Talk:Westlake station (Sound Transit)

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Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 28, 2017	Good article nominee	Listed
April 13, 2018	Good topic candidate	Promoted

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on August 12, 2017.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that additional fire sprinklers were installed in Seattle's Westlake station to accommodate parties and receptions on the station's mezzanine?

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Requested move 9 December 2015

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Moved as proposed; it has correctly been noted that as a policy, avoiding unnecessary disambiguation overrides consistency in the use of disambiguators. bd2412 T 15:19, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

– Per the Sound Transit Editorial Guidelines and the Sound Transit System Map for certain instances (e.g. Tukwila). Moreover, "Link light rail" and the avoidance of "Central Link" are also preferred in those guidelines, but that's a whole different can of worms. Sounder Bruce 21:23, 9 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Westlake Station is currently a disambiguation page. --Paul_012 (talk) 03:57, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Fixed. Thanks for the heads up. Sounder Bruce 19:01, 10 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment For what it's worth, the LA Metro station has always been known as "Westlake/MacArthur Park" and I'd think that most native Angelenos would more closely associate MacArthur Park with that station than the tiny neighborhood of Westlake. I think it would be okay to use "Westlake station" for the Seattle station... but include a "Not to be confused with..." hatnote at the top of the page. --RickyCourtney (talk) 19:40, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment - Some editor who has a knee-jerk opposition to qualifiers recently renamed West Lake (MARTA station) as "West Lake station." They should've left it, and all the other MARTA station articles alone. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 23:52, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Nice try, but Westlake station is clearly distinct from either West Lake station or Westlake/MacArthur Park station. The dab page can be moved to Westlake station (disambiguation).--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:37, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It think that "University Street station" be a disambiguation page, by redirecting that to University Avenue -- 70.51.44.60 (talk) 06:15, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support, because it is now understood that the system name should not always be included. I am against random moves which produce no additional information about the subject, but this is a valid reason. Thanks. Secondarywaltz (talk) 18:46, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I support changing the name of the Westlake Page (and all the other pages) but the DSTT stations shouldn't have the "(Sound Transit)" part. With the tunnel buses, these are much more than a Sound Transit station. Also problematic, the DSTT is owned by King County, not Sound Transit. The other issue I want to bring up is that the city refers to the "Westlake Transportation Hub" that includes the DSTT station, the monorail terminal, the SLU Streetcar terminal and the many surrounding bus stops including the two bus transit "spines" (on 3rd and on Pike/Pine) and the other bus stops serving regional routes (on 2nd, 4th and 5th). I don't think there should be a separate pages on "Westlake Station" and the "Westlake Transportation Hub" so lets pick a name that can better reflect the importance of this area as a hub for transportation Seattle and the Greater Puget Sound. Also, as much as I want there to be one, there's officially no slash between Tukwila and International Boulevard --RickyCourtney (talk) 19:35, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note that some information is at Westlake Center#Public transportation hub. Secondarywaltz (talk) 19:38, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think the transportation hub information should be mentioned in the services section (since it's a city initiative but nothing really official, other than the name of the streetcar terminus). I am definitely considering a different identifier for the DSTT stations, but using anything else (e.g. Seattle, King County Metro, DSTT) would break the consistency across station names, so I'm not really sure what to do. And you are correct on Tuwkila IB, which I mistakenly thought had a slash because of the official map (but the board motion for Central Link station names has another variation). Sounder Bruce 21:06, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I'd like some thoughts on how the line name changes should be implemented. Merging all of the extensions of Central Link into a Red Line (Link Light Rail) or Link Red Line article will be quite a challenge. Sounder Bruce 21:06, 11 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Partial support: There are actually 3 components to this proposal that need to be addressed, and I have varying degrees of support for each:
1. Support the move away from "required" parentheticals.
2. Oppose "Station" being capitalized. The only reason to make it capitalized is if "Station" part of the proper name, which I don't think it is. The Sound Transit website is inconsistent with station naming, at times leaving "Station" off of the name, and other times mentioning something like "the train makes stops in x, y, z" without attaching "Station" to the locations where train stops. Given the inconsistencies, I don't think one could claim that "Station" is definitively part of the proper name. Current consensus seems to be to make "Station" lowercase unless it is definitely part of a proper name, of which a case here has not been made. (If someone can definitively prove this, then I'd support "Station" as capitalized here.) Discussion most recently to this point is at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (US stations)#At least two Amtrak Stations with capital "S". I think this needs to be determined and addressed before this RM closes - otherwise we may have another issue like at the Washington Metro articles, which dragged out for a long time and resulted in lots of RMs and 2 MRVs. (See the "Greenbelt Station" section at Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2015 April for the final discussion.)
3. Neutral on the choice of disambiguating term. For the articles requiring disambiguation, is "Sound Transit" the best disambiguator? As one not familiar with Seattle's transit system, "Sound Transit" does not help me distinguish this, whereas a disambiguator based on geography (ex "Seattle" or "Washington state") might be better.

