Talk:Panadura Royal College/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Move

Latest comment: 12 years ago10 comments3 people in discussion

Since this is English Wikipedia, I have moved the school to its correct English title (as verified by the prima facie evidence of its website). We use the names that schools/companies/people call themselves. I know there's some vague argument about this title only being allowed for one school, but 1) no source has ever been presented to verify that (and the argument seems highly specious since the Sri Lankan government has not actually stopped them from using the name), and 2) it simply doesn't matter--we don't post what something "should" be called according to some charter, we post based upon what reliable sources call something, in English. Where there is no English name, we use local names, but if there is an English name WP:Article titles says we must use that. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:18, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Second move was made due to the use of the full local name in English language media in the country [1] [2] [3]. Due to the RS using the local name in that form there brings about a question of common name. Further use of names that schools/companies/people call themselves could be in contrervention to use of first party sources in wiki and due to this being a government school formal naming should be adhered to. Cossde (talk) 16:45, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

This is getting silly. First Cossde wouldn't allow the English name of the school to be used stating that the Sinhala name was the official one. Now Cossde wants to use the "full local name in English" instead of the much commoner short name. It seems Cossde won't allow any Sri Lankan school to have an article name beginning Royal College... - this is reserved solely for Royal College, Colombo! BTW, of the three links provided by Cossde to justify moving Royal College Panadura to Western\Kalutara Royal College Panadura only the first mentions Western\Kalutara Royal College Panadura, the other two do not. I did a Google search for Western\Kalutara Royal College Panadura but was hard pressed to find any reference to the school by this name.

Qwyrxian, you probably aren't aware but Sri Lanka has a peculiar way of prefixing school names with their town/district/province. For example, School A in Gampaha District in Western Province, may be known as GM/School A or WP/GM/School A (see this). I guess this is to distinguish schools with similar names. This prefixing is generally only used on official lists/statistics, its rarely used in the mainstream media. It certainly isn't used in everyday speech. This prefixing can be applied to all schools in Sri Lanka. There are more than 100 school articles on Wikipedia but I could only find one, this article, which uses this prefixing in its title.

So you'll find schools called by different names in different places and it'll be difficult to ascertain which is the most common name. As such, as this English Wikipedia and to maintain the School, Town format used in other Sri Lankan school articles, I'd suggest that this article and similar articles be renamed Royal College, Xxxx where Xxxx is the town. I've provided links, mostly national English language newspapers, showing the schools being called Royal College, Xxxx below:

Panadura Rajakeeya Vidyalaya - known as Royal College, Panadura - DFT1, DM1, DM2, DM3, DM4, DN1, DN2, DN3, ESPN, SO1, SO2, SO3, SO4, ST1, ST2, ST3, TI1, TI2, TI3, TN1, TN2
Polonnaruwa Rajakeeya Madya Maha Vidyalaya also known as Royal College, Polonnaruwa - DM5, DN4, DN5, DN6, SL1, SO5, SO6, TI4, TN3, UoP
Rajakeeya Maha Vidyalaya, Telijjawila - known as Royal College, Telijjawila - DN7, DN8, SO7, SL2
Ranabima Royal College should be renamed Royal College, Ranabima so that it follows the same format.

On a related note, when I tried to add the above four schools to the Royal College article Cossde removed them stating that they didn't have "formal consent or Royal Charter for the use of prefix Royal". In order to avoid a conflict I created the Royal College (disambiguation) to capture all organisations called Royal College, even if they didn't have royal charter/formal consent. Cossde promptly removed the four schools from this article as well stating "names translated from dif language". Cossde is clearly determined not to allow any other Sri Lankan school to be called Royal College, Xxxx anywhere on Wikipedia, even a disambiguation which is supposed to be "a list..of similarly titled links". The links I've provided above show that the schools are often called Royal College, Xxxx. Sorry for the long winded post.--obi2canibe^{talk contr} 21:14, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Cossde, your position here is, simply put, ridiculous. Most of the sourced do not use the name you're recommending--even one of the sources you gave ([4] says "Royal College, Panadura, Kalutara Vidyalaya, Kalutara"), which is clearly merely appending location to the college's name. In fact, none of them use the exact version you've used here. Did you happen to check, you know, the main source: the school's own website?

