Talk:Shelby House (Botkins, Ohio)

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Requested Move 1[edit]

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: page moved.  Ronhjones  (Talk) 22:07, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Shelby House (Botkins, Ohio) → Shelby House — Relist. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:44, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No other article is using this name (WP:PRECISION). Station1 (talk) 22:37, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose Shelby House is already in use as a disambiguation page. If you wish to pursue this proposal, you need to deal with that first. Perhaps Shelby House, Ohio would be an acceptable compromise? Skinsmoke (talk) 21:41, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    This is the only article on WP using the title Shelby House. Everything else on the current page are redlinks that would not be titled Shelby House even if they existed. The current page would automatically disappear as a result of the move. At the very least, this article is primary usage (as there's no other article) and the current page would be moved to Shelby House (disambiguation), although that would be my second choice. Station1 (talk) 00:34, 20 April 2010 (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.


Requested move 2[edit]

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: Page moved. Lots of discussion here, but it appears we mostly agree that there is no primary topic for this very obscure term. Ucucha 16:24, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

— Restore "Shelby House" disambiguation to proper name. The one in Botkins, Ohio, an obscure NRHP-listed place no more important than other NRHP-listed places, and is not wp:PRIMARYUSAGE for the term. NRHP-listed places which the NRHP system has recorded as "Firstname Shelby House" or "Shelby-Othername House" are also possibly meant by persons searching on "Shelby House", as is known by NRHP editors who see the multiple alternative names in practice. Google searches seem to indicate a different Shelby House, which is a care facility, is perhaps the most common use for the term, not the Botkins, Ohio one. This is to reverse a Requested Move decision that was just concluded, and which was not posted as a multiple pages requested move to gain proper attention. See the first comment, opposing move, in the previous Requested Move discussion above. Notices to WikiProjects Disambiguation and NRHP will be given. doncram (talk) 14:00, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I posted notices to WikiProjs Disambiguation and NRHP. Also, FYI, there is already consensus that red-link items which have properly formatted supporting bluelinks are valid disambiguation page entries, and need not be considered less important. And, in discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#feedback requested on NRHP dab pages, feedback has previously been requested on a similar example, that of Petty House disambiguation page (where there is also just one place given official NRHP name of exactly that). I think the nominator of the first requested move was aware of that discussion being open and could have done better by discussing the topic there. Opening new, separate requested moves relating to a general policy matter under discussion at an appropropriate central forum seems less helpful to me. --doncram (talk) 14:31, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Further note: I created a couple of the articles. The current entries in the dab page are all of format "Firstname Shelby House" or a hyphenated name, except one is more of a partial match: Charles and Letitia Shelby Todd House, currently a redlink. Some could argue that does not belong. However, it is located in Shelbyville in Shelby County, so the "Shelby-ness" of the place is pretty strong and it seems okay/good to mention. A little digging finds this Google books source which identifies it was indeed a property of a Governor Shelby who gave it to his daughter who married Charles Todd. I think it has clear Shelby family connections and is worth keeping in the dab. It could be what a reader is looking for, a Shelby family house in Shelbyville or Shelby County. I dunno if the deletion nominator was irked by there being this partial match in the dab or not. --doncram (talk) 14:56, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seeing no comments, perhaps this should be accepted now? For what it's worth, i think some reasoning involved in the previous closer's decision no longer applies, since several articles have been started. Per side discussion at User talk:Ronhjones#requested move fix the fact that all the other entries were redlinks seemed to have been a factor, whether it should have been or not. --doncram (talk) 22:35, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. I'm here from requested moves. I see the above move, and that nobody has voiced opposition to reversing it, but I want to be clear on the situation before I push any buttons. Is anything else listed at Shelby House (disambiguation) referred to as simply "Shelby House"? -GTBacchus(talk) 20:14, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I believe that 5 of the 6 places listed are referred to as, or have previously been referred to as, "Shelby House". Those 5 are:
In NRHP-listed historic houses, the use of hyphenation in name usually means that a place has been known as each of those names, so it is reasonable to expect that McClure-Shelby House was once known as "McClure House" for the McClure family living there and then it was also known as the "Shelby House" for the Shelby family living there. I say this from experience reading many NRHP application documents that often make such clear. There is a tiny possibility that there was in fact a family with a hyphenated name, "McClure-Shelby" who lived there, but that is so remote that it is not really worth considering. It is not usual practice in disambiguation pages to include footnotes or other references documenting the usage of a given name. In fact references and footnotes are not allowed on dab pages. The other one is
I don't know whether any one of those is referred to separately as "Shelby House", but i think it is appropriate and helpful to mention this topic in the dab page. Hopefully this responds to the question? --doncram (talk) 20:28, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear, I remain opposed to the reversal as there's no other article titled Shelby House. Station1 (talk) 20:46, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for weighing in. I think the question is this: If a reader types "Shelby House" into the search bar, what are they likely to be looking for. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:02, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. If they are looking for the only topic actually named Shelby House they are at the right article; on the off-chance they are looking for something else that is a partial title match, they click on the hatnote (which could include Thomas Shelby House, the only likely contender) and get there in one or two clicks. Anyway, not that big a deal either way. Station1 (talk) 21:18, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, it's not a big deal, but I'd like to decide the case based on a realistic assessment of the situation. Now, there may only be one Wikipedia article called "Shelby House", but does that accurately reflect common usage? You say, Station1, that it's an "off-chance" they'd be looking for another place, and that the Thomas Shelby House" is the "only likely contender". On what do you base these estimations of probability?