Before anyone closes this, please at least address the station capitalization. --Scott Alter (talk) 17:04, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the station capitalization: while the website is inconsistent, the signs at the stations use the capitalized "Station" almost universally outside the platform level: Columbia City, ID/Chinatown / another (which could have warranted dropping the station because the name is so long), etc. Sounder Bruce 20:56, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion has taken place before, and was the entire basis of the Greenbelt station debacle. Ultimately, consensus was that signs are not reliable sources for capitalization with discussion mostly at WT:USSTATION#RfC: Should the USSTATION capitalization advice be adhered to, using reliable sources for what is an official station name?. Per WP:LOWERCASE, "Titles are written in sentence case. The initial letter of a title is almost always capitalized by default; otherwise, words are not capitalized unless they would be so in running text." WP:NCCAPS says, "Do not capitalize the second or subsequent words in an article title, unless the title is a proper name." And per MOS:CAPS, "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization." So there needs to be good evidence that "station" is actually part of the station's proper name to have it capitalized. Common usage should prevail, followed by 3rd party sources, and then official sources. In the first picture you linked Columbia City, there is a sign visible with just "Columbia City" without "Station" in the background across the tracks on the other platform. So there is inconsistency with the signs as well. I don't think this provides good evidence that station is part of the proper name. If you're up for some reading, there's a related essay on this type of stylistic variation at Wikipedia:Specialized-style fallacy. --Scott Alter (talk) 17:36, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Scottalter: Looks like Sound Transit agrees with you. Page DS-28 of the Signage Design Manual states specifically that the word "Station" is not part of the names of facilities with the exception of intercity rail stations and Tacoma Dome Station (which I will propose a move of in a few minutes). Sounder Bruce 01:53, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I agree that the "(Sound Transit)" form of disambiguation does not clarify the location, and "Seattle" would be a more suitable choice, in line with other station naming conventions. Secondarywaltz (talk) 17:26, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- As far as I can tell, some other systems use the operator as a disambiguator: Vancouver, Toronto, Los Angeles, and SF Muni; others use the system: Washington, D.C.; and I don't see any in the U.S. using the city. I'm not really opposed to using Seattle as the disambiguator, but it would prove problematic for stations located outside the city limits (of which there are no conflicts so far). Sounder Bruce 20:56, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - That would have been the case previously when every station here used the "(Link station)" suffix. Once you chose to break that forced system then Wikipedia:Naming conventions (US stations)#Disambiguation should probably apply. Secondarywaltz (talk) 21:10, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - I looked at that again, and it's still sadly a mess! Secondarywaltz (talk) 21:14, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - - and one final comment. Most people in the world, or perhaps even America, have never heard of Sound Transit, but many more will know Seattle. Secondarywaltz (talk)
      - Be that as it may, Sound Transit officially considers them to be "Link Light Rail" stations. This is a good reason to keep them all the same. In the meantime, Westlake Station should be redirected to the Westlake (disambiguation) page, as should West Lake station, which should also be redirected to the West Lake (disambiguation) page, while West Lake (MARTA station)'s recent renaming should be reverted, like the other MARTA stations. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 20:34, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support in general, per WP:USSTATION. Removal of the unnecessary disambiguation is an obvious no-brainer. It does seems the emerging consensus is that "station" should usually be decapitalized. Where disambiguation is needed, (Seattle) would be preferable as it's much more recognizable for readers than the system. The only exceptions would be stations that happen to be located outside Seattle in lesser-known towns, in which case the system may be more recognizable, but it doesn't seem to be an issue for any of the above stations. In other words, stations needing disambiguation should be at Pioneer Square station (Seattle).--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:37, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - You still don't get it. This isn't simply for disambiguation. These stations are part of the same system, and should be identified that way. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 18:39, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  - @DanTD: Don't you get it? Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (US stations) is the proper place to reopen the debate, not here. Secondarywaltz (talk) 18:50, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    - Yes, exactly. Wikipedia doesn't add, well, disambiguation for non-disambiguation purposes. This was already settled when the governing guideline, WP:USSTATION was adopted.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:33, 14 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Commons category?

Should the Commons category be renamed? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 04:01, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Another Believer: All of the Link station categories would need to be renamed. It's a rather minor issue, really, so I'm not rushing to do it. Sounder Bruce 04:10, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OK, no worries, I just noticed the discrepancy when I tried adjusting the Commons template. Great work on this article! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 14:23, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]