So, this current name is obviously ridiculous. Furthermore, I see a clear super-majority here supporting Royal College, Panadura. That, in fact, is the title the article used to be at before Cossde moved it against policy to a Sinhala name. At this point, since consensus is clear enough, I'm moving it back. Cossde, if you believe that the current consensus is wrong, and that somehow the very clear rules at WP:Article titles don't apply here, start a requested move discussion. Qwyrxian (talk) 21:44, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Foremost Qwyrxian, please understand that your "clear super-majority" are two editors who's edits towards articles related to Royal College or sounding similar are NOT IN GOOD FAITH. Their comments on talk pages and related activity stands evidence to that. In the case of this article, my objective was to find the most accurate name, that is why I move it to it local name in the first place and a second time. However, with the use of so many different names, versions of translations in its own website, print media (RS) I see it as very difficult to established a common name for this article. Since this is a government school, I suggest we use the name used in formal government documents such as the Gazette, this will sort this matter out once in for all. Please refer to this link and this link. Cossde (talk) 13:18, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I suggest we use the name the school calls itself. In English. On its English language website. And is used in a fair number of newspaper sources. Just for my referenec, though, which of the schools on those pdfs corresponds to this school (since there are dozens, and I don't know what I'm looking for). Qwyrxian (talk) 13:28, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Panadura Royal College, is the name used in the Gazette of Sri Lanka to refer to this school. Since it is a government school this is the most accurate name which could be used in English language. Its English language website is a primary source and many RS refer to it in its Sinhala name too. Therefore this would be the most accurate naming in the English language we could find at this time. Cossde (talk) 14:40, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Ugh. A naming dispute. This will not be pretty (in my experience). I'm going to have to ask for advice elsewhere about whether or not other sources can override the main source, and then we also have to conduct surveys of reliable sources and find out what name they most often use, if we can. I cannot possibly start doing that now, but I'll get moving on it in the next week. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:08, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Well in such a case you will have to use Panadura Rajakeeya Vidyalaya, Royal College Panadura, Panadura Royal College, Western\Kalutara Royal College Panadura. Further-more please note that the primary website is a .ash.com a free website builder and has no more than three pages. Therefore the authenticity of this web site as the main source is questionable as it is not registered in the lk domain or the sch.lk domain which schools in Sri Lanka, especially government schools create their websites registering them at the Sri Lanka Domain Registrar at the University of Moratuwa. Due to this the reliability of this main source is very unreliable as we can not say for sure if it actually represents the school. However on inquiry I learned that a formal request has been made by the school for a formal website under the name WP/ KL/ Panadura Royal College here Cossde (talk) 10:37, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

My apologies that I don't have much time to devote to this right now, but the tag you placed on the tag is wrong--this is not an uncontroversial move. Cossde, are you saying that the site currently listed is not actually the school's official site? If so, we need to remove the link from the article. We're going to need to do more work to figure out what the title should be, so it's not yet time to move the article. We need to know what reliable sources call it, weigh the various names, and figure out which one best fits WP:Article titles. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:27, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

School naming issue

Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I have started a Request for Comment discussion at WP:WikiProject Schools regarding the proper name for this school and other related schools in Sri Lanka. I invite all interested editors to discuss the matter there, because I want to end the non-stop edit warring on these articles. The discussion can be found at WT:WikiProject Schools#Naming issue for public schools in Sri Lanka. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:38, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Royal and other Schools

Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Royal College's maintains a century old rivalry with S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia as well as close ties with Trinity College, Kandy. Royal has long had a familial relationship with C.M.S. Ladies' College, Colombo : several families who chose to send their sons to Royal also chose to send their daughters to Ladies College, and many Old Royalists over the years have married alumni of C.M.S. Ladies' College, Colombo.

In 1945, Minister of Education C. W. W. Kannangara began the establishment of central colleges (Madhya Maha Vidhyala) as part of the Free Education policy to provide secondary education for the rural masses, he modeled these schools on the general structure of Royal College Colombo.

Although there are several schools in parts of the island that have adapted the name Royal College in the post-independence era even after Sri Lanka became a republic in 1972; none have links to Royal College Colombo.

Check out Royal College Wayamba, Kurunegala to see how desperate User:Cossde is to avoid the word ROYAL being used by other school even though it has word ROYAL on school's crest. This on going word war is an insult to all of the wiki editors and to schools whose name is involved with the word ROYAL in English language. User:Cossde might be under the impression that other wiki editors have no common sense ?. Well good luck to User:Cossde and his school in Sri Lanka (Telangapatha (talk) 23:17, 29 August 2012 (UTC)).

Desperate ? how can one understand what the name of the school is when the logo says one-thing, the Schools address on the web page says another, papers says something else ? Cossde (talk) 06:39, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Unilaterall page move

Latest comment: 11 years ago12 comments5 people in discussion

Cossde has unilaterally moved this article from Royal College Panadura to Panadura Royal College even though I (and others) have in the past objected to this move. The reason he gave for the move - "Due to additional arguments developed to the contrary English translation of named used by school used for article" - is not accurate. No additional arguments have been given [on the talk page] and no consensus has been reached about which name use. Cossde's action is, yet again, a flagrant disregard for other editors.

