and unapologetically support Look, the main issue is whether these teams should have their own pages versus "footnotes" in the current history of the team. To suggest that each former team should have its own page is cumbersome to a typical user. How much could be said of the original Baltimore Orioles in their two years before coming some team called the New York Highlanders. And where do we draw the line on what constitutes a "new team"? Does a name change mean they should be split, too? For teams that have moved a few times (Braves, A's), why would we write three separate articles about the same topic? The main goal of the Wikipedia project is to make information accessible to everyone, but if you're spreading it out over numerous pages, how does that help anyone that doesn't have an agenda? EaglesFanInTampa13:29, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Comment Side note, I'd like to point out that, of the people opposed to this, all but two are from Canada. First off, leave your bias at the door; we don't want, and can't have it here. Also, if you're so gung-ho about the team now, if you would have done your part (before 2004 when the deal was already done, despite what Selig tells you), this conversation would have never happened. Why do I go with that "attack"? Because there's talk that I may lose my team if attendance doesn't pick up soon, and I'm encouraging everyone I can to do their part to stop it. You should have thought about this before it was too late. EaglesFanInTampa13:29, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
It could also be said that those of you wishing to merge the articles are using your bias to try and merge them. Most other sports teams have separate articles when they move. Baseball is the exception not the rule. Name changes do not constitute a new team as has been mentioned in the past arguments. By trying to cram all information onto one page, that information won't be there at all for the average reader and therefore won't be accessible at all. As for teams that have moved 3 times, you wouldn't be writing articles for the same thing 3 times, you would be writing information about the teams in the location they were at at that time, allowing you to have more information accessible like you claim you want. By having it all on one page you are restricted to having approximately 65k worth of information which is hardly enough information to properly cover all incarnations of the team. This has absolutely nothing to do with trying to save the team but about trying to make sure that more information on Wikipedia is accessible. It is more cumbersome for the average user who types in Montreal Expos in the search to have to search through Washington Nationals informationn to find what they are interested in. And for people who type in Washington Nationals it is much more cumbersome for them to have to search through Expos information to find the information they want. A merge of the two is by far the more cumbersome option to the average user. -Djsasso (talk) 13:43, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
How is a single link and a single click burdensome? You still haven't answered why cutting out information/history is a better option than having to click a single link. Other than to say lets be consistent. You have listed a number of baseball teams that have moved and a football teams and a couple NBA teams, I give you that. But guess what? The NBA, NFL and MLB aren't the only leagues in those sports. I can list I am sure well over 50 examples for basketball for sure of teams that have moved and have separate articles, I can also list a pretty large list of baseball teams that have moved with separate articles. I haven't looked at football so I am not sure there. But again these are only 4 sports...there is soccer, lacrosse, aussie rules football, cricket...and that is just sports, I can move on to histories of companies that split their history articles up into multiple articles...histories of cities, countries, wars.... WP:SPLIT and WP:PAPER actually tell you to split up articles at such divisions. At 66k large this article already falls into the point where WP:SPLIT says to separate at the most logical point, which in this aticles case is the team moving. -Djsasso (talk) 14:26, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
This is funny, since Resolute was arguing earlier that a single link and a single click WAS burdensome, and that was why we SHOULDN'T merge. As far as merged pages, up until a few weeks ago there was only one article that covered all three Kansas City Cowboys baseball teams, and also only one article to cover both Syracuse Stars teams. I was the one who split them out into separate articles (as I did for the three Indianapolis Hoosiers a while back). I can guarantee you that there are no MLB teams other than the Expos that are treated in the way that these two are, In fact, merging is ongoing for other teams that are discovered to be the same franchise (see St. Louis Maroons/Indianapolis Hoosiers for a recent example). As for minor league teams, WP:BASEBALL has a separate guideline for handling them. In fact, one of my future projects will be splitting out the MLB team from the current Louisville Colonels article, which combines the MLB team with the minor league team. That, IMO, is just idiotic. -Dewelar (talk) 15:09, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
