Colonel William A. Phillips

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the pages at this time, per the discussion below. There was already a hatnote in place on the other article and I have added one here, so that may resolve any lingering issues with disambiguation. Dekimasuよ! 19:03, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• West Chester Township, Butler County, Ohio → West Chester, Ohio
• West Chester, Ohio → West Chester, Tuscarawas County, Ohio

– The township in Butler County is far more noteworthy than the unincorporated community in Tuscarawas County, and is definitely the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for this name. The Butler County township has a population of ~60,000. I can't even find much info for the community in Tuscarawas County, as it gets very few Google results and doesn't even seem to exist in American FactFinder. Apparently, it is located within Perry Township, and that township has a population of 264 (per 2017 ACS 5yr estimate), so we can assume the unincorporated community is less populated than even that.

I also think it makes more sense for the township's title to be listed as simply "West Chester" and not "West Chester Township" (as it is now), as that seems to be the more common name. The township's official website excludes the word "Township" in the site header and most site content, and most Google results seem to prefer the shorter form. The full name should still be included in the body content, of course, but I think the shorter name is best for the article title. IagoQnsi (talk) 18:15, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose for a couple of reasons. I'm not seeing a lot to indicate that West Chester Township is commonly known just as "West Chester, Ohio", and a quick Google search (including the one linked above) seems mixed at best. The official website is titled "West Chester Township, OH"; the official Twitter uses the handle @westchestertwp, is titled "West Chester Township", and self-described as "The Official Twitter of West Chester Township, Butler County, Ohio" (identical to the current title of the article). Sources like Google Maps, the USGS's GNIS, and other geographical references also appear to identify the unincorporated community as "West Chester" or "West Chester, Ohio" