Talk:List of United States post offices/Archive 1

What is this?

This isnt an article. IvoShandor 01:47, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

It looks like a dab page, without the links, why was the dab stuff removed? Any comments? IvoShandor 13:13, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

This began as a disambiguation page for the many U.S. National Register of Historic Places sites which are simply labeled as "U.S. Post Office". Thus many of the wikilinked pages are intended to be to articles about post office buildings which have been designated as being of historic significance. (SEWilco 15:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC))

Significance

There might be reasons for buildings to be listed which are not NRHP/NHL sites (such as locally designated sites). I think each item should have a "Significance" entry; most would start with just "NRHP" or "NHL". (SEWilco 15:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC))

Agree that being on the "NRHP" or "NHL" should not be the only criteria for listing a post office. Several notable post offices are not on these lists for a variety of reasons. Thanks! FieldMarine (talk) 15:43, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Unexplained text entries

I understand the wikilinked entries are probably NRHP or NHL sites. The significance of the text entries needs to be explained. (SEWilco 15:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC))

Nrhp Review

This page should be an Nrhp disambiguation page, please confirm that it is. It should contain the following links:

• U.S. Post Office (Albertville, Alabama)

...[snip]...

• U.S. Post Office (Port Angeles, Washington)

"Category:NrhpBot articles for review"

Nhrp review objections

Strongly Object to the above because not all of the post offices in the article are on the National Register. The National Register post offices should be on the same disambig page with the others, although you might want to list them separately on that page. Yes, the main article is and should be a disambig page. clariosophic 22:13, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Article should be unpiped

The article should be unpiped per Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Usage guidelines. If there is a different name on the article being pointed to, a redirect should be used instead of piping. clariosophic (talk) 15:12, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree the article names should not be hidden by piping, as this is a disambiguation page. I don't see why redirects should be used, though, because that seems like another way of hiding what the article name is. Anyhow, i am intending to edit this article into better conformance with dab page guidelines. doncram (talk) 23:37, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Name change

I recommmend we move this article & change the name to List of post offices in the United States. Just a thought. FieldMarine (talk) 23:21, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi. There is a need for a disambiguation page here for just the bluelinks to articles and red-links to expected articles for notable places named "U.S. Post Office", of which there are a lot, because there are many NRHP ones. The disambiguation article is somewhat different from what a list article "List of post offices in the United States" would be, as the latter would include other names, too. And, with the latter, there would still be the need for the disambiguation page. I believe what i am saying here is consistent with the guidelines at wp:MOSDAB and with practices of WikiProject Disambiguation. So, I am intending, instead, to clean this up to be a proper disambiguation page. It doesn't currently meet some wp:MOSDAB guidelines. doncram (talk) 23:34, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

U.S. vs. United States

In these 2 edits, User:BD2412 changed all instances of "U.S." to "United States". I was asked to take a look at the edit, and reverted it with edit summary pointing to here to discuss.

It would be a big change, which could be part of a systematic effort to change names for all the existing and future articles of NRHP-listed or otherwise notable post offices in the U.S. I know this has been argued some before in scattered places. Perhaps it would be worth having a proper RFC and a big discussion on how they should be named. I personally think that i would oppose the change, as the local post offices (like other NRHP-listed places) are named what they are named locally / in common usage. We don't have the right to impose a tidy-for-ourselves naming system on the messy world out there. But I would be open to other views and discussion in a proper RFC. I recall that User:Pubdog previously asked for proper discussion, and i know a few editors (including User:Daniel Case) have views on the subject and should be invited to any new discussion. The same policy would probably apply to U.S. courthouses covered by Wikipedia:WikiProject United States courts and judges....oh, now i see, that is where i know User:BD2412 from...yes, BD2412 i know you are one to be invited to such a discussion already.

But BD2412, the change here can't be done in isolation to just the dab page. Currently the naming is consistent, perfectly, with the usage in all the corresponding NRHP list-articles, as just recently fixed up by User:Dudemanfellabra. If BD2412's change was left unreverted, then the dab page would be left out of compliance with dab policy (in particular MOS:DABRL, and dab-focused editors might come by and delete every single redlink on the page, because they would not be the same as in the NRHP list-articles. So, please don't take offense or anything that i reverted your change. If a consensus decision is made to change all the article names, then implementing the change would require changes here in the dab, plus also in a couple hundred NRHP list-articles, and in many existing individual post office articles. --doncram (talk) 16:45, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I am quite frankly amazed that anyone would consider it controversial to spell out "United States" in titles. In any case, there is only one entity in the world which has the authority to determine the names of U.S. post offices, and that is the United States Congress, per Article I, section 8 of the Constitution of the United States. bd2412 T 17:40, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, do let's discuss it here. Wikipedia naming policy generally is that places should be named what is their most common usage name. "Official" names are relevant to consider but do not necessarily govern. For these places listed here, the NRHP program names provide one "official" naming system, and the NRHP names usually are "U.S.". --doncram (talk) 17:45, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Two relevant guidelines are wp:TITLE and wp:PLACE (aka Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)) about article naming conventions generally and for articles about places. --doncram (talk) 17:50, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict):::Agree with BD2412. The name of the structure in question should be how it is presented out in legislation naming or dedicating that post office or the constitution (if, in the very unlikely instance, no legislation can be found). I'm not sure why changing the incorrect name, an abbreviation, is controversial in this narrow and *specific* occurance, which is correcting the names for United States Post Offices? Its not as if editors are seekign to strike the term "U.S." from everything, its only seeking to correct a mistake made in the titling/naming of articles related to Post Offices. --nsaum75^{¡שיחת!‎} 18:03, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

[After TWO edit conflicts!] ::: The "U.S." names will continue to redirect to the spelled out names. You can use them in your articles to your heart's content. However, some of these structures are also federal courthouses, which come under Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Courts and Judges, which has since the beginning used spelled out names for federal courthouses. bd2412 T 18:04, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

And at the beginning of that wikiproject, i disagreed with your applying names different than actual names of places in your main list-article. There are other policy non-compliant issues there, too, including about display of multiple places displaying as if they are all the same place, while pipelinking differently. I tried to discuss that with you, but dropped it as too difficult. Perhaps all that should be re-addressed and what has been done in that wikiproject should be changed. It is not up to any one wikiproject group of editors to set standards that all others must follow. Wikiproject NRHP does not get to set the standard for article names either (though they can usually dictate how NRHP list-articles will display the official NRHP names). Conflicting official naming systems and conflicting wikiproject standards are easily possible, do not govern necessarily in actual article titles. --doncram (talk) 18:23, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

We have situations where several unnamed courthouses have been built consecutively in the same city. Something has to be done to disambiguate them. bd2412 T 18:55, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Thanks for coming to discussion here, nsaum75. What reliable sources use for names of places is indeed highly relevant per policy. I don't believe the U.S. constitution gives placenames for specific post offices in Wyoming, not to be a U.S. state for a hundred years, though. Language/usage changes over time, too. The U.S. NRHP program, part of the U.S. National Park Service, under the Secretary of the Interior, uses "U.S." in many/most of these placenames. Another suggestion raised by nsaum75 elsewhere is that post office articles currently having format "Placename Post Office" should be moved to the most common format name (currently "U.S. Post Office (Placename, State)" ). I object to that too. I believe the NRHP-listed places under "Placename Post Office" are at that type of name because that is what is the local / common name for the post office, and that is sourced and should be respected. If you want to move a given article to a name different than provided by the central NRHP source for most of these, for one specific place given specific sources applying to that place, that could/should be discussed. I do not at all mean to insist that the NRHP name has to always be the name for a place. If most common usage is different than it was in 1975 when a place was NRHP-listed, and if the article is adjusted with sources supporting a different current name, I would generally not object. To BD2412, i do appreciate that redirects you were creating by the moves or separately would have allowed NRHP list-articles to continue to show the NRHP-official names while still connecting to the articles. But, i still don't buy the correctness of the article names u wish, which seems to stem from your personal wish for how places should be named, not from actual sources. Actually, i can't discuss further now, will have to return later. --doncram (talk) 18:17, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Please refrain from personal attacks. Its not any one users' wish, but how the structures are referred to in the legislation authorizing them. Thanks and have a good Sunday! Cheers --nsaum75^{¡שיחת!‎} 18:36, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

If that is directed to me, I apologize if anything i wrote could be interpreted as a personal attack. I did not mean to be personal by replying specifically to separate comments by nsaum and by bd within one edit, was just trying to be clear. I haven't observed anything personal here, there is just some healthy disagreement about what sources and policies are relevant, as far as i see. About the naming, while original legislation can in some cases be relevant, common usage can diverge very far from what an original, official name is. I believe the parkway around Brooklyn, New York was officially named the "Circumferential Parkway", but common usage immediately diverged to become the Belt Parkway, for just one example. --doncram (talk) 19:11, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

It turns out that where Congress bothers to actually name post offices, they refer to it in a rather cumbersome manner as "the facility of the United States Postal Service" at a given address. Here is a typical example, a bill "To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 46-02 21st Street in Long Island City, New York, as the `Geraldine Ferraro Post Office Building'". In terms of "common usage", since all post offices in the United States are operated by the federal government, I doubt very highly that an average citizen referring to an average post office would call it anything more than "the post office on Main Street" or "the post office across from the park". bd2412 T 19:15, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you're talking about common usage, I doubt hardly anyone ever says "I'm going down to U.S. Post Office" or "United States Post Office" or "Placename Post Office" or anything related. People in the cities simply say they're going to "the post office." Are you suggesting that since most people say this, we should move everything to The Post Office? Of course not! While usually articles should be named by what they're called most often, post offices are a special case in my opinion.