If I made that argument, that is news to me, since it is really quite the opposite. If I want to read and learn about the Montreal Expos, I don't want to be hunting and pecking through an article about the Washington Nationals, of whom I have no interest whatsoever. The way things are proposed, I'm forced to waste time by either searching through an article full of irrelevant information, or having to make multiple clicks to find whatever article has what little information I can get. Resolute23:35, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
And, of course, this is also quite wrong. You seem to be operating without some information, because it doesn't have to be that way. You may not be familiar with the concept of sectional linking, or (even better) the anchor template, to which I myself was only introduced recently. Through the usage of these, you can type "Montreal Expos" into the search field and, even if you are being brought to the Nationals page, the worst that would happen would be that you are brought directly to the section of the article that deals with the Expos. No hunting necessary, no clicks necessary. -Dewelar (talk) 01:12, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately, it's impossible to devise a site that will only show exactly what each person is looking for immediately (without some form of mind reading). The best we can do is to figure a reasonable layout based on the style guidelines of the site, and provide means for navigation between different views. As I understand it, since any proposed renaming would leave a redirect in place from the term Montreal Expos, there would essentially be no change in how easily it would be to reach the article on the Montreal Expos, and all the existing content would remain, so there would be no additional information not directly related to the Expos. (And I've already asked what would be the practical, substantive benefit behind one article name versus another.) Isaac Lin (talk) 01:47, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
"I'd like to point out that, of the people opposed to this, all but two are from Canada. First off, leave your bias at the door; we don't want, and can't have it here." - FanInTampa, I'd ask that you kindly review WP:Assume good faith -- making unfounded and silly bias accusations is not helpful. Obviously, an article about a Canadian baseball team is going to draw the interest of some Canada-based editors - that does not mean that anyone is automatically biased, esp. when Canada has barely been mentioned in this discussion. You wouldn't appreciate it if I tried to discount your opinions because you weren't from Canada ("FanInTampa isn't even Canadian, he obviously doesn't understand or appreciate the issues" or something equally ridiculous), so please show the same courtesy to others and hold off on the accusations. Thanks. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:52, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough. My apologies on that because you're right. However, that's not the basis for my arguement, which is why I left it out of my "Support" vote; I was just (unjustifiably, I can see now) making an observation. My arguement still remains as listed in my "Support", however.
Well said. That is very kind of you to apologize, and much appreciated. I understand that you did not mean to give offence, and it is also clear that the comments about bias had nothing to do with your main points in support of the proposal. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:02, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
To address those comments, however, I would note that the Expos article also falls firmly within the boundaries of WP:CANADA, and it seems natural that the majority of people interested in this article would be Canadian. The team does have a large place in Canadian sports history, and Montreal's cultural history that really transcends the Expos/Nationals franchise as a single entity. Resolute15:30, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Same can be said for the Philadelphia Athletics and WP:PHILLY (in which the stadiums they played are part), and it looks like they are part of WP:KC as well. In fact, they have much more history in Philadelphia than they do in either other city, having won more pennants and World Series on the East Coast than the West, and certainly more than the Expos. Yet, no one is fighting over splitting them out. I understand they are part of the Canadian culture and it's a shame they're not anymore, but the same can be said of the other teams that spend 50+ years in their old homes - something the Expos never did. Time has moved on and the main issue remains.
From a purely empirical standpoint, the Philadelphia A's, Brooklyn Dodgers, and New York Giants all have more history (being teams from the turn of the century) and more achievements than Montreal ever had; no one, except the people wanting to keep the Montreal article separate, is arguing to split them out. Why, with less years to chronicle and achievements to extol, should they be any different than other relocated teams with much longer histories and storied pasts? EaglesFanInTampa16:00, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
They shouldn't be different, they should all be split out as well. I am arguing that this one should be separate because I believe they all should be separate. Not because this is the Montreal Expos specifically. And if you read the discussion on this topic there are some other editors who aren't "Expos fans" who are arguing the others should be split out as well. It is an extremely ridiculous situation that teams that have 50 years in one place are merged into a couple small paragraphs on the page of another team which only exists for a much shorter time. In fact it violates WP:UNDUE because it gives more weight to the new incarnation than the old. -Djsasso (talk) 16:09, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
It doesn't violate that policy as it's the same team. If you move from one city to the next - let's say, in my case, Philly to St. Pete - the history you accumulated over the past - in my case, 20 years - is no longer valid and pertinent to my life in St. Pete? The only exceptions to this rule are the Cleveland Browns pre-1995 and the Seattle Supersonics. The NFL and NBA both ruled that the teams that "replaced" them on the schedule were not their successor teams due to circumstances where management went through the relocation process incorrectly. When it's regarded as such by the governing bodies, then I can see why a separate article would appear; they truly are exceptions based upon certifiable means. When the A's moved, they took their team, colors, name, roster, records, stats, and anything regarding them to Kansas City, then subsequently Oakland. The same goes with the Expos and Nationals. The retired numbers may have "stayed" (though, from what I understand, they belong to the Canadiens now - not sure how that works), but everything else in the record books have moved from Montreal to DC: the colors (though now modified), the roster, the management, the stats, the records, and everything else. Same can be said of the Nordiques/Avalanche, Jets/Coyotes, and Whalers/Hurricanes, but those follow different rules based on WP:NHL. What am I missing in my explanations? EaglesFanInTampa16:23, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I think you completely missed the point on how it violates wp:undue. It violates it because the new location has more information than the old location if you merge the information to a single little section about this history. When to use the expos example the nationals page should be comprised of 35/40ths of the article while nationals information should comprise 5/40ths of the article. It is placing undue weight on one portion of the history of the team, ie the recent history. -Djsasso (talk) 16:34, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Category:Chronology of World War II All these articles are the same war, yet there is more than one article describing each different section of the history that is World War II. Funny how that works eh? -Djsasso (talk)
The numbers retired by the Expos were commemorated by the Montreal Canadiens on a banner unveiled when Youppi! was introduced as the new Habs mascot. The numbers do not "belong" to the Canadiens in any meaningful way, though. Isaac Lin (talk) 22:05, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Arbitrary break
Regarding the history of the Expos being "given" to Baseball Quebec, this was never mentioned in any of the press coverage when the Expos were moved to Washington. Plus, MLB has not wiped the slate clean as it considers all of the records established by the Montreal team to be records for the Washington franchise.
If I understand correctly, the net effect of this proposal would be to rename the Montreal Expos article to something like History of the Montreal Expos, or History of the Washington Nationals in Montreal, with a redirect from Montreal Expos to the newly named article? Since the Washington Nationals article already has an appropriate pointer to the Montreal Expos article, I don't think any merge is required. If this is the case, then is there any practical, substantive difference between the current situation and the proposed one? Isaac Lin (talk) 02:32, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Out of curiousity, why does WP:BASEBALL get to decide consensus for an article that also falls under the scope of the Canada/Quebec/Montreal wikiprojects without their input? Resolute04:22, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
As is evident, this discussion is not limited to contributors to WP:BASEBALL; everyone is of course free to express their opinion in this discussion. This does not preclude continuing to move forward based on a discussion that took place on the WP:BASEBALL talk page. Isaac Lin (talk) 04:35, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
No I believe the history being awarded to Baseball Quebec came about later. I'd have to do some digging but I do remember it being mentioned either online or in a print article. However, take a look at the Washington Nationals Media Guide, there are few franchise records mentioned that include the Expos. The majority of their franchise records are "Baseball in Washington" records. This to me shows that the Nationals themselves have divested themselves as being part of the Expos and instead consider themselves rather in the lineage of the two Senators teams.
Since it seems like the majority of posters seem to be in favour of adding History of to the title of the page, my question is what harm does it do then to leave the title as is? What does adding "History of" to the title do? I'm not necessarily against it, but this argument has turned from merging it into the Nats article to revising the title of the page. What encyclopedic reason is there to add "History of" to this page? All it does is breaks all the existing Montreal Expos links on the stats lists, former player lists etc. At worse if this name change is utterly necessary, then I call for a redirect to that page when putting in simply Montreal Expos. Shootmaster 44 (talk) 06:03, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any history being "awarded", and this is a moot point when there is no team in Montreal and MLB treats all Expos records as part of the Washington franchise. Also, if looking at this specific thread, I don't believe it is accurate to say a majority of posters is in favour (yet) of adding "History" to the title. Isaac Lin (talk) 13:03, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Speedy strong snow oppose - Nothing new is being argued since the many previous attempts at merging; there is nothing to suggest the previous consensus has changed. A merge would also be unwieldy - the Expos article size at 65k and the Nationals at a decent 47k, and WP:SPLIT would recommend that the combined 112k would "[a]lmost certainly should be divided". The Expos/National move is a logical division point given the unique international aspects of the Expos, their significance within Canada, etc. Dl2000 (talk) 02:41, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Oppose merge. And support splitting the other baseball articles where applicable. It's silly to think that the New York Giants with their extensive history and numerous championship teams and Hall of Fame players and managers, isn't a worthy article subject, to be treated as just an era of the "San Francisco Giants" (San Francisco is still looking for championship #1). I'm not saying a separate article should read as though there were no connection, but surely enough content could be found that even the Kansas City Athletics could be an article unto itself. Wknight94talk03:40, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
With a couple sources (and access to a Seattle newspaper archive) I could write you a decent, albeit short, article on the Seatle Pilots. Resolute04:00, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Oppose merge for the same reasons already cited. I'd also favour the baseball project rethinking its current practice a bit — given the need to split long articles into multiple spinoffs, a change of franchise name and location is probably the single most logical break point for spinoffs. All defunct National Hockey League teams, for instance, have their own separate articles regardless of where the franchise moved to afterward. Minus one or two redirects, almost all defunct NFL teams have their own separate articles. I'm simply not seeing a compelling reason why MLB should be different in this regard. Bearcat (talk) 18:43, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Oppose. The way the articles are divided now makes perfect sense and is what any reader would expect. The Nationals article deals with the entire history of the franchise with a link to further information about the Expos years here. A reader simply interested in the Montreal years goes directly here. IAR and do what makes the encyclopedia better and this does. The baseball project guidelines here simply do not makes sense here. DoubleBlue (talk) 20:44, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Weak Oppose - Although generally sympathetic to the merge (the 1969 Expos are no less relevant to the 2009 Nationals than the 1969 Mets are to the 2009 Mets, for example), the two articles are too large to support such a merge. And the breakpoint of the team move seems to be the most logical place to break. And when the San Francisco Giants or Los Angeles Dodgers get large enough to split, it probably makes sense to do those splits at the point the teams abandonned New York. Rlendog (talk) 03:05, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Oppose merge. Expos have plenty of history. So do NY Giants, etc. I think the disparity is likely just an accident of history...Wikipedia was created long after the Giants moved to SF. Just as it's taking a long time to go back and write articles about older U.S. Senate elections, it may take a while to get the older sports franchises properly split and developed. There's no urgency that everything be consistent, as long as the reader is adequately informed. Keep this one as is; I'd support splitting NY Giants into its own article. -Pete (talk) 03:38, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
Clearing away strawmen
I believe a lot of effort is being wasted debating points that are either not being asserted by either side, or are being misinterpreted. To try to move forward, here are some general principles that I believe are in alignment with Wikipedia guidelines and what has been discussed so far:
Wikipedia summary style supports splitting of articles where the topic being split out meets general notability criteria and the navigation and readability of the subject is improved.
To allow for links that, by context, are intended to point to a specific version of a franchise, there should be a section or article for each franchise version located in a given city. Redirects can be used as necessary to make it easy to refer to each specific version.
To allow for links that, by context, are intended to point to the entire history of a franchise, there should be an article for the franchise. (Though theoretically it could be a section within another article, it is unlikely that a franchise would not meet general notability criteria at a level to deem it worthy of a separate article.) This does not imply that the article must be the only one describing the franchise, as summary style can still be used as appropriate.
Though other articles can be examined for guidance, they are not necessarily normative for every similar circumstance, as improvements can always be introduced.
Hopefully these guidelines can be agreed upon so that further discussion can avoid rehashing these points?
Any changes to the current articles or their names should still align with these principles. Isaac Lin (talk) 20:16, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
To be honest, I can't see this becoming a successful merge request. I can't close it as an admin since I am involved, but if I were an uninvolved admin happening upon this discussion already its clearly no-consensus to move at worst (Tho at 63% opposed it does fall in consensus no-merge range) which means the article defaults to where it is. We can of course keep debating it as that is the nature of consensus building and its only been proposed for a day and can try to see what can be done to help with the concerns those who want it merged feel exist which from what I can make out above, the only issues I can see that they have are that the other 29 MLB articles are done this way, and that having it named Montreal Expos implies that its a separate franchise. As for the first issue, I am not sure how we can reduce this issue, its hard to imagine that a project dedicated to getting baseball information out wouldn't want separate articles for different parts of a franchise timeline because different editors with different personal allegiances are more likely to expand an article that fits their interest than one that doesn't but just happens to be the current version of their franchise. This in turn means that the encyclopedia in regards to baseball information expands which can only be a good thing. As for the second issue I don't really see this as being an issue at all because right in the lead of the articles it should say that the team moved to or moved from wherever they were last and that they are the same franchise which should negate any mistaken impression. -Djsasso (talk) 20:37, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I agree that there is no visible consensus at this point. I also agree that the current articles make it absolutely clear that the Washington Nationals are the successor team for the Montreal Expos and the same franchise from MLB. I wish though that you would have avoided the strawmen I just explicitly discredited: Wikipedia summary style still remains applicable, regardless of what names are given to each article, and other articles do not necessarily dictate what should be done in all similar circumstances. Isaac Lin (talk) 20:50, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
Agreed on all counts. As a merge this is not going to happen. As a conversion to some kind of historical superstructure, this still might have a chance, but peddling this kind of fiction helps no one except the peddler. -Dewelar (talk) 20:54, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
A rename would be pointless, and I expect would be similarly opposed. An article titled "Montreal Expos" is the most logical (and common) name for an article about this franchise's history in Montreal. Resolute23:28, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
I am sorry what part of their argument did I misrepresent? (ie use a straw man arguement) I thought I was being pretty true to what has come up in the discussion. And to be honest I can barely make out what you were trying to say above. -Djsasso (talk) 03:49, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
You worry about there no longer being a separate article for the Expos (which you feel would be more conducive to encourage updates on the team), however those who are arguing for a so-called merge on grounds other than personal preference do not object to having a separate article in accordance with summary style, albeit with a different name (and you had indicated previously that you did not object to a renaming). Also, you brought up alignment with the other 29 team articles as a key argument, but since improvements can always be introduced that differ from the current situation, this is only a minor point. I believe you have raised some interesting points but they often get drowned out as you repeat the same counter-arguments to points that have already been conceded or do not need countering, so I'd as soon you concentrate on arguments for unresolved issues, rather than those that have been dealt with. Isaac Lin (talk) 04:29, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps you are reading a different discussion than me, I still see them arguing that this page be the same as the 29 others as being their main argument. I don't see anywhere that they have conceded that this should not be the case. So I very much see this issue as unresolved. Also just so we are clear I do object to a renaming, my comments that I could accept a rename was on the basis that there was no other option and then the page itself was going to be gone. Also I do see the others objecting to having a separate article based on summary style, the whole argument above is about them rejecting the idea of using summary style. -Djsasso (talk) 04:55, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
I think I can say, with complete certainty, that you are correct that everyone on this side of the aisle wants all 30 continuous franchises to be treated in the same way. The question, of course, is why anyone should want any one such entity treated differently. The question for us is the manner of the treatment -- do we (a) change the one to match the 29, (b) change the 29 to match the one, or (c) change all 30 to something new. -Dewelar (talk) 05:33, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
To clarify my understanding of Wikipedia guidelines, though the same guiding principles ought to be used for all teams, this does not mean that the end result must be identical to what is in place now, since improvements can always be made. Since improvements can take time to enact across all teams, there can certainly be a period where the teams are different. As such, alignment is not the end goal in itself, but just the consequence of trying to improve all the articles. Regarding summary style, again, amongst those not simply stating personal preference, I do not see a rejection of summary style.
However, for argument's sake, let's accept your premises for a moment. Unless there's something new to add to the discussion, I think it would be more fruitful to move on to other aspects, since having everyone just repeat the same points isn't moving this discussion forward. Isaac Lin (talk) 13:38, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
"Treated in the same way" does not necessarily mean "identical end results", of course. What it means is that guidelines and standards should be applied in the same way across all articles dealing with similar subject matter, with the ultimate goal of achieving "perfect articles" while also recognizing that (a) the goal will likely never be achieved, and (b) perfect in this case does not mean static.
Some on the side of keeping the articles separate are arguing from the perspective that even if consensus eventually comes down on the side of all other continuous franchises remaining single articles, that the Expos are an Extra Special Pony Princess that should still be two, not because of any real quality they possess, as demonstrated by repeated discussion, but just...because they should. As valid points are brought against them, their argument shifts around to something new, or as you note back to something old that has already been addressed to the satisfaction of everyone else. That is not a rational position.
There are others who will argue that, indeed, we should change the other 29, not because it's the way it should be, but because it means that the Expos are allowed to retain their separateness. That, too, is not a rational position.
These are the reasons I have lived with the Expos being separate, and prefer not to raise the issue myself. It is the only topic within the WP:BASEBALL umbrella that truly brings out the arguments from emotion like this. Someone might come along at the project talk page now and then and say "hey, why isn't Brooklyn Dodgers (or whathave you) its own page", and someone will respond with "we keep (continuous) franchises together), and the conversation is over within a couple exchanges. Expos? Nope. It's ridiculous, but that's how it is.
I've said before that we'll be able to do bring the Expos article into line with the other continuous franchises in a few years (there seems to be more sentiment now to do it than there was two years ago, for instance, evidence that consensus may be changing over time), but every once in a while someone feels the need to test the waters/play Don Quixote and poison the well, which probably means it'll take a little longer to happen. C'est la guerre. -Dewelar (talk) 15:07, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
With this last set of comments by Dewelar, it appears that we have reached the end of any meaningful discussion and we are now just going in circles. At this point he is simply mischaracterizing the positions of those opposed to the merger, so there is not really much point in continuing this dialogue. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:51, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Ah, of course. You believe I'm using the rhetorical device of using the "some" to mean "all" which is so popular in political circles. I assure you that I am not (though I doubt you believe that), though I also assure you that there are those who hold those positions. I do, especially, believe that there are people who honestly think that all the articles should be split into components. I find that much less objectionable than the current state, though I disagree with it. -Dewelar (talk) 16:56, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Personally I am uncomfortable with your statement that "we'll be able to do bring the Expos article into line with the other continuous franchises in a few years", as this appears to dismiss the viewpoints and objections of everyone who is not in agreement with you as being obviously incorrect. As it seems several of the participants in this discussion are failing to appreciate the viewpoints of others, the discussion does seem to be at an impasse. Isaac Lin (talk) 20:41, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
That's understandable. It was said, of course, in relation to the long-ago-established consensus of how baseball continuous franchise articles should be done -- established before the Expos even became the Nationals, if I understand correctly. I believe that, before we can even consider changing the way such subjects are treated, we must first agree that they should all be treated in the same way. I am open to changing the way they are treated, but I am not open to having them treated in an inconsistent manner. As long as there are those who insist on such inconsistent treatment, I do not believe the situation will change. There is a forest in play here, of which people lose sight when they can only see the Expo tree. -Dewelar (talk) 22:00, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Actually there never was a conscious decision to do it one way or another, it just sort of happened as far as I can find in archives. While technically no opposition to it being like that could be considered consensus, one might suggest however that the existence of the Expos article is the objection to the non-vocal consensus....I don't think I have seen a single person saying that the Expos should be an exception to anything, almost every opposer has specifically said all teams should be split out like the Expos. In fact I know a few people are already planning some articles to split other teams out. -Djsasso (talk) 04:14, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
I dread the reaction to that particular eventuality, because neither side will have consensus, and how the articles are handled will likely wind up being decided by random admins. The edit wars will be something to behold. I could be wrong, of course, and I hope I am, but I doubt it. Good luck to you all, because I want no part of this bit. I just hope that, in the end, there's some consistency to it all. -Dewelar (talk) 14:22, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
(edit conflict) That would be this here: "its hard to imagine that a project dedicated to getting baseball information out wouldn't want separate articles for different parts of a franchise timeline". First, there is the idea that the project "wouldn't want separate articles". Having things the way they are, with "Montreal Expos" and "Washington Nationals" as discrete articles, isn't the be-all, end-all of how separate articles can be structured, and I and others have proposed alternatives throughout this discussion.