Wikipedia articles should generally use their common names. It has been established that this school has no common name - it is referred to by at least three different variations of its name, even by the same source:

Royal College, Panadura - DM1, DM2, DM3, DM4, DN1, DN2, DN3, DN4, ESPN, FT1, SO1, SO2, SO3, SO4, SO5, SO6, SO7, ST1, ST2, ST3, TI1, TI2, TI3, TI4, TI5, TN1, TN2.

Royal College Panadura - DM1, DM2, DM3, DM4, DM5, DN1, DN2, DN3, FT1, LN1, LN2, LN3, LN4, SO1, ST1, ST2, ST3, ST 4, ST5, ST6, ST7, ST8, ST9, ST10, ST11, TN1, TN2.

Panadura Royal College - CT1, DM1, DM2, DN1, DN2, DN3, DN4, DN5, SO1, ST1, ST2, ST3, ST4.

The school crest shows its name to be Royal College Panadura but the sign at the school shows its name to be Panadura Royal College.

Given this impasse about which name to use, we need to use the five characteristics that decide which name to use. All three variations have the first four characteristics: Recognizability; Naturalness; Precision; and Conciseness. Where they fail is in the fifth characteristic - Consistency: Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles.

There are seven Sri Lankan "Royal College" schools with articles: Royal College, Colombo; Royal College, Horana; Royal College, Panadura; Royal College, Polonnaruwa; Royal College, Ranabima; Royal College, Telijjawila; and Royal College, Wayamba. But Cossde won't allow any Sri Lankan school article (other than his alma mater Royal College, Colombo) to start with "Royal College". As a consequence the other six "Royal College" articles are currently titled Horana Royal College; Panadura Royal College; Polonnaruwa Rajakeeya Madya Maha Vidyalaya; Ranabima Royal College; Rajakeeya Maha Vidyalaya, Telijjawila; and Royal College Wayamba, Kurunegala. Cossde has ignored the opinions of other editors and come up with spurious, often contradicting, arguments as to why these six articles can't have a title beginning "Royal College".

If we are to maintain Consistency all seven articles should follow the same format. I have already stated my preference: Royal College, Xxxx where Xxxx is the town. This the most common format used in Sri Lankan school articles - see Category:National schools in Sri Lanka, Category:Private schools in Sri Lanka and Category:Provincial schools in Sri Lanka.--obi2canibe^{talk contr} 14:39, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Obi2canibe, you are entitled to your option and the references provided on the three versions of the name seem valid (I didnt check each and everyone). However your proposal of having a consistent naming format for similar articles with the format Royal College, Xxxx where Xxxx is the town is Completely unacceptable !. That said, as you pointed such a naming format would lead to the misconception that these schools are linked or share a common link as do other school networks in Sri Lanka with the naming format <school name>, <location>. Such as S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia, S. Thomas' College, Gurutalawa, etc. or Royal Institute, Nugegoda; Royal Institute, Havelock Town; etc or Leeds International Schools or Gateway Colleges or the Lyceum International Schools. Obi2canibe, is it your objective to achieve this inaccurate ambiguity with your preference ? On the contrary I wish represent the unique identity of these schools since there all the schools named here with the exception of the first in your list were established with Sinhala names and their English translations followed. That is why they may have many different forms of English names yet have only a single form of Sinhala name. In the case of the exception-ed before, it is identified in Sri Lanka by simply as Royal College ([5], [6], [7]), therefore naming it even as Royal College (Sri Lanka) would not be totally inaccurate. Cossde (talk) 18:05, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

And because it's completely unacceptable to you, you should get your own way? Is that how Wikipedia works - what you say goes and everyone else is irrelevant? No one would believe that the schools are linked simply because they shared the common format, this misconception is only in your mind. There are a number of Sri Lankan schools with similar names:

Do people really believe that these schools are related simply because they have similar names? Or is this simply yet another excuse you have concocted to get your own way?

Your point that these schools have a unique identity in Sinhala is both irrelevant and wrong. It's irrelevant because this is English Wikipedia and we have already established that they don't have a unique English identity. It's wrong because they don't have a unique Sinhala identity either. I have no knowledge of Sinhala and yet I have found a single source - Dinamina - using two different versions of the Sinhala name:

රාජකීය විද්‍යාලය පානදුර (Royal College Panadura) - Dinamina 1; Dinamina 2
පානදුර රාජකීය විද්‍යාලය (Panadura Royal College) - Dinamina 3