First off, it amazes me that nearly every single post office in the country is listed on the NRHP.. they can't all be outstanding pieces of architecture, can they? I feel like the NRHP writers nominated them simply because they were a post office, and apparently all post offices are notable. Second, there is always a need for standardization in anything (kind of like your massive effort to standardize all the NRHP dab pages, so new editors could know which article titles to use?). Showing five million different ways of telling the location of the post office is taxing to the reader; if the location is always shown in parenthetical disambiguation, the reader will always know to look there instead of spending more time trying to figure out the location of the post office in question. As such, I support nsaum's suggestion to move all post offices (barring those with specially designated names like the William R. Cotter Federal Building) to have a parenthetical disambiguation, regardless of what is listed on the NRHP.

As for the names, I see no big deal between changing "U.S." to "United States". In fact, Doncram, I remarked on my talk page that I had changed a few from "US" to "U.S." and several from "U.S. Post Office-Placename" to "U.S. Post Office (Placename, Placestate), and you never said a word about it. What's the big deal with doing the same type of edit en masse? BD2412 said that he would move the articles and take care of the NRHP lists. If he does so, there is absolutely no difference between our two edits. I feel like you are simply opposing him because you feel like he won't do those things; you aren't assuming good faith. Let the man finish what he was doing, and if he doesn't fix all the NRHP lists and other links to the pages, then by all means bring them to his attention... but this is a little overboard. I feel like you have a structure set up that is exactly how you like it (though you admit isn't perfect), and if anyone threatens that structure with something so semantic as unabbreviating a phrase, you make it seem as if they are spitting in your face.

I told you I wouldn't participate in disambiguation discussions anymore (and I actually did remove WP:WPDAB from my watchlist), but since I've been actively editing this article, and was the first to bring the edit to his attention, I feel like I should comment here. I, however, am not willing to get into a long, drawn out, pointless discussion about the ins and outs of NRHP "official-ness" because you and I both know that there are enough errors and inconsistencies in place names in the database to make it slightly unreliable. .--Dudemanfellabra I support BD's move to "United States" and will probably refrain from commenting further here. I will, however, pause my work on fixing all the supporting bluelinks on this page until this is sorted out.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:40, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I really cannot discuss further right now. I applied rollback wherever i could and did a bunch of reverse move edits, as i explained i would at BD2412's talk page, but maybe did not get all of them. My goal for right now was to stop the massive disruption. It is not right to allow one editor (me or anyone else) to go on a massive campaign that is extremely hard to undo, and let that editor in effect make the decision affecting names of lots of articles.

I am absolutely not an advocate of imposing NRHP officialness onn article names. I absolutely defer to local / common / other usage, as for example in deferring to another wikiproject's preference to use U.S. Coast Guard official names for lighthouses rather than NRHP names (whenever they differ and there is no other individual name that is sourced and bettter). What's needed is to get some other editor opinions, including Daniel Case who might have created the most pretty good post office articles so far, among his many DYKs.

By the way it is just a tiny fraction of U.S. post office buildings that are NRHP-listed. Only ones older than 50 years are generally eligible for NRHP listing by the way. Perhaps the comment about that was just sarcasm? I don't usually don't get sarcasm in wikipedia (tho i am sorry i applied it a bit above, asking about whether Wyoming p.o.s are mentioned in the U.S. constitution, sorry about that). That's all i can say for now, logging off. --doncram (talk) 19:52, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

For the record, where Congress names courthouses, it is fairly uniform (so far as I have been able to find) in spelling out "United States"; for example, this Congressional Record stating that "The bill (H.R. 2890) to designate the Federal Building and United States Courthouse located at 750 Missouri Avenue in East St. Louis, as the `Melvin Price Federal Building and United States Courthouse ,' was considered, ordered to a third reading, read the third time, and passed". bd2412 T 21:06, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

• Doncram, I wouldn't call the changes "massive disruption", doing so could be interpreted as not Assuming Good Faith. This is obviously a MoS/naming dispute, and I would like to see other editors input here. Circular arguments will solve nothing, except to frustrate everyone involved. --nsaum75^{¡שיחת!‎} 01:55, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

By "massive disruption", I was referring to editing campaign that was in progress to affect most of the articles having entries on this dab page, and pages linking to them. This dab is probably the biggest dab page i have been much associated with, and is the dab that has the largest number of NRHP-listed places. Looking at my contribution history, it took me 3 hours of work today after i logged in to find a message about it, for me to raise the issue here and to perform edits rolling back most of the changes. It would have cost more time already if BD2412 had not consented to pause and discuss here i suppose. I don't see what you can view as bad faith in my calling that "massive", a subjective term. It seemed "massive" to me. About circularity, i don't know what you refer to. About good faith, I object to Dudemanfellabra's and your suggestions that my edits have not been good faith. I responded partly to Dudemanfellabra's accusations but won't go further unless necessary, especially as he indicated he will not contribute further here. Accusations of bad faith become, themselves, breaches of good faith, if they are unfounded; see wp:AOBF. I have acted only in interest of opening a central discussion, laying groundwork for a wider RFC, and rolling back changes which I believe will not ultimately be accepted (and if so, rolling them back saves a lot of more complicated editing). BD2412 is entitled to his/her opinion, but has clarified that the editing campaign is based on belief that the U.S. Constitution and/or other enabling legislation for the U.S. Post Office system is what governs place names. (In my view that position is untenable: it will not be upheld, it is not part of naming convention policy for places.) I asked BD2412 to go ahead and open a neutrally worded RFC. I am asking for input. I don't see what is bad faith or what is circular in anything i have said here. This is going off-track. Perhaps a new section with a clear, clean RFC question should be opened. But that's all for me for now. --doncram (talk) 03:37, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Yesterday, the servers in St. Petersberg overheated and all of Wikipedia and its sister projects were completely inaccessibly for about two hours. That is a "massive disruption. By contrast, I intend to move 150 out of our 3,000,000 articles to titles which do nothing more than spell out a term that is indisputably abbreviated in those titles (and to fix all double redirects accordingly, leaving linked pages pointing to the correct targets). bd2412 T 13:59, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, i agree that was more massive. :)

The following is a comment about potential implementation of a change: There are some complications in how to implement a campaign to accomplish what you want, by the way. If you were to carry out the editing campaign to implement the change, one way to proceed would be to create NRHP stub articles for each of the current redlinks in the dab page at their article names as shown in the dab, and then moving them to your preferred different name. That would set up redirects automatically and ensure the corresponding NRHP list articles (and any town or other articles already including the same redlink) will link to the right place. And then you could update the dab to show the revised article names. I would prefer that approach as easier to implement and more sure to make all the links needed, if in the end your proposal gets consensus. It would also get the NRHP articles created as stubs which is a benefit, and I would help with that, creating them all if necessary. On the other hand, if the redlinks are to be left as redlinks but changed in the dab to show your preferred name, then edits to each corresponding NRHP list-article and any other town or other articles that link to the previous names are needed. I would think that they would all need to be changed first, by your checking "what links here" in the current name of place. In the NRHP list-articles the edit would be done by pipelinking to the preferred name while still showing the NRHP name in the NRHP list-article. In other articles the edit could be pipelinked or not. And only then update the dab page. By the way, in an editing campaign, i don't think it is necessary to correct double redirects, as bots come by and do that automatically. BD2412 I understand you were willing to carry your campaign further to address complications raised. Hopefully this comment gives you more idea why i wanted the campaign not to go as you started it out, with your first step being to change all the entries in the dab page. Would you agree to go with the first approach, if your change is accepted?