More importanly, however, is that buried in your argument is an implication, one that you've been making throughout the discussion, that not having this specific breakdown of articles will somehow result in less information, which you use as a bugaboo against your opponents' position. While there is a (likely slim) possibility that the proposal will result in less information, it will not be a direct causal relationship, as you would believe and as you would have others believe. It is an argument that is at best disingenuous, and at worst a deliberate attempt to paint your opponents in a bad light. Two straw men, one inside another. -Dewelar (talk) 04:33, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Your second example isn't a straw man because its my arguement, and isn't a case of me misrepresenting someone elses arguement. As for your first comment, because you personally had an alternative listed doesn't mean everyone else did. I was listing off the various issues that people throughout the discussion had. I wasn't pegging each issue to each person. Secondly "Montreal Expos" and "Washington Nationals" are the be all end all of how separate articles should be structured per WP:COMMONNAME as Resolute has mentioned above. -Djsasso (talk) 04:55, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
The second straw man, in case I wasn't clear, is that we, on this side of the aisle, accept that what you state is, in fact, correct, and that we will for whatever reason just let it happen, or that we are actually in favor of it. That is an utter falsehood. As for WP:COMMONNAME, since I am about to go to bed, I will, for now, simply state that you are wrong to use that as your main argument, because it doesn't mean what you think it means. Otherwise, redirects would be used very differently than they are. -Dewelar (talk) 05:33, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that the majority of the contributors to this discussion do not believe that a problem exists, so alternative solutions would seem absolutely unnecessary. Restructuring the articles and renaming all or part of the existing Montreal Expos article strike me as needless naming and organizational contortions to bring this article closer to a WP:BASEBALL practice that itself doesn't make any sense. The position of the merge proponents seems to boil down to two main positions -- the Expos and the Nationals are the same franchise (legal and league technicalities aside, in my view they are two teams that played at different times in differently countries, one of which is linked inextricably to the Quiet Revolution, nascent Canadian and Quebec nationalism, Canada's old money elites and Montreal during the Drapeau era -- they are distinct subjects) and we need consistency with the other 29 teams (a triumph of form over substance if I have ever heard one, esp. since I think it is baffling that we do not have a separate article named, for example, Brooklyn Dodgers). For those of us who do not find either of these positions compelling and who believe that having separate articles named Montreal Expos and Washington Nationals is the most logical, simplest and straightforward structure, any alternative solution would seem a tremendous step backwards from what we have now. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 14:01, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
As a consistancy buff, perhaps the time is coming to 'split' the other 29 MLB team articles, into their present & former incarnations. WP:HOCKEY's example is darn cool. GoodDay (talk) 15:42, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
A modest proposal
While it seems clear that this discussion is not going to resolve the deep differences of opinion about these articles, I'd like to make a more modest suggestion that I think might be acceptable to all participants. One of the main concerns expressed by those supporting a merge is that the two articles seem to ignore or reject the continuity of the franchise. On the other hand, several editors have pointed to WP:SUMMARY as a rationale for maintaining separate articles. Washington Nationals can serve as the parent article about the franchise, while Montreal Expos would play the role of a subarticle about the history of the franchise during its Montreal era. In fact, the Nationals article already has the bare bones of that structure, with a section Washington Nationals#Montreal Expos (1969–2004), which includes a "Main article" template pointing to the Montreal Expos article. However, the Expos section of the Nationals article is currently quite short—only one paragraph long—which undoubtedly contributes to the perception that the articles do not treat the team as a continuous franchise. WP:SUMMARY recommends, "Longer articles are split into sections, each about several good-sized paragraphs long. Subsectioning can increase this amount. Ideally many of those sections will eventually provide summaries of separate articles on the subtopic covered in that section..." My suggestion is that the Expos section of the Nationals article should be expanded to at least four to five paragraphs, thereby providing a short history of the Expos period in the franchise history. With this change, I think it would be clear to readers that the Wikipedia article does not treat the Expos and Nationals as separate franchises. The "Main" template will continue to point to the Expos article for a more comprehensive history of the franchise in Montreal. As several editors have observed, a full merge would result in an overly long article and would necessitate some kind of subsequent split. But there is certainly room in the Nationals article for a modest expansion of its summary of Expos history.
This is precisely what these articles are supposed to be; though not perfectly done. The Expos article does deserve more "aftermath" coverage of the Nationals and the Nationals article has not integrated the Expos history well enough yet; there is more in the intro than there is in the Expos section. DoubleBlue (talk) 22:57, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
I see that Users Isaacl and Dewelar have taken care of the expansion of both articles last night. Thanks. Since the discussion here has died down, I'm going to take down the merge templates. BRMo (talk) 12:16, 1 August 2009 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
