Talk:Ballarat to Daylesford railway line

Requested move

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

The result of the move request was: Move all. Jafeluv (talk) 08:17, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

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Ballarat to Daylesford railway line, Victoria → Ballarat to Daylesford railway line — These articles are uniquely named and therefore the disambiguation term "Victoria" is entirely superfluous. Under the site wide policy Wikipedia:Article Titles, names should be precise but only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously and names should be concise; i.e. a short name is to be preferred to a long one. Mattinbgn (talk) 06:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

• Bright railway line, Victoria → Bright railway line
• Colac-Ballarat railway line, Victoria → Colac-Ballarat railway line
• Echuca railway line, Victoria → Echuca railway line
• Lancefield railway line, Victoria → Lancefield railway line
• Orbost railway line, Victoria → Orbost railway line
• Port Fairy railway line, Victoria → Port Fairy railway line
• Serviceton railway line, Victoria → Serviceton railway line
• Shepparton railway line, Victoria → Shepparton railway line
• Swan Hill railway line, Victoria → Swan Hill railway line
• Toolamba–Echuca railway line, Victoria → Toolamba–Echuca railway line
• Avoca railway line, Victoria → Avoca railway line
• Eaglehawk–Inglewood railway line, Victoria → Eaglehawk–Inglewood railway line
• Kulwin railway line, Victoria → Kulwin railway line
• Mildura railway line, Victoria → Mildura railway line
• Moolort railway line, Victoria → Moolort railway line
• Robinvale railway line, Victoria → Robinvale railway line

The above list include all the lines in the two categories Category:Railway lines in Victoria (Australia) and Category:Freight railway lines in Victoria (Australia) that seem to be uniquely named. I have chosen to leave out Portland railway line, Victoria, North East railway line, Victoria on the grounds of perceived ambiguity and Oaklands railway line, Victoria because of the existence of Oaklands railway line, New South Wales. (Note that Oaklands railway line is a redlink!) The same arguments for removing the superfluous "Victoria" disambiguation term would apply to all the lines in Category:Closed regional railway lines in Victoria (Australia) and which I have not listed in this discussion merely for the reasons of keeping the above list manageable.

While there does not appear to be any formal guideline in place, the local practice in Australia is to mandatorily disambiguate all railway lines using the form [[Line, State]] with exceptions for lines linking two capital cities and for some unexplained reason, tourist and heritage lines. I can't think of any valid reason as to why this would be the case - other than by analogy with the (similarly idiosyncratic) practice of mandatorily disambiguating Australian localities.

It is clear that mandatory disambiguation of rail lines makes finding articles more difficult for readers. How can we expect a reader to know that you need to add ", Victoria" to the end of the subject's name - especially when, as is the case here, there is no redirect to the "disambiguated" name. The usual argument for mandatory disambiguation does not even apply here; i.e. to suggest that because many, if not most, articles about rail lines require disambiguation, therefore it is less confusing to be consistent across the board and disambiguate them all! This is clearly not the case.

While this proposal does not seek to change metropolitan rail lines in Melbourne or lines in other states, it is also quite obvious the same principles apply and obviously a resulting name change here would tend to give some weight to future renaming proposals in these other places. -- Mattinbgn (talk) 06:58, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I actually support this move, as railway lines are not ordinarily thought of to be part of a state. One confusing nomenclature issue - is it usual for Victorian rail lines to be known only by one end? Here in WA for instance except for the metropolitan and TransWA passenger lines, all railways are known by source and destination. Orderinchaos 07:43, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment - reply to Orderinchaos - not necessarily - many have been known otherwise 124.169.93.212 (talk) 15:50, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Support per (most of) nominator's reasoning and assume extended to all states, if successful. Victorian lines are (and were) known by destination only when there is a direct line to Melbourne.(Crusoe8181 (talk) 08:05, 17 November 2010 (UTC)).

Support, disambiguation unnecessary and even more unnatural here than in the case of towns.--Kotniski (talk) 08:52, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Support for the above reasons. Also, as another example, the iron ore railways in WA are not disambiguated either. Calistemon (talk) 09:25, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Support. I think common sense got derailed somewhere along the way.Melburnian (talk) 12:49, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment - this is also a WP:TRAINS subject issue as well - worth having a look at where they have had wider discussions on similar issues SatuSuro 15:54, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Support. No useful purpose being served by disambiguation.--Grahame (talk) 00:33, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Support per common sense. Jenks24 (talk) 06:05, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

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.