But, i first disagree about the need for this change and believe it is not consistent with wikipedia naming policy. What is relevant in each case is the actual most common name, supported by sources, for the individual post office. There exists one source, the National Register, which gives a version of name that is pretty good, as it is usually the common name of the place at the time it was NRHP-listed. The same name for each post office appears in several places on the internet: in the National Register's PDF Focus database, in the private website "NRHP.COM", in various other private websites that are also based on the public domain NRHP NRIS database. For certain individual post offices a different name might be arguably better now, if common usage has changed and/or other sources show the name for a particular post office is different. Such individual cases should be addressed by requested move / rename processes at their individual articles, after their individual articles are created. In general, the NRHP name for each place is good for now. --doncram (talk) 18:25, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

I think it has been adequately explained above that the NRHP names are not "the actual most common name" used to refer to post offices. Note, by the way, that the Yellow Pages spells them all out, as "United States Post Office". Since businesses generally get to determine how their names are represented in telephone directories, this likely reflects the understanding that the Post Office has regarding the names of its own facilities. bd2412 T 22:37, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi ... I am wondering whether U.S. Route articles are next? I have plenty of embedded links to existing articles for U.S. Routes, such as U.S. Route 219 in New York, and want to be prepared whether there is a pending change?--Pubdog (talk) 00:43, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Good point, Pubdog, if/when there is a general RFC on this the WikiProject U.S. Roads editors should be invited. Abiout the Falls Church, Virginia, post office, the USPS official search webpage result shows it as "Post Office™ Location - FALLS CHURCH" which would be most closely matched by "Post Office--Falls Church". This Google map search shows it and all others named "US Post Office". City-Data.Com, another web directory, shows it as "Falls Church Post Office", and I am sure there are other variations in various web-directories. But, there is no post office in Falls Church that is wikipedia notable, as far as i know; it's not in the dab page. For post offices actually in the dab page, Google searching would yield hits from the National Park Service's webpages, from www.archiplanet.com, from "NRHP.COM", etc., at the National Register names for them. These hits would be for actual information about the specific place that goes beyond mere directory type information. --doncram (talk) 01:00, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

P.S. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (U.S. state and territory highways), which is WikiProject U.S. Roads' official naming convention policy, uses "U.S." rather than "United States" everywhere. I bet that was well-debated many times over and is not going to change. --doncram (talk) 01:06, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I have not proposed to change the scheme for highways, which any map will tell you are commonly known as U.S.-number, and never as United States-number. An address adjacent to a highway would be listed in the telephone directory as "U.S.", unlike a post office or a courthouse, which will be listed as "United States". I am quote confident that the Congressional Record reflects this usage when Congress exercises its constitutionally granted authority to establish interstate highways, which is how they get their designations in the first place. Let's avoid bringing in irrelevant issues, and stick to the issue of post office buildings. bd2412 T 02:04, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Browsing, I see the naming debate for the U.S. state routes was very contentious. I don't easily find discussion of U.S. vs. United States, but i believe that such discussion there could be quite relevant here.

Here is how the U.S. Congress refers to specific post office buildings (search at this Legislative bill text search screen for "Post Office" yields:

• 1 . To redesignate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2777 Logan Avenue in San Diego, California, as the `Cesar E. Chavez Post Office'. (Reported in Senate - RS)[S.748.RS][PDF]
• 2 . To redesignate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2777 Logan Avenue in San Diego, California, as the `Cesar E. Chavez Post Office'. (Engrossed in Senate [Passed Senate] - ES)[S.748.ES][PDF]
• 3 . To redesignate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 2777 Logan Avenue in San Diego, California, as the `Cesar E. Chavez Post Office'. (Introduced in Senate - IS)[S.748.IS][PDF]
• 4 . To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 23 Genesee Street in Hornell, New York, as the `Zachary Smith Post Office Building'. (Reported in Senate - RS)[S.3200.RS][PDF]
• 5 . To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 15 South Main Street in Sharon, Massachusetts, as the `Michael C. Rothberg Post Office'. (Reported in Senate - RS)[S.3465.RS][PDF]
• etc....

Does that suggest names like "Facility of the United States Postal Service located at ## Street, Falls Church, Virginia" should be used in Wikipedia articles? --doncram (talk) 02:28, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

That source relates to the redesignation of certain Post Offices, not the de novo establishment. --nsaum75^{¡שיחת!‎} 03:13, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't know whether this has any impact on the ultimate decision, but I reviewed a number of the photographs included in the post office articles. Most of the buildings have inscribed on them UNITED STATES POST OFFICE. In only one instance did I see U.S. POST OFFICE. My main concern in raising this issue with User:Doncram was that existing articles would be left redlinked from this page and would be double redirected from the NRHP county pages.--Pubdog (talk) 16:43, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

The same applies for names of courthouses in images (including combined courthouse/post office facilities). I will personally fix any double redirects created by the move. With less than 150 pages to rename, that should be a piece of cake with AWB. bd2412 T 16:57, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

If a photo shows that the post office is itself labelled "UNITED STATES POST OFFICE" on its exterior, then I would concede, would generally agree it could be renamed to that, unless there is more weight of sources calling it something different. Pubdog and/or BD2412, could you separate off those into one requested move discussion, using the multi-move requested move option?

Maybe some other concern here can be addressed simply. Specifically, I don't see any problem with there being double redirects for existing articles. If there's a redirect to an existing individual post office article, and the article is moved, that does indeed set up a double redirect (a redirect to a redirect to the article). But, bots come by and fix those automatically, within a day or so. Nothing needs to be done; this is not an issue to worry about. If a name change is agreed to, then just moving the article suffices. And then because of dab style rules, the name shown in the dab page could/should be updated to show the actual article name. The county NRHP list-article need not be changed, it can still show the NRHP-official name and reach the article by a redirect (perhaps temporarily by a double redirect but a bot will make it a single redirect very soon). Pubdog does that address your concern?

More complicated are cases where there is no article, and the topic is listed as a redlink in this dab page plus in a NRHP county/city/state list-article plus possibly also in a local town article. Then to implement a change requires finding and changing all of those to point directly to the new preferred name. You can't set up a redirect to a non-existant article; it will be deleted promptly. In these cases i would prefer for a stub NRHP article to be created immediately as that is easier and allows for verification that all the related pages link to the right article. BD2412, will you please agree that we can do that or comment otherwise, rather than proceeding some other way, in cases where a change of name for a non-existent article is eventually agreed upon? --doncram (talk) 17:00, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I will find and fix whatever links need to be fixed, red or blue. Regarding the exterior signage, I visited three post offices in Arlington over the long weekend. All of them had "United States Post Office" emblazoned on the building. I'd bet we'll find the same thing on Google maps images, to the extent that the names are visible. See also: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] (this one is in the National Register of Historic Places), [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]. Instances where "U.S." is used instad would likely reflect a lack of space (as I have seen on court buildings, for which "United States" is unequivocably spelled out in the Congressional Record). Would you demand that we go through the exercise of getting these images for all of the post offices? We can certainly do that, arriving at the exact same result after expending hours of effort better used on more productive pursuits. As far as I'm concerned, the evidence is in. bd2412 T 18:32, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

U.S. Post Office (Belvidere, Illinois) labelled "U.S. Post Office" in photo

US Post Office-Long Beach Main, labelled "United States of America"

U.S. Post Office (San Pedro, California), labelled "San Pedro United States Post Office"

US Post Office (Lowell, Massachusetts), labelled "Middlesex Community College" and "F. Bradford Morse Federal Building"

Here are some whose photos show different names: "U.S. Post Office"; "San Pedro United States Post Office"; "Middlesex Community College" and "F. Bradford Morse Federal Building"; "United States of America". BD2412, yes, I rather would like to insist that the naming decision be particular to the actual name of the actual post office as most commonly used, consistent with Wikipedia naming policy for articles. We don't have the right to impose different names on the inconsistently named places out there, just to conform to our own wishes as to how they should be named in some more orderly fashion. The names which were in this dab page were from one external naming system, the NRHP names, which in general tries to follow actual local names for places; it was a decent first shot at getting names correct. To change from that sourced set of names should require some different evidence. I will concede that your photo evidence is pretty convincing for those places which have label "United States Post Office" on their building. I agree for those that unless there is some other-than-NRIS source pointing to a different usage, that those ones could be moved from U.S. to United States names. I'm interested to notice many of the NRHP-listed post offices in New York State, for example, which were all built to similar designs during a Works Project Administration program in the 1930s, the convention was to display "United States Post Office", but the I think the architectural fashion was different in other states and times, and that in the absence of a different source, the NRIS names are defensible to use and are our best guess of what is local/common usage. --doncram (talk) 22:13, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Your commentary above addresses my concerns about the double redirect issue. Thanks.--Pubdog (talk) 22:35, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Good. By the way, the Cooper Landing Post Office in Alaska is labelled "Beer and Wine / Coopers Landing Store". Its 3 photos appear to be NRHP-owned and could be uploaded as public domain. --22:49, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

...in Pennsylvania

I've provided images from at least ten different states, for post offices that appear to cover many different styles. The one example you have provided of a post office with "U.S." in the name is one where the name has been crammed into a small space - the doorframe. If I were to show you a picture with "Joe Smith Federal Bldg" above the door, would you accept that the proper name of the building was the spelled out version from the abbreviation? Here are some more examples, to satisfy any further objections for "United States" being the proper form generally for post offices: in Florida, in Washington, in Indiana, in Arizona, in Colorado, in Maine, in Idaho, in Oregon, in California, in Texas, in North Carolina, in Missouri, another one from Oregon, but look at the sign on this one, in South Dakota, in North Dakota, and Alaska. In light of the majority view expressed on this page, I am certainly going to move the articles for post offices that have "United States" over the door, because there is no principled reason to leave them at an abbreviated name when the building itself has it spelled out. After that, I am certainly going to move all the rest to "United States" because there is no principled reason to leave them at an abbreviated name any more than there is to leave a building with "Federal Bldg" on the door at an unabbreviated spelling of "Building". bd2412 T 23:54, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Per your comment, I have moved the Lowell Post Office to F. Bradford Morse Federal Building, because that is its name. bd2412 T 00:03, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I moved it back, because there is no source in the article supporting a different name than the NRIS name, and the labels on the building in the photo would suggest it should be called "Middlesex Community College" first. The labels on the building seem not to provide very useful names, frankly. Maybe they are advertising in some cases, and are not what the building is actually named and referred to as, in newspaper articles or other sources discussing the building per se. Please, we've started some discussion, but you haven't "won" by not encountering a lot of clearly stated opposition. There has not been any kind of notice given, and there is not a clear proposal stated for an RFC question. Could you suggest some neutral language for an RFC discussion? But, I also think that allowing time for some article creation, like my creating articles for the 3 Alaska ones today, would be beneficial. The pictures accessible in their NRHP nomination documents clarify for me that we don't want to blindly rename a lot of articles to whatever you want, or to what is on the building, like for the one labelled "Beer and Wine"! And, who are you to judge, differently than the NRHP nominator who was on the spot and took photos and collected secondary and primary info about the place. The nominator of the Sitka, Alaska one could and did obviously consider that "United States Post Office" was on the exterior of one along with other words, but nonetheless decided a different title was appropriate for listing the place in the National Register. That person and all those who reviewed the nomination made conscious, informed decisions. We can hang our hats on the name that they gave, but it is wrong to just apply a different name that you happen to prefer. Basically, i request that you allow for some article development for a while, and then we should have an RFC. I think it is more productive to wait, rather than ask other editors to get involved. But do you feel differently about that? --doncram (talk) 03:55, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

A broad RFC should also address the names of U.S. Courthouse articles such as the one currently at Byron R. White United States Courthouse. For that and a whole list of others, the GSA and other sources used to support the articles use "U.S." rather than "United States". This version of a workpage details out many articles started at one name presumably supported by a GSA or other source, then being moved to a different name. All those probably should be at the U.S. name given in the sources. --doncram (talk) 04:56, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I have restored the move to F. Bradford Morse Federal Building, with references to the name change. The NRHP's failure to maintain an accurate record of the building's name should make you think twice about relying so steadfastly upon their use of an abbreviation. As for the Wikipedia:WikiProject United States courts and judges/courthouses project page, as long as you are looking at that page's revision history, please take note that I started the page and has done most of the work on it. Yes, I initially used "U.S." instead of United States, and I changed this when I discovered it was an error. I would appreciate if you would be equally flexible towards amending this error. bd2412 T 13:42, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I have now provided a link to the Congressional legislation officially naming the "Byron White United States Courthouse". You were correct that there was an error in the name, but it was not the spelling out of "United States". Rather, it was the inclusion of his middle initial. In retrospect, such a citation should, and will, be added to all articles for buildings so named by Congress. bd2412 T 13:53, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

BD2412 has implemented a bunch more page moves, which I think should be reversed. BD2412, can you please hold off on making page moves for now. You have raised an issue here, but it hasn't been considered fully. I have committed in discussion here to agree to some type of moves, but maybe more narrowly than you assume. For example you moved U.S. Post Office (Hollywood, California) to a different name, different also from what appears on the building itself. The label on the building includes "Hollywood Station" and "91028". If it just showed "United States Post Office" and there were no sources suggesting a different name, then I have said I would agree. But you have to allow for some research and pulling out of the sources relevant, including for that one an MPS document that is linked from its infobox. It is unprecedented i think to make a whole bunch of page moves bases on writing on buildings. I think the writing might be considered decorative, part of architectural styling. Certainly the one labelled "Beer and Wine" is a counter-example to your implied rule that a building must be named whatever is written on the outside of it. So, could you please stop for now, and allow a complete discussion, with proper notice and proposal. The proposal should consider reverse moves from many "United States Courthouse" articles you have created to "U.S. Courthouse" per sources in those articles, too, but I will refrain from embarking on page-moves of all of those in advance. Okay? I won't be able to comment more today. --doncram (talk) 14:52, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Let's take stock of the discussion above. User:nsaum75 said "Agree with BD2412"; User:Dudemanfellabra said "I support BD's move to "United States""; User:Pubdog's concerns have been addressed, and there is no one else in this discussion who wishes to adhere to the NRHP's errors. The discussion has been open to all interested parties to participate, and among those that did, there is a clear consensus to spell out the abbreviated "U.S.", as I intend to do. You can help, but you have no basis to hinder the process. bd2412 T 16:15, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Haha. Wow. Wikipedia. Hilarious. This is probably one of the most inane discussions I've ever seen. I really don't think it matters, both terms, U.S. and United States, MEAN THE SAME THING.IvoShandor (talk) 04:04, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Most of post offices are notable because of they're entered into the NRHP, not because of they're post offices. Therefore it's the NRHP entry's name which is mandatory and nothing else. --Matthiasb (talk) 10:58, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

The NRHP operates under the authority of the federal government. Have you ever seen a piece of Congressional naming legislation? Here is an example:

H.R.282 -- To designate the United States Post Office building located at 153 East 110th Street, New York, New York, as the `Oscar Garcia Rivera Post Office Building'. (Enrolled Bill [Final as Passed Both House and Senate] - ENR)

“ One Hundred Fifth Congress
of the
United States of America

AT THE FIRST SESSION ”

Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday, the seventh day of January, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven
An Act
To designate the United States Post Office building located at 153 East 110th Street, New York, New York, as the `Oscar Garcia Rivera Post Office Building'.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. DESIGNATION.
The United States Post Office building located at 153 East 110th Street, New York, New York, shall be known and designated as the `Oscar Garcia Rivera Post Office Building'.
SEC. 2. REFERENCES.
Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, or other record of the United States to the United States Post Office building referred to in section 1 shall be deemed to be a reference to the 'Oscar Garcia Rivera Post Office Building'.

That is simply what the law is. As Doncram has conceded in the discussion on my talk page, the NRHP's function of documenting historical buildings does not require it to keep up with name changes, so it simply can not be relied upon as a record of the names of buildings. I have also observed that even on the NRHP lists, there is a horribly inconsistent use of both "US" and "U.S.", the former being improper (and disrespectful to the United States) in any style manual. In any case, the consensus on this page has been established in favor of spelling out the abbreviation (which IvoShandor points out has the same meaning), and I will not, at this point, be dissuaded from correcting this style error. bd2412 T 13:39, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I did not "concede" something; i was simply giving BD2412 some information towards correcting his uninformed views about the moral laxity of the National Park Service and NRHP editors. Yes, the NRHP naming system fixes names to honor specific places, and it is not obligated and does not update with name changes. A further educational point for BD2412 is that what I and other NRHP editors view as the official NRHP nomination name will usually be the name displayed in the NRHP nomination document, rather than the NRIS database name which reflects data entry workers' shortcuts and sometimes punctuation errors. We in fact identify and take steps towards getting the NRHP program to correct data entry errors in names there. And usually / perhaps always the use of "US" rather than "U.S." seems to be an inappropriate data entry change from the official name. I actually agree that "U.S." seems more respectful and it is actually what the correct-by-NRHP-nomination name would be. NRHP editors do implement such corrections.

But, I do resent BD2412 going on to declare victory and disdain for me and for consensus processes to implement about 600 edits making moves yesterday to assert his way. I have been cooperating and don't deserve the disrespect. I think that BD2412 does not have it thought out well about what to do when the "label" on a building is not simply one phrase, and when there are sources for alternative names that seem to make sense. He does provide some support for using "United States Post Office (City, State)" for some/many cases, but disrespects others' informed naming decisions and the actual availability of other sources in articles and the probable further availability of sources. The attitude just seems arrogant and unnecessarily insulting to me and other editors. --doncram (talk) 14:09, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Doncram, since you referred to the NRHP as "us" on my talk page, would I be correct in understanding that you are in some way affiliated with this organization? bd2412 T 17:21, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Conversation from User talk:BD2412, copied by BD2412, collapsed

Hey, my watchlist is lighting up with page moves you are making. I have in principle agreed to some kind of moves, but I have not agreed to all of these. And, others' input is needed. Could you please hold off on moving pre-existing articles from "U.S." type names to "United States" type names? I will likewise hold off on moving "United States Courthouse" type articles you have developed to "U.S. Courthouse". Please, there is no rush, is there? It is just disruptive now, when there is an unfinished discussion, and even no clear, specific proposal on the table yet. --doncram (talk) 14:43, 8 July 2010 (UTC) I have no intention of abiding efforts to make the encyclopedia less accurate than the names of buildings that actually appear over the door. The NRHP's laxity in providing correct naming information is reason enough to discount its tendency towards abbreviations. bd2412 T 15:59, 8 July 2010 (UTC) Uh, you're losing me. The National Register database is a collection of named places that were listed at their name at the time they were listed. Yes, some places have received different names since then. But it is not the purpose of the National Register to serve as some kind of current directory; there is no obligation to update. So, in specific cases it can be shown the NRHP name is not the most current name. But there is no laziness on the part of the National Park Service or of the NRHP editors on wikipedia. In all of these cases where there is a 1930s era building listed on the NRHP, the name chosen by the NRHP nominator (who could be a local historical society, a state office, or others) are obviously fully aware of the words on the building, and yet they consciously chose a different name. They were there. What, you want to insult them and me by calling us slackers? You give me second thoughts about my general longtime support for your work, which i thought was basically very good. --doncram (talk) 04:20, 9 July 2010 (UTC) I apologize for offending you, I was being a bit tongue in cheek. I have no doubt that the NRHP does an excellent job of identifying and documenting historic buildings, but its function is, as you point out, not one which requires it to keep up with changes occurring after that documentation has occurred. It is not designed to be the content of an ever-evolving and ever-updating encyclopedia. I would bet that the NRHP used "U.S." from the start because its documentation preceded the computer age, and typespace was a potential issue (imagine how much extra ink and paper would go into spelling out "United States" hundreds of thousands of times across their documents). That the NRHP nominator chose to abbreviate the term even when it was plastered across the building in front of them signifies that there was some other concern beyond the faithful reproduction of the official name of the building. bd2412 T 13:20, 9 July 2010 (UTC) Two things. The NRHP has used "US" much more than "U.S." (around 500 to around 240). I think the space saving hypothesis is nonsense -- it's just what people say. Second, I thought from the discussion above, that you were on hold with this, yet you changed the US Post Office Garage today? . . Jim - Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 14:31, 9 July 2010 (UTC) I was on hold with this pending the discussion at Talk:U.S. Post Office, which generated a clear consensus (and overwhelming evidence from telephone books, Congressional documents, and pictures of the post offices themselves) that the move to "United States" was supported. I have, to this point, only moved those buildings for which photographic evidence demonstrated that "United States Post Office" was the name on the building itself, and those beginning with "US" instead of "U.S.", which is always wrong and is a usage denigrating to the United States, being an initialism and not an acronym (it is not "US" versus "THEM" for example). The argument that it is "just what people say" is inaccurate; what people say is "the Post Office" unprefaced by "U.S." or "United States". I am copying this discussion to the U.S. Post Office talk page, where it belongs. bd2412 T 17:17, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Responding to BD2412's question before copied conversation (which I have now collapsed): No i have no official association with the NRHP. I think i said "them and us" or "them and me" where them meant the NRHP staff. I have corresponded with several NRHP staff people a number of times about matters like obtaining copies of NRHP applications and about wikipedia NRHP editors' questions and/or suggestions about corrections regarding NRIS database listings. Over the last couple years I and other wikipedia NRHP editors built up an extensive collection system to assist in such correspondence, indexed at wp:NRIS info issues and i have been the main person plugging along with submissions relating to that, slowly. This is entirely in a volunteer capacity. --doncram (talk) 19:56, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate your response. I have a suggestion, then. Why don't we just ask the NRHP people whether the abbreviated form of "U.S." (or "US") in their listings is intended to represent the "official" names of the buildings, or whether it is, in fact, intended to stand in for an unabbreviated "United States"? bd2412 T 21:16, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I realize I'm coming late to this party, but I haven't seen anyone raise this point yet:

• Wikipedia has its own manual of style, which I think should take precedence here over the style rules of the U.S. Post Office, the United States Congress, or any other body.
• The Wikipedia manual of style guide for acronyms and abbreviations clearly says that "U.S." is preferred over "US". The manual does not seem to weigh in explicitly on "United States" versus "U.S.", but I note that every other article I can find offhand about a United States institution uses "United States" over "U.S." and I think it's inappropriate to break that convention. Tim Pierce (talk) 04:00, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
  • I completely agree that writing in an encyclopedic style requires following a single convention to insure uniformity in the treatment of things such as spelling out (or not spelling out) "United States" in the names of government buildings. Keep in mind, however, that when the United States Congress designates the name of a federal building, that is the name of the building. We could not properly remove "Ronald Reagan" from the title of the "Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center" or remove "Harry S Truman" from the name of the "Harry S Truman Building" just because it was the naming decision by Congress which bestowed that name upon the buildings. bd2412 T 17:10, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

starting articles on the NRHP-listed ones now

New section to split this out from naming discussion on U.S. vs. United States, above. Whatever the outcome of that proposal to rename a bunch of article names now, it now seems beneficial to create starter articles about each of the NRHP-listed post offices indexed in this dab page. In particular, articles should be started for all the ones in Alabama thru Indiana, first, for which User:Dudemanfellabra has already checked and fixed where necessary the correspondence between article names here and article names in corresponding county/city/state NRHP list-articles. Starting all the redlink articles now seems helpful and does not prejudice discussion about what article names are best to use. In fact it makes it simpler to implement any name-changes.

Advantages:

• Ensures that the NRHP official name of place is either used directly in article name, or that a redirect from the NRHP official name will be in place (because if article is moved, a redirect from the NRHP name will be left behind)
• Ensures that connections from this dab page, from the corresponding NRHP county/city/state list-article, and from town articles or other articles already including red-links to the name appearing in this dab, will all be kept. It is easy to verify that at any one of such pages that it now links to an actual post office article; it is not easy to verify that all the separate redlinks point to the same name for a non-existent article.
• If this is done for all the NRHP-listed redlink items on this dab page, then it will be easy to check in NRHP list-articles and identify other needed fixes. NRHP editors will know that there should exist an actual article for every post office, so if they notice a red-link for a post office in any NRHP list-article, they know to fix connections. Perhaps that would indicate that a post office article is missing from this dab page and should be added.
• If there are multiple variations on punctuation in the NRHP name for a post office, or any possible other names for the article, redirects can be set up. Redirects to non-existent articles cannot be created; if created they are automatically deleted, promptly.

Disadvantages:

• Some NRHP editors prefer not to have short stub articles created for NRHP places.
  • Mitigating that concern partly, the new articles can be created immediately in "pretty good stub" fashion, including NRHP nomination document and photos, for states including Connecticut, New York, Virginia, Puerto Rico and others where NRHP nom documents are available on-line. Which states having NRHP nom docs on line should be available, and how to get them, is identified in wp:NRHPhelp.
  • For states including Alabama, Arkansas, and others where NRHP docs are not online, I think it is beneficial to create the short stubs based on just the NRIS info easily available, for reason of ensuring all the connections. This helps build the wikipedia, and I and many others believe this makes the article topics more accessible to other editors who may feel comfortable adding photos and other sources.
• Article name moves may temporarily cause there to be double redirects, so clicking on a bluelink may bring you first to an error message about a double redirect.
  • Mitigating that entirely, I believe: bots find and fix those very quickly. They replace any redirect which points to another redirect, by a redirect to the final destination target. I believe within a day or two.

Comments welcome. --doncram (talk) 18:51, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible to identify which of those redlinks are for facilities which also served as courthouses? The Federal Judicial Center has records for about 600 historic courthouses (although the FJC's denomination of a facility as "historic" does not appear to have any correlation with NRHP inclusion). For each such building, it has an image (usually taken around the time of construction) and some details of use, which should also be enough to support a "pretty good stub". That is exactly what I plan to do with all of the courthouses, once the List of United States federal courthouses is completed. bd2412 T 19:02, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Note: a Google search for pages in the "fjc.gov" domain containing "National Register of Historic Places" yielded 22 hits. bd2412 T 19:17, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Woh woh woh. You knew before you wrote that, Doncram, that I would oppose this. Creating 1-sentence articles tells the reader nothing more than is already present on this dab page... that is was listed on the NRHP; the article is pointless. How about this? For articles that not only have the NRIS data in Elkman's generator but that also have the FJC source and at least one other source (NRHP nom is great, but any online source will do) and can be expanded to at least 2,000 bytes total (A rating of 1/10 in Template:ALR) including the infobox which is on average about 1,000 bytes, I'd be fine with creating a small starter article. Now that BD pointed out the FJC source to me, I may be willing to create an article about United States Post Office and Courthouse (Meridian, Mississippi) which I was unwilling to do before because I could find very little information about it.

If, however, there are no other sources online besides the Elkman tool, I don't support starting an article. I'd be willing to help with this drive (which should be mentioned at WP:NRHP an WP:Courthouses btw) while also completing the supporting bluelinks on this page for the articles that we don't create. I expect, however, for the articles to be much better than the crap drives like this have previously created; thus it will take longer than usual to create all these articles. I just want to let you know that before you start creating "The United States Post Office and Courthouse is a historic courthouse in _______. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in ____." articles. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:38, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Dudemanfellabra, good that you now see ur way to creating the Meridian article, and that you'll support some kind of drive here. However I resent your use of inflammatory language denigrating work done in previous organized drives. The system of articles created in previous organized drives about U.S. List of National Historic Landmarks, about National Register of Historic Places listings in New Haven, Connecticut, about National Register of Historic Places listings in Syracuse, New York, and in other formally organized drives created good material that i and others are proud of. Also I personally created many individual, scattered NRHP articles to solve real problems toward properly supporting the NRHP list-article system we now have in place, dealing the best i could with competing concerns of different sets of editors having different narrow visions. I don't think anyone could have done better in building the supporting disambiguation system now in place, which has cost me many hundreds of hours by now dealing with quite diverse camps of disambiguation-focused editors and various camps of NRHP editors. I also created articles for places having boundary increases or that were otherwise complex, where it seemed easier and better just to start them correctly rather than attempt to change Elkman infobox generator code or otherwise communicate complex stuff. That said, it's okay for you to prefer not to have short NRIS-only articles created where not necessary. But, by the way, why do you prefer that? I honestly don't understand why. Yes, readers looking for info on a given place may find not very much in a NRIS-only stub, but that is a start that they could add to, and otherwise they get nothing. Also NRIS-only stubs do sometimes contain more than shows in the corresponding NRHP list-article, such as links to associated MPS PDF files, for example. --doncram (talk) 23:11, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Examples of articles from the pages you linked above: Morris House (New Haven, Connecticut), Caroline Nicoll House, Hunziker House (Syracuse, New York), Wiliam H. Sabine House. I didn't even both to look through the hundreds of NHL articles, but there are many of them that are simply one sentence (as I found during the 2009 change from Infobox NRHP to NRHP2 and then back to NRHP). My beef with this type of article is that it doesn't really tell the reader any new information than could be found by a simple Google search or by a quick look into the NRIS database... or even to a quick look at one of the NRHP list articles already on Wikipedia. The list articles tell you that the site is listed on the NRHP, when it was listed, where it is, and could possibly give you a picture of the site. Copying this information to a new article in itself is duplication and is completely unnecessary. All of the articles linked above are poor indeed and had a little extra time been put into their creation, they could have been somewhat decent articles. Take the Hunziker House for example: In the references, a link to the NRHP nomination form is given, yet absolutely no information is added to the article from it. Had the creating author (whom incidentally was you) spent another 10 minutes expanding the article using this information, it would have been (although still somewhat short) an acceptable and respectable stub article.