And you are wrong say that the Royal College, Colombo is known simply as Royal College in Sri Lanka - a Google search for the exact phrase "Royal College, Colombo" on Sri Lankan websites produces more than 10,000 results. I have now debunked all the excuses you have given - please come up with some more to get your own way.--obi2canibe^{talk contr} 20:25, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't have much time to get into this right now, but I want to add one thing: consistency does not apply here; it's only relevant when there is widespread agreement to name a large class of articles the same way. For example, there is consistency in how to name U.S. cities (City, State), but there is not consistency for other countries. These group of articles are two small to ask for consistency. We must look to the sources. And if the sources are divided, ultimately, we'll have to go with the closest thing to a majority we can find, while keeping in mind that some sources are more important than others (i.e., high quality academic sources generally trump newspapers, and everything trumps blogs and other SPS). Qwyrxian (talk) 07:56, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I Agree with Qwyrxian, consistency dose not apply here. Obi2canibe, in your list of similar naming schools, (some of which have been created by you in you "own preference" which you seem to push on others) lists schools that have a common connection or at-least once had S. Thomas' Colleges (except the high school and you forgot to mention prep), St. Joseph's (you forgot to mention St. Joseph's College, Colombo) are/were managed by the Roman Catholic Church; same could be said of the St. Mary's as well as St. Xavier's. The Methodists schools were started by Methodist missionaries. So naturally these doesn't just seem to have a link, they are connected. Obi2canibe, since your own evidence proves otherwise I do think its a valid argument to say standardizing names on "your preference" will create a false connection among the schools. Obi2canibe, if you base our research or assumptions on a Google search then I don't think any of your hypothesis would survive academic review. If you were to have read the news paper articles or understood the general presumption in the country, you would know Royal College always refers to Royal College Colombo and Royalist, Old Royalist refer to current and past student of Royal College Colombo. If one where to look at the Category:Alumni by school in Sri Lanka there seems to be more articles on Old Royalists and any other school in the country. Therefore it is safe to say the for the last 100 years in Sri Lanka, Royal College is always refers to Royal College Colombo and Old Royalist are alumni of this school. Cossde (talk) 06:36, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Now, Cossde, I have to correct you. Most of what you write here also has absolutely nothing to do with how we determine the titles of articles. Your history explanation about groups and missionaries has no bearing here. WP:Article titles is the only governing rule, and the quick and easy summary is "Do what reliable sources do; where reliable sources disagree, do your best to figure out which name is the most commmon". And your latter points don't seem to agree with what Obi2canibe says (unless I'm misunderstanding you)--the point is that the colleges are known by different names. I know this is painful, but someone needs to do the research to find out what is the most common name. There is no substitute for this research. Qwyrxian (talk) 14:23, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, have to agree with you, Qwyrxian. My argument were aimed at Obi2canibe, pointing out that his theory is not valid (disagreeing with him). For the time being, we should look at some neutral sources, I suggest RS international media such as CNN, BBC, etc as the local media RS as they maybe are inconsistent in the naming with even the same paper using different names, next we should look at reliable (and neutral) publications in English language (so that everyone could read) and available online (don't think we could take people at their word any more with so many sock and meat puppets) failing these we would move on to the education ministry or government documentation. What do you think ? Cossde (talk) 17:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Google Books and Google Scholar don't provide any meaningful results. Neither does a search of Sri Lankan university websites. It's very unlikely that any academic sources will refer to these schools. As for the majority, Google searches for the exact phrases reveal the following results:

I don't know how reliable Google searches are or if they duplicate results. And they don't filter out unreliable sources.--obi2canibe^{talk contr} 14:03, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I have just reverted Cossde again. Although new to this article, I've been reading what has gone on and have done some checks of the checks etc. If I've gone against consensus then please revert me, but I think that I've actually gone with consensus. In any event, the IP edit that Cossde reverted was certainly not vandalism, as was claimed in the edit summary. Cossde, you should know better than that. - Sitush (talk) 14:52, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

The changes done by the IP where changers from a stable version that was in place for some time. As you can see changers done by editors who may not always agree with me [8], [9] are as some as done by me today. That is why I considered it as ip based vandalism by Xe2oner after he got blocked as the ip had been editing in [10] heavy edited by Xe2oner while the user was blocked. Cossde (talk) 15:13, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, if you are sure that you have consensus on your side then feel free to revert, but I note that the discussions have been ongoing until fairly recently and the present opening words seem to match the outcome even if the article title does not. If you do revert then you'll probably have to take care of the issue that I've just spotted and fixed otherwise we could end up with an "X, which is also known as X" situation again, rather than a "X, which is also known as Y". - Sitush (talk) 15:29, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Royal College Panadura is our school. We are Royalists.(204.11.50.131 (talk) 07:22, 11 January 2013 (UTC)).

Old Royalists

Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Please provided multiple RS to verify that former pupils of Panadura Royal College are referred to as "Old Royalists" before adding it to the content here.Cossde (talk) 08:02, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Old boys of our College are called Old Royalists.(204.11.50.131 (talk) 07:24, 11 January 2013 (UTC)).