Do you know that the other things aren't searched for as "Shelby House", and if so, how do you know that? Conversely, Doncram, do you know that people are actually calling these other places "Shelby House", and if so, how do you know that? If we're just making contradictory guesses here, then it might be worth digging a little deeper to find out for sure. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:46, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's really not :) But the Shelby House article asserts it's called that; the others do not. Each has just one presumably verifiable and reliable source. Everything else is speculation, no matter how reasonable. Station1 (talk) 22:17, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) If a person types "Shelby House" into the search bar, i think they are more likely to be looking for the retirement home named Shelby House that is the first hit in Google searches, or a restaurant or some other place named Shelby House, than any one of the NRHP-listed places that are mentioned here. These are all obscure places; there is no wp:PRIMARYUSAGE. In general, it comes across as arrogant, in my view, for an NRHP editor to assert that any one obscure place is the world-wide primary usage of any one place named "Lastname House". Station1 is not coming from the position of an NRHP editor; i believe Station1 did not create or significantly develop the current Shelby House (Botkins, Ohio) article and has no particular view that way. There is no one present, i believe, who actually wants to assert the Botkins place is very important, or would actually be the target of more than a small fraction of likely searches.
Some of the other article topics don't yet exist as articles. All are stubs i think. The conservative thing to do is to set up the disambiguation, and not assert that one random place is the primary usage. It would be reasonable to wait for research to come forward showing that the Botkins place is really salient (unlikely) before giving it the arrogant position of being primary usage of the term, world-wide. If it would settle this issue, I would be happy to add an assertion into one or more existing or new articles, that another place may be known by "Shelby House". I think that would technically meet Station1's stated objections. In fact, consider that done. I will in my next edit add that assertion to a new article about the Shelby-Nicholson-Schindler House that i will create. --doncram (talk) 22:27, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine, except I don't see any indication in the source at that article that that place is called Shelby House, though I might be reading it wrong. Can you provide a URL? The only place I can find named Shelby House in the NRIS data base is the one in Ohio. Station1 (talk) 23:04, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is an assertion in the article that the place is known as Shelby House. I put it there for you. If you wish to dispute that, please feel free to request the NRHP application document for the place, and actually work at developing the wikipedia. I wrote out instructions on how to request NRHP documents many times. You may find them within links from wp:NRHP.
Bottomline: I don't believe, and I don't believe that you believe, that the Botkins, Ohio place is of world-wide importance, or is otherwise known of more than many places sometimes known as Shelby House, or by any other reason merits it being wp:PRIMARYUSAGE. --doncram (talk) 23:33, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you put it there for me, please take it out. I didn't mean you should add speculation to WP. There's too much of that already. Of course this house is not of world-wide importance, but we're not disambiguating the world, only WP articles, and this is the primary use of the term on WP among articles titled according to verifiable, reliable sources. Anyway, I'm done, and will gladly accept whatever decision is made, hoping WP:PRECISION and the previous admin's decision will be taken into account. Station1 (talk) 00:17, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am not aware of there being a requirement in Wikipedia disambiguation for there to be verifiable, reliable sources supporting names on disambiguation pages (please do point me to that, if in fact it exists). I think you might be trying to set a higher standard than is practice or policy. I certainly do adhere to Wikipedia principles for assertions in mainspace, but disambiguation pages are in fact a bit different, are not regular mainspace. In particular, references are not even allowed on disambiguation pages. And there is some guideline/policy (not looking for right now) that gives advice that if it is debated whether an item is called by a certain name, then that is a good sign that it is a name for the item. That is, the guidance i recall is that disambiguation pages are meant to be a bit inclusionary. I do assert in good faith that 5 or 6 places here are known as "Shelby House". I do believe that more readers will be arriving looking for the 5 others (and other non-NRHP, not yet mentioned places) than for the Botkins Ohio one. If you want to remove them all, I think the burden should be on you to prove that they are NOT known as Shelby House, i.e. find specific sources saying that they are not (which is not feasible). --doncram (talk) 20:44, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree that disambiguation pages are not strictly encyclopedia pages. The determination whether a link qualifies to be on a dab page is not based in research, but in editorial judgment. It also makes sense to me that, since every place listed on the page is so obscure, we can't assume that searchers will predominantly be seeking the one with the precise name match, and not one of the others.