It's not necessarily the creating of small articles about sites that have very little information about them that bugs me; it's the complete lack of dedication to adding information about the site to the new article. Every single new article I have ever created has been expanded as far as I could take it with what information I was given. If I can find no information other than what is already given largely in the NRHP list article, I avoid creating the article until (an)other source(s) becomes available (e.g. Meridian Post Office-Courthouse, which is started in my Sandbox now, along with several other Lauderdale County NRHP listings). It's not what you're doing.. it's how you're doing it. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 23:58, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Here are two alternatives. First, you could create these proto-articles in project space, and then move them to mainspace as they acquire enough information to stand there as more than substubs. Second, you could create lists of historic post offices by region, and then break those out into articles as they expand within the lists. bd2412 T 00:16, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, Dudemanfellabra and i will have to agree to disagree, I guess. I don't like the negative language. Your beef is that i and others have not done more already. So what, we are all volunteers and we do what we choose to do. I have tried to interest you to do things that you would not do; you can't make me, or even fairly criticize me, for my not doing something else. I and others have built a great system that is steadily growing better, and which coordinates the productive activity of many hundreds of editors working separately. To suggest that i am not dedicated, for my not having put more into one particular article, is pretty ridiculous so i don't even take offense. But, certainly this is fairly off-topic, about whether creating articles on the NRHP-listed post offices is worthwhile now. The impetus now is that there is a well-meaning, pretty determined editor who wants to implement a bunch of name changes, potentially breaking links/connections to redlinks / articles, and causing needs for redirects from alternative names. I think that creating all these articles now is well merited. And, I'm sorry, i don't understand a single reason not to go forward with that, besides not wanting to disturb some editors including Dudemanfellabra who prefer for them not to exist. That's a real consideration, but I can't understand any fundamental reasons not to go forward, and there are positive reasons to just proceed. --doncram (talk) 00:44, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Why not start with lists, redirecting individual post office names to sections of the lists, and then break those out as information is accumulated? bd2412 T 01:38, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

That's a reasonable third party proposal to make, towards resolving a new flare-up of long-running disagreement among editors who have pretty entrenched positions. Thank you for that. But, that is not attractive to me because it would create new problems and does not meet other requirements. One problem is the list-articles themselves would likely be attacked by many other editors as not being notable. I just don't want to go there. And the separate articles are more naturally and easily linked to from different articles like the NRHP county list-article and the local town/village articles. It would just cost a lot more work to develop them within a list-article and calve them out; the shortest path towards having well-developed wonderful articles about each of these separate, notable places is to just start them. Please keep in mind we know there exist extensive, high quality documentation for each, in the form of freely-available-upon-request NRHP nomination documents, which themselves list other sources, and there are other sources besides. Once started, the short articles attract links and additions of photos and news article mentions and so on. Sure, Dudemanfellabra can find many still-short stub articles within the list-articles I mentioned (although only the brand new one listed in May 2010 in Syracuse has no photo or substantial source added to it yet, out of the examples he selected), but there are many other articles that started as stubs in those drives and have grown far, which would not otherwise have grown. --doncram (talk) 04:08, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Naming conventions for United States federal buildings

I would still like to see more opinions expressed at the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Naming conventions for United States federal buildings, which has relatively few editorial voices involved to determine an issue with broad reach. I believe that RFC's are traditionally kept open for a month, so opinions may be still posted for a few weeks. Cheers bd2412 T 19:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Relating to the discussion there, and towards resolving article names for various post office articles on this dab page, see a new workpage at Talk:U.S. Post Office/NameComparisons. --doncram (talk) 23:23, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

creating articles

Per some discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Naming conventions for United States federal buildings discussion, and consistent with another RFC about standalone lists, I think it is good and helpful now to create stub articles for all the U.S. Post Offices that are NRHP-listed. This way, any article rename discussions specific to any one place can take place at a Talk page for the place, and moving/renaming will leave redirects behind and not break links from NRHP list-articles (which were set up using NRHP's NRIS names, as was this U.S. Post Office dab). Happily User:Pubdog has completed the article creation for all of the New York State  Done ones recently, and there's been other article creation going on, too. Anyhow, I'm gonna proceed on stubbing articles, concentrating on states/territories where almost all have articles already, and would welcome others' assistance. Or comments. --doncram (talk) 17:26, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Wyoming  Done and Washington, D.C.  Done. I guess these should all get NRHP infoboxes, as from the Elkman generator, plus addition of Category:Post office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places which already exists and is not included in standard generator output. Any other specific suggestions would be welcomed. --doncram (talk) 17:40, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Alabama  Done; Hawaii  Done; Massachusetts was already done. A lot to go. --doncram (talk) 02:57, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Alaska  Done; Arizona  Done; Rhode Island  Done. --doncram (talk) 14:38, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Connecticut  Done; Delaware  Done; Florida  Done. --doncram (talk) 21:26, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

All the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse (disambiguation) ones  Done. Vermont  Done. Working on U.S. Post Office and Customhouse (disambiguation) ones. Illinois, Oklahoma, Virginia may be done soon. --doncram (talk) 13:14, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

North Dakota  Done --doncram 19:48, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

punctuation: en-dash vs. one or two hyphens

When the name is US Post Office[dash]Town (Main), I'm seeing hyphens and em dashes, some with spaces and some without. Based on style guides and university names (U of State–City), I'd expect en dashes. Is one correct? Does it matter? — kwami (talk) 11:16, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't care very much and in particular don't have perspective on en-dashes vs. em-dashes, but I will add: the NRHP listing names for many of these sometimes include two hyphens and sometimes include one hyphen, where probably an en- or em-dash is intended. I and other wikipedia editors have usually replaced the double hyphens by single hyphens, when probably using an en- or em-dash would have been more correct. But, a redirect from name using hyphen is needed for every usage of an en- or em-dash in article title, i believe. I and others were doing the easiest and necessary stuff first. The NRHP listing names are recorded in a National Register database named NRIS, which is limited and does not allow en- or em-dashes. So, probably applying en- or em-dashes is an improvement. Unless others comment otherwise, please go ahead with moving articles per this.

But, please don't change redlinks in this list. If articles are created first at redlink names using hyphens, then all links from other list-articles such as county- and city- NRHP list-articles, are kept. Thanks! --doncram 11:57, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, rd's from hyphens would be expected.

Yes. Just clarifying maybe for future readers, redirects from hyphen versions of names to en-dash version of name can't be set up in advance of the articles being started (or if set up, they will be automatically deleted by bots i think). That's why i want for the redlink items not to be changed, and want to proceed with starting those articles first, before moves to en-dash or other moves which leave proper redirects behind. Hyphen versions of names are used here and in NRHP county list-articles and elsewhere. --doncram 12:45, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I've noticed that a huge number of "US Post Office (Town, State)"-format articles are hyphenated, and sometimes dashed, in the text and infobox. It would seem that it doesn't matter which format is used, and I certainly don't want to convert them all, but simple hyphens are a bit difficult to read.

