Talk:Hamilton LRT

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Bad article name?

Is "B-Line (Hamilton)" a good article name? I suggest it is not. SUrely the name of an article should contain a hint for the uninitiated, as to what it is about.

The name says nothing about light rail, or even transit. There are surveying lines, hydro transmission lines, water, oil, gas pipelines. And was there ever an A-Line?

For this article, I suggest something like "Hamilton LRT", would be a better choice. Geo Swan (talk) 21:35, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! You don't know about the A-Line. You should also read about the BLAST network with B, L, A, S and T lines (get it?) proposed for Hamilton. There is also a disambiguation page for B Line, where others are listed. There are numerous examples of Red Line, Blue Line, Green Line etc., where normal disambiguation is simply the city (like here) or the system. Secondarywaltz (talk) 22:08, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I gave the name "B-Line (Hamilton)" as per a naming convention for similar articles. --Natural R_X 01:49, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and what naming convention would that be? Please name it it here, thanks. Is it possible you misinterpreted that naming convention? Geo Swan (talk) 05:42, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Secondarywaltz, with regard to the disambiguation page for B Line: first, are disambiguation pages useful, if they aren't used at the top of the article?; second B Line doesn't currently contain an entry for Hamilton. Again, how useful is a disambiguation page with missing entries?

Let's look at the seven entries in the B Line#Transportation section: B (New York City Subway service), B-Line (Vancouver), B-Line (Norfolk Southern), Green Line "B" Branch, Line B (Buenos Aires Metro), Line B (Prague Metro), Mexico City Metro Line B. The names of four of those entries either contain the term "metro", "subway", and a fifth contains the name of a famous railroad. These five are OK. Green Line "B" Branch is about a branch of the Green Line (MBTA), and would probably be better named something like Green Line (MBTA), "B" Branch. B-Line (Vancouver) would probably be better named something like B-Line (Vancouver BRT) or B-Line (Vancouver Bus Rapid Transit).

If, for the sake of argument, this article should remain in some kind of form that starts with "B Line", wouldn't it be better to be something like B Line (Hamilton LRT)? Geo Swan (talk) 13:43, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks George for opening up the discussion here. I think you are suggesting, that it is better to include the name of the system for disambiguation in the name. Some Metrolinx documents refer to the line as "Hamilton Rapid Transit B-Line" or "B-Line LRT", so you are probably on the right path suggesting "B-Line (Hamilton LRT)". It's a small change, but it does add some clarity. If there is not total agreement here you should formally request a move for wider debate? If we can get User:Natural RX to agree, you can then be bold and at the same time rename A-Line. Secondarywaltz (talk) 17:14, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's not an official naming convention, but what I saw as a general convention. The articles do not have brackets if there is njeed for disambiguation, but if there is, the city and/or transit system is in brackets. See: Ring Line (Oslo), Gold Line (Los Angeles Metro), M1 (Copenhagen), Red Line (TRAX), and NS Line (Portland Streetcar), as a sample. Since B-line currently redirects to B (New York City Subway service), and could potentially conflict with other "B-Line"s that don't have articles yet, I figured the current name was appropriate. If Hamilton Street Railway is confirmed as the operator of all of Hamilton's LRT lines, I could see reason to move the article to B-Line (Hamilton Street Railway). --Natural R_X 20:59, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Of course! The operator will be HSR and we should not make up a name like "Hamilton LRT" when the real name of the operator exists. Oh I feel so stupid for not seeing this. Secondarywaltz (talk) 20:01, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure you saw the hoopla in Toronto when it was questioned whether the TTC was going to operate the LRT lines there, I'm not sure we should jump to conclusions. HSR operating sure makes sense to us, but we don't want to pre-empt anything until the operator is formally announced. --Natural R_X

Brackets are the square ones [ ]

Parentheses are the round ones ( )

Braces ; are the curly ones { }

IMO, when using the official name, or an alternate official name, is sufficient, for disambiguation, there is no need to make up names that are disambiguous. But newspaper disambiguation pages like The Times (disambiguation) show instances where we had to resort to a non-official name in order to be disambiguous. There are lots of articles where the article name has to include made up elements to be disambiguous.

To consider your examples:

Gold Line (Los Angeles Metro) -- good, the disambiguator specifies both location and type of item
NS Line (Portland Streetcar) -- good, the disambiguator specifies both location and type of item
Red Line (TRAX) -- bad, disambiguator doesn't name the location (Salt Lake City, Utah), and doesn't say what it is, a rapid transit line. Red Line (Utah LRT), or similar, would be better.
Ring Line (Oslo) -- not ideal. Oslo could have gas or oil pipelines, or hydroelectric lines.
M1 (Copenhagen) -- worse than Oslo, as it doesn't even say it is a line of any kind. The most famous M1 is a freeway in the UK.

IMO, the last three examples should also probably have their names changed.

Not all that related to this discussion, but the articles on Vancouver's B lines, 96 B-Line, 97 B-Line, 98 B-Line, 99 B-Line, all claim the lines are bus rapid transit a term usually reserved for bus that run entirely, or largely, on their own dedicated rights of way. In fact the B lines are electrically powered trolley buses that run very frequently on Broadway, a busy east west thoroughfare. Other trolleybuses will run on a portion of Broadway, but the B-Line vehicles seem to run from one end to the other. At no point do they run on a dedicated right of way. I think those articles should be changed. Geo Swan (talk) 19:48, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Are we narrowing in on a name change to something like B Line (Hamilton LRT), B-Line (Hamilton Street Railway), B-Line (Hamilton Street Railway LRT), B-Line (Hamilton Street Railway light rail) or B-Line (HSR light rail)?

Hamilton Street Railway is a funny name, given that they ran no streetcars for something like sixty years, and, for this reason, I would leave it out of the disambiguators. Geo Swan (talk) 19:48, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If your POV about the HSR name is that strong, please use Wikipedia:Requested moves to gain a concensus. I'm tired of this. I'm out! Secondarywaltz (talk) 21:29, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't unnecessarily rewrite references in your favorite style...

I reverted this edit.

We have a very powerful tool in article's revision histories -- but the value of this powerful tool can be very quickly eroded when people make unnecessary changes the article's metadata.

It is far more important to track changes to the actual content of the article, as opposed to how the metadata -- that readers never see. The change to the metadata here didn't change how the article rendered, at all.

The editor who made this edit trimmed date information from the article's content -- unnecessarily, in my opinion. Writing simply that the LRT remains controversial dates the article's content. If the LRT is built, and is a success, it will no longer be controversial, or will no longer be controversial in the same way. This will require a rewrite. If the coverage of the controversy is dated, then that section may not require a rewrite, or, if it does, the rewrite is less urgent, and may be less extensive. So I restored the date information. Geo Swan (talk) 05:27, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Controversial" is unreferenced POV and "CBC" has no relevance to the subject. Just the facts, ma'am. Secondarywaltz (talk) 17:19, 1 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

First photo

Now that this article is called “Hamilton LRT” instead of “B-Line” it seems like the first photo should be changed to something that is relevant to the Hamilton LRT. Although part of the current B-Line, the section of Main Street pictured in the article won’t have LRT. Portcrediter (talk) 15:27, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]