This is certainly the kind of question you can collect statistics on over time. In the case of this dab page, it would be a long time to collect a large enough sample to be statistically meaningful, I think. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:54, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. The lack of clarity in this situation is rivaled only by the lack of significance. I hardly know what to do. If you guys have any interest, there's another naming dispute involving some ethnic tensions over at Talk:Faust Vrančić, where I'm sure more outside eyes are welcome. I guess I should also send editors from there over here, where they almost certainly have no stake in the question. -GTBacchus(talk) 01:08, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, I never expected that I would have stirred up this much discussion simply by writing an article on this place! Station1, please note that Doncram hasn't added anything speculative to the article; he's not made any changes to the code of the article except changing around the hatnote somewhat. I can confirm that it's not a well-known building — the only way I was able to find it was looking up the address and driving there; they don't have signs all over the place for it. Until I got access to the Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places, I had no sources for it; I looked through two printed histories of Shelby County (unfortunately, they're not on Google Books; you'll have to drive out here to western Ohio to read them) without finding anything about it at all. Of course, this says nothing about the other places that are currently listed at the Shelby House disambiguation page; they may well be just as obscure or even more so. Nyttend (talk) 02:08, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify: I wasn't saying doncram added anything speculative here, but rather to Shelby-Nicholson-Schindler House. Station1 (talk) 03:45, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. As an English speaker with virtually no idea what a "Shelby House" is, if I ever came across the name and wanted to find out what it was I think I would like to be able to immediately see a list of such places where I can make sure which "Shelby House" I was looking for - a disambig page. In other words, this term is so obscure a disambig page seems to be the most useful choice. --DIREKTOR (TALK) 01:21, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    That makes sense to me. The reason for PRIMARYTOPIC is because everyone who thinks "Paris" thinks of the city in France. Most people, however, never think about "Shelby House" at all, so a disambiguation page serves well to orient a reader who's confused, or working with partial information. After all, that's often the reason that someone turns to an encyclopedia - they're not quite sure what they're looking for: "It was a... something-something-Shelby.. House? Try typing that in..."

    Since Wikipedia is optimized for readers over editors, and for general readers over specialists, and because the "rule" PRIMARYTOPIC isn't binding in the presence of IAR, I think it makes more sense to put the disambiguation page in the primary spot, in this particular case. I'd like to run it by the previous closer, because that's only polite, but I'm leaning towards support. Thanks, DIREKTOR. Sometimes, an outside pair of eyes... -GTBacchus(talk) 05:06, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    Sorry, but I can't help myself from replying. I think the analogy with Paris is misapplied. Paris could be the legitimate title of a number of articles on Wikipedia, such as the mythological figure or the city in Texas, but the city in France is the article most people would be looking for, out of the articles on WP. But in this case there is only one article on WP that can be legitimately titled Shelby House according to verifiable reliable sources. A disambiguation page is not a search engine or an index of partial title matches for people who don't know what they're looking for (WP:DAB). That's what the search box is for. (And of course IAR can overrule anything, but there should be consensus to ignore a guideline, imo). Station1 (talk) 17:59, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You're right, there are more things called, simply, "Paris". Bad example, mea culpa.

    I hope it's clear that I'm not trying to shoehorn anything past consensus. I'm not going to do anything without at a minimum checking with everyone who supported the previous move, and at this point, I won't close the request myself at all, because I'm clearly an involved party now.