Clarifying i think, you mean to refer to names of format "U.S. Post Office-Town" or "U.S. Post Office--Town". By the way we have already decided to standardize on "U.S." rather than "US", i think, though allowing "United States" or "U.S." according to what is actual common usage for each place individually. --doncram 12:45, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we'll have, say, "U.S. Post Office (City)" as the location of the article, "U.S. Post Office—City" in the lede, and "U.S. Post Office-City" in the info box. — kwami (talk) 12:55, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Normally en dashes are used within names, but very occasionally em dashes are. If it can't be shown to matter, I'll assume en dashes. (Or actually have: they should be all moved now, though the text hasn't been edited to match apart from a few.) — kwami (talk) 12:28, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm taking this page off my watch list. Pls let me know if you'd like me to mass-move them to em dashes or spaced en dashes or some other convention. — kwami (talk) 23:25, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Requested move 1

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: Moved to U.S. Post Office (disambiguation), U.S. Post Office redirected to United States Postal Service Mike Cline (talk) 15:05, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

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U.S. Post Office → U.S. Post Office (disambiguation) – I propose that the primary meaning of the phrase "U.S. Post Office" is the government agency, the United States Postal Service. The buildings are only so named because they are or were facilities of the agency, and although the agency has changed names, the person looking it up is likely concerned with the post office as it is (and will easily find historic versions on that page). I would move the current page to the disambiguated ttle and redirect to United States Postal Service. Cheers! bd2412 T 21:00, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. I don't really see a significant problem with the current situation. It leaves everyone just a single click away from where they want to go, and I'm not convinced that many people will be looking for the USPS under "U.S. Post Office" anyway. Powers ^T 14:58, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Allow me to convince you, then. You will see that there are many incoming links to this page. This is a perpetual problem and draws time and effort from disambiguators. In many cases, some town or another has a mention of its post office, with a link to this page, but individual post offices are not inherently notable, so most of the tens of thousands of post offices that could potentially link to this page will never have an article, and will never be listed here. Readers who are directed here by such a link are left to scan this lengthy page and come away frustrated with the absence of whatever article seems to be indicated by the link. At the same time, because all of the listings are actually branches of a single agency, this page comes perilously close to violating WP:DABCONCEPT. Furthermore, it should be very clear that none of the individual post offices listed on this page is the primary meaning of the term "U.S. Post Office", and if there is a primary meaning at all, it would be the agency that encompasses all of the facilities listed on the page. Cheers! bd2412 T 15:31, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
    • I think you're incorrectly conflating the postal service with the buildings in which postal transactions are processed. A "post office" is, literally, an office building, and I don't like the idea of sending people to the article on the postal service when they're looking for an actual office. Links such as those you mention should be removed when found. Powers ^T 18:06, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
      • Wikipedia is not a directory. Why should we lead people to expect it to be one? In any case, there is no conflation to associate buildings with the agency that owns and operates those buildings. The best place for someone to find their local post office building is on the website of the United States Postal Service, but a link to that website can not be placed on a disambiguation page because external links are expressly forbidden from being included on disambig pages, to avoid link-farming. Such a link can be found, however, in the infobox at the top of the United States Postal Service page. bd2412 T 17:47, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
        • I was not suggesting we accommodate people looking for the address of their local office, but rather that we ought to accommodate readers looking to read articles on these historic sites. WP:NOTDIRECTORY does not apply to my argument. Powers ^T 20:08, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support – the agency (United States Postal Service), and its offices, are clearly the primary topic for the abbreviation "U.S. Post Office". United States Post Office redirects to United States Postal Service, and so should U.S. Post Office. Article titles such as "U.S. Post Office–location" or "location Post Office" shouldn't even be on considered ambiguous with it, per WP:PTM. Even for "U.S. Post Office (location)" entries, the only reason the local offices are listed as such is that in a local context these premises represent the total presence of the United States Postal Service. No reader seriously expects to come to the global resource that is Wikipedia, enter "U.S. Post Office", and find their local post office. Nor should they expect to find an index, per MOS:DAB. This whole page, which as pointed out isn't really a dab page anyway, should be moved to something like List of United States Post Offices (without abbreviation in the title), and a new dab page can be created at United States Post Office (disambiguation) if any other article title exists that is actually ambiguous with "United States Post Office" or "U.S. Post Office". ENeville (talk) 17:25, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: Very well put. Vote below. Andrewa (talk) 14:03, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
  • You say: "Even for 'U.S. Post Office (location)' entries, the only reason the local offices are listed as such is that in a local context these premises represent the total presence of the United States Postal Service." This is not true; they are listed as such because "U.S. Post Office" is the official name of each building, with the (location) added for disambiguation. That is standard naming practice at Wikipedia. Powers ^T 20:08, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support as primary topic (analogous to ENeville's example United States Post Office). -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:09, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Both sensible and in accordance with WP:AT (and this is not coincidence). Andrewa (talk) 14:05, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
• Support Per ENeville; United States Post OfficeUnited States Postal Service is the only term that can be reasonably expected. --JaGa^talk 15:24, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
  • That can be reasonably expected by whom? For what? Your comment is unclear. Are you suggesting we rename United States Postal Service to United States Post Office? Powers ^T 20:08, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Comment: Disagree that it's unclear. The explanation is in the original nomination if you need one. Suggest we simply ignore the straw man. No change of vote. Andrewa (talk) 22:43, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
      • Wow, way to assume good faith, Andrew. I'm not setting up a straw man; I'm genuinely confused by JaGa's statement. The nomination does not mention the term "United States Post Office", so I also fail to see how that is supposed to explain what JaGa meant. In the future, I would appreciate it if you would let the original author respond to requests for clarification rather than stepping in and declaring it unnecessary and disparaging my request as an attempt to set up a straw man. Powers ^T 02:17, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
        • Sorry, I copied the wrong link. Corrected. --JaGa^talk 18:31, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
          • Thank you; it makes somewhat more sense now, but I'm still a little confused. Did you mean that United States Postal Service is the only article to which someone typing U.S. Post Office can reasonably expect to be directed? Or that United States Postal Service is the only title that can reasonably be expected to refer to the postal service? Or some other interpretation? Powers ^T 21:13, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
            • When an editor votes "per" someone else's rationale, they communicate their intention to reflect the explanation given by the editor to whom they referred; in this case, JaGa indicated "Support Per ENeville", whose above explanation directly and thoroughly addresses the question you have just posed. I'm afraid I'm starting to sense a bit of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT in this line of questioning. bd2412 T 21:45, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
              • Oh for crying out loud. You may have noticed that JaGa added an additional statement to the "Per ENeville" !vote; it is unclear to me if it is merely reinforcing that reference, or if JaGa is trying to make an additional point separate from the endorsement. Powers ^T 00:24, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose Support. A post office is not the same as the postal service. Some of these post office buildings are no longer used by the postal service, but they are still referred to as post offices. Someone has done a nice job with the list of buildings. Nice to see them preserved; you don't see that kind of architecture any more. Anyone who googles for "post office" will see "US Postal Service" as the first listing, so I don't see any issues that need fixing. Neotarf (talk) 13:09, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Actually, buildings that were once used as post offices but are no longer are far more often referred to not as U.S. Post Office, but as Old Post Office - so much so that we have a separate disambiguation page just for those listings. bd2412 T 15:16, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Note that no one is advocating deletion of the "list of buildings", merely proper titling of it, such as List of United States Post Offices. The Google search example provided actually demonstrates why this article should be moved per the proposal: someone searching for "[U.S.] post office" is most likely looking for "U.S. Postal Service". ENeville (talk) 20:17, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
    • I don't find that likely at all, and adjusting our redirects as if it were means that we're faced with the following scenario: Someone looks for "U.S. Post Office" and gets redirected to a different topic, only to be told "hey, if you actually wanted to read about what you typed, go here instead." I find that to be insulting our readers' intelligence. Powers ^T 19:03, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
      • • Likely or no, I was just replying to the argument by Neotarf (the only other editor opposed). ENeville (talk) 23:36, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
      • I can't imagine anyone who would be so parochial as to type in U.S. Post Office and expect that title to lead to an article on their corner post office on Main Street, Anytown. Since individual post offices are generally not notable, that article will never, ever exist in this encyclopedia, and there's no point in directing the reader who is seeking that to any article other than the United States Postal Service (which older users will remember as the United States Post Office, because that is what the department was called unto 1971). bd2412 T 19:26, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
        • Except, you know, for people who know we actually do have articles on individual post offices, if they're historic. Powers ^T 21:21, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
          • Do you think people will type in U.S. Post Office and expect that title to be about a particular historic post office? As a practical matter how many searchers do you think are looking for a particular historic post office, and not just their corner post office, or information about the postal service? Some usage statistics would be helpful here. bd2412 T 21:33, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
            • But that's just it; without usage statistics, which are very difficult to get beyond simple pageviews, I don't see any grounds for changing the status quo, which sends everyone to a disambiguation page without assuming anything about what they're looking for. Powers ^T 14:28, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I've withdrawn my objection. I'm thinking of a particular building known locally as "the post office" or maybe "the post office building" that is fairly noticeable and spans eight lanes of traffic or so. People tend to keep calling a building the same thing long after the building changes hands, especially when giving directions. (...I remember a Denny's that was once painted out and turned into a parking lot, but was still "Denny's" even without the sign..... anyhow....) I'm pretty sure this particular post office was decommissioned, but it may be in use again now. And people probably still take the first exit after the post office. So, how would you find that building? I googled "(city) post office" and it came up as the second listing. So how do you find the post office around the corner from your house? (Of course you should be able to find it.) If you google "post office", the USPS comes up as the first listing, with a direct link to the search by zip code. The disambiguation links at the bottom of the article pages also help you find the historical buildings. Not so sure about typing in "U.S.", that's a lot of shift keys and punctuation and such. Neotarf (talk) 00:52, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support per Andrewa's comment. LaTeeDa (talk) 20:58, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
• Strong support: The USPS is the only thing on this page that just goes by "U.S. Post Office" without any additional geographical designation pbp 16:23, 5 April 2012 (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.