    I still think the dab page makes sense, and that, absent the guideline, we would be best to choose the dab page for the primary spot. I would like to know the concrete advantage of the other setup, beyond the simple fact that a guideline says it. How would you argue for it without the guideline's existence? -GTBacchus(talk) 19:56, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I wasn't for a moment doubting your good faith, and apologize if it came across otherwise. To answer your question, I would say this building is named Shelby House so its article should be titled Shelby House unless another article needed the title, which is not the case. Station1 (talk) 21:16, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    There certainly is a clarity to that point. Hmm. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:28, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Hmm. The standard for having disambiguation at a page is not / should not be whether there are two articles competing for that exact name. For one thing, it could be two article topics, with one of them being a valid redlink, not yet an article. For another, one item could be covered in a section of another article, so it would be conveyed in the dab that a place is known as "Shelby House" yet covered in an article about a town or historic district, for example. For another, it could be a secondary name of a place having a different article title. Suppose that Station1 fully agreed with some source supporting the fact that "Smith House (Smithville, State)" is also known as "Shelby House". Then even tho the Smith House article is not vying for the Shelby House article name, it should be clear to Station1 that the disambiguation is helpful. It could further be the case that the Smith House one is closer to being the primary usage of the term. And, i think it goes beyond disambiguation practices to demand a lot of proof of the fairly obvious, that a place named Firstname Shelby House or as Shelby-Othername House might also be known as Shelby House. I concede that being fairly obvious may be a matter of editorial judgment; I am judging that is fairly obvious based on my experience with many thousands of NRHP articles and documents. --doncram (talk) 21:40, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • It comes down to counting clicks, right? If more than half of the people arriving at this page are looking for other Shelby Houses that we cover in articles, then having the dab page in front makes more sense; if more than half are happy when they get here, then having this page in front makes more sense.

    There's more going on though, if one analyzes it further. The above assumes that everyone searching for "Shelby House" is looking for one of the six we've got listed.

    As soon as you start adding in people who are happiest finding the dab page, because we don't cover what they were actually looking for, then things change. The more of that third kind of reader you've got, the more of an edge Botkins has to have on the rest of the field to still deserve top spot, in the sense of minimizing clicks. I think this quantifies what was said earlier, about how things are different when you're dealing with very obscure topics. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:03, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

    I overcomplicated that a little bit. In order for the current setup to minimize total clicks, more than half of searchers have to be looking for the Botkins article, period. Minimum total clicks isn't necessarily what we're after, but I do think it's part of the reason for the PRIMARYTOPIC rule being as it is. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:24, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
comment I'm not completely aware of this issue but I tried to wear clothes of a reader looking for a "Shelby-or-something-like-that House", exactly situated in I-don't-remember-which-city-but-the-state-could-be-that-damned-one.. I'm going to explain what I thought: usually, when I don't remember a name or a place spelling, i type on the side bar the initial letter of the word, and a list automatically scroll down coming in my help.
What I mean is that a common nomenclature, for Shelby Houses, is necessary. Maybe Shelby House (City); Shelby House (City, State); Shelby House (City, ST) or -if there's only one Shelby House each state- Shelby House (State).
These nomenclature not necessarly will change page title, more realistically would be applicated in some redirects pages aside the actual ones. for example Shelby House (Lafayette, Missouri) will redirect to → Thomas Shelby House, or Shelby House (Fayette, Kentucky) will redirect to → Shelby Family Houses as well. Of course we can discuss if the vice-versa listing could be better. Theirrulez (talk) 15:57, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Creating redirects like those are not particularly necessary, if there is a sensible disambiguation page at "Shelby House". In the disambiguation page we can provide the same info to readers, and formatted better and otherwise controlled to be more clear than what can be composed for possible array at the search bar (which we can't much control, anyhow). Best to leave less confusion in place, and herd readers to the disambiguation page, IMO. --doncram (talk) 14:30, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think Direktor's view as an outsider, in support of the requested move, should prevail. --doncram (talk) 02:17, 29 May 2010 (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.

intro sentence[edit]

There's been a pretty lame edit skirmish going on about what is the appropriate way to introduce the article, in which i confess to being a pretty lame participant, sorry. :) I comment here just to explain.

The choice is approximately:

  • 1: The Shelby House is a historic building in Botkins, Ohio, United States.
  • 2: The Shelby House in Botkins, Ohio, United States, is a historic building.

I think it's not a particularly strong first sentence, either way, but I prefer the second option to avoid the implication that this place is the primary place in the world named Shelby House. Per requested move discussions above, hopefully concluded for good, there are many other places in the world named Shelby House, including a care facility somewhere that recently was getting the top Google listing. I think a good way to start the article is "The Shelby House in Botkins, Ohio is ... " and then to conclude the sentence with something hopefully more interesting or conveying something more than it's a historic building. Some edit summaries reverting back to the first option asserted, approximately, that the second option is "not the way we write these" and that the intro sentence should first say what the place is. Well, the subject of the article is the Shelby House in Botkins, Ohio. And, "we" broadly do often start articles that way, particularly articles about places with possibly ambiguous names. For example, Clarksville Elementary School (Clarksville, New York) is one i am working on just now.

It's not a big deal; i wouldn't have bothered to make the change towards option 2 or variations if the requested move had not been open and bringing me here. Good luck with the article. --doncram (talk) 15:08, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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