Requested move 2

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: Moved to List of United States post offices Mike Cline (talk) 17:33, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

---

U.S. Post Office (disambiguation) → List of United States Post Offices – Following on the move discussion immediately above, this page is not a dab page, per MOS:DAB, but a list of partial title matches for "United States Post Office" and its abbreviation "U.S. Post Office" (as well as some other entries). I guess it's really a set index. In either case, it seems it should reside at List of X, and per WP:ABBR that should be List of United States Post Offices. relisted --Mike Cline (talk) 15:23, 7 May 2012 (UTC) ENeville (talk) 22:43, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• Support per nom. The proposed title better reflects the content of the article. —  AjaxSmack  00:49, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support clearly this is either a list or a set index. 70.49.124.147 (talk) 04:21, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't understand the contention that this is not a dab page. The entries on this page consist of articles that would be named "U.S. Post Office" if not for the fact that that title is ambiguous. Additionally, the proposed title implies that it would be a list of all U.S. Post Offices, which I hope it would not become. Powers ^T 20:48, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment it is highly redlinked, so if it is a "dab page", then it's actually a set index. 70.49.124.147 (talk) 05:13, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Yes, there are a lot of redlinks, but they're all to buildings on the NRHP, which will all have articles eventually. I don't see what that has to do with whether this is a List or a dab page. Powers ^T 20:08, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
      • Another issue is that many of the items on the list are not called "U.S. Post Office" and their presence on a DAB page is questionable. They would be fine in a list article, though. —  AjaxSmack  02:59, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
        • I don't see that as an issue; those that are not called exactly "U.S. Post Office" should still appear on a dab page for "U.S. Post Office" either because they were once known as that, or they could easily be known as that by someone unfamiliar with the official name. We do that all the time on dab pages. Powers ^T 14:32, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
          • I don't have an issue with it myself either but others enforce a stricter notion of what should appear on dab pages. Note the proposal given below by User:BD2412 which would split, i.e. truncate, this article. The move proposal above is both a more accurate reflection of the article's contents and better insurance of the article's integrity. —  AjaxSmack  04:43, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Powers. The entries on this page are articles that would be named "U.S. Post Office" or a similar variant if not for the fact that that title is ambiguous. I also see how the proposed article name could be misconstrued as being a list of every post office in the US. Also, if we make this a "list" of US Post Office, what happens to any articles titled "US Post Offices" that may no longer be post offices now or in the future? Many historical buildings retain the name even after they no longer are post office, and with the large number of post offices soon to be closed in the USPS's restructuring, the number falling into this category will mushroom. At that point, if the title is changed, it will become in reality a list of current and former US Post Offices under a misleading title. -- nsaum75 ^{!Dígame¡‎} 16:42, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
• I would like to propose a split solution. Have one page here listing only those entries that actually contain "U.S. Post Office" or "United States Post Office"; and a second entry at List of United States Post Offices listing all encyclopedically notable buildings that or or have been outlets of the U.S. Postal Service, delineating which are current facilities and which are former facilities. The disambiguation page would thereby be limited to actually ambiguous titles for which an article either does exist or should, and the list page could include some titles for which no individual article is likely to exist, such as the Pentagon Post Office, which is not individually notable, but is probably worth mentioning as a component of The Pentagon. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:28, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
  • I oppose this Solomonic compromise. The current article is an appropriate location for all of the entries together. —  AjaxSmack  04:43, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure exactly what your proposal would entail. Would an entry like Chico Midtown Station appear in this disambiguation page or not, under your proposal? Powers ^T 23:08, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
    • Chico Midtown Station is not ambiguous to "U.S. Post Office", unless there is some source indicating that it is referred to by that name. bd2412 T 23:58, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
      • Well there is. [13] Powers ^T 20:10, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
        • The thing to do, then, would be to add the alternate name and the reference to it to the Chico Midtown Station article. bd2412 T 20:17, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
          • Okay, but that wouldn't change its title, which is the metric you proposed. (Besides, my intent was not to get bogged down in discussion of a single example.) Consider any one of the items on this disambiguation page which do not "actually contain 'U.S. Post Office'" in their titles, but have been or could be referred to as "U.S. Post Offices". (That'd be just about all of 'em.) Do you really propose removing them from the page? Powers ^T 20:46, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support move and retagging as a set index article. A list of U.S. Post Offices would be a valid link target (and a valid element of the non-dab categories it's already in). I don't mind the split either, although normally where a set index article fully covers the elements of a dab (i.e., all the ambiguous bits belong to the same type), we often forego the dab page and just have an SIA. If this SIA is long enough to hinder the nav function of a dab (as opposed to the exploration of an SIA), the dab page could coexist with the SIA. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:28, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Nsaum75. This seems like it could pave the way for the creation of both NRHP-registered post office buildings, as well as non-NRHP-registered ones, like the former US Post Office building in Medford, New York, a building completley unworthy of an article. ----DanTD (talk) 12:22, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Suppose this were moved to List of NRHP-registered United States Post Office buildings? bd2412 T 13:27, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support. This is really a list of United States Post Offices in different places, not a list of different things that happen to be named "United States Post Office". JIP | Talk 05:40, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
  • If it was a list of Post Offices in different places, it'd be a lot longer, don't you think? Powers ^T 14:10, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support The fact that it's incomplete doesn't mean it's not a list. Rename and tag with {{expand list}}. --BDD (talk) 15:46, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Do you really think we should try to maintain a list of all post offices, current and former, in the United States? Powers ^T 19:22, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
    • No, but I prefer that to the article as it stands. --BDD (talk) 20:39, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
      • It's not an article, it's a disambiguation page. What's wrong with it? Powers ^T 01:52, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
        • It's not a DAB page, it's a list article and the title should reflect that. If it was a true DAB page, many of the entries could be deleted (e.g., per WP:PTM). —  AjaxSmack  03:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
          • That is exactly why I think we need both a list page (for all titles) and a dab page (for exact matches). bd2412 T 04:13, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
            • We don't need a dab page at all. Note the example provided at WP:PTM and notice how close it is to this case: "Baltimore Zoo is not included at Zoo (disambiguation) because people outside Baltimore would not readily identify it as the "Zoo", and including all zoos in the world in the disambiguation page is impractical." Likewise, people outside of the respective cities would not refer to the entries in this list as the "U.S. Post Office". —  AjaxSmack  04:51, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
              • On the contrary, people outside of the respective cities explicitly do refer to the entries as "U.S. Post Office". That's why they are all titled that way -- because their listings in the NRHP say "U.S. Post Office". Powers ^T 00:29, 15 May 2012 (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.

Scope

What is the proposed scope of this article now that the title has been changed? The title implies that it's a list of all Post Offices in the United States, but that's clearly not practical, nor encyclopedic. Also, to where should we point readers when disambiguation is necessary? Powers ^T 19:09, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

In terms of scope, we need not be concerned with listing all Post Offices in the U.S. We have, by way of comparison, List of southpaw stance boxers, which doesn't list every one of the thousands of amateur or collegiate boxers who used such a stance, but is limited to those that are notable. For this list, that would be NRHP-listed locations and perhaps a handful of other really famous non-NRHP-listed locations. Also, with respect to disambiguation being necessary, I had proposed that we have separate list and disambiguation pages. My proposal was rejected on the grounds that there are really only two topics known by this name, the United States Postal Service (which was for most of its existence officially called the United States Post Office), and the notable locations on this list. Since both names of the department are in the lede, and since there are no albums or movies or ships or other things of that nature that are ambiguous to U.S. Post Office, it does not seem that further disambiguation is likely to be necessary. bd2412 T 19:55, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

So the hatnote on United States Postal Service should lead to "List of United States Post Offices"? Powers ^T 15:04, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

You know, this is the kind of thing that concerned me during the discussion over the renaming. And now that it has been renamed, maybe we should change the class from disambig to list class. ----DanTD (talk) 15:33, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Done and done. Not a disambig any longer. bd2412 T 18:37, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Changing the lead slightly will handle the scope issue and bring the list into compliance with the intent and spirit of List selection criteria and away from the typical disambiguation wording. I suggest:

This is a List of notable and NRHP registered United States Post Offices belonging to United States Post Office Department (1792–1971) or to the United States Postal Service (since 1971). U.S. Post Office may refer to individual buildings no longer in service which have historical or architectural significance.

This lead would allow any notable PO (has an article) and any redlinked PO that is NRHP listed.

--Mike Cline (talk) 13:01, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

That's fine, but the farther we take it away from a disambiguation page, the more confusing it is to link here as disambiguation. Powers ^T 14:05, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I recently began to add photos and otherwise transform the current "List of United States Post Offices" from the disambiguation page that it was, into a list-article. At one point, I was the main person developing and maintaining this page as a disambiguation page, trying to adhere to disambiguation policies. But I see it was too hard for too many arriving editors to avoid seeing this as a list-article. So, do let's make it a list-article. I revised the lede to drop NRHP out of the stated requirement for a post office to be included in this list. Many notables ones are NRHP-listed, but there will be other notable modern ones that are not NRHP-listed. --doncram 19:55, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Post offices or post office buildings

I can't tell from this list if these are post offices or post office buildings. Post offices can be the back of somebody's grocery store. Please elucidate. GeorgeLouis (talk) 11:36, 15 July 2013 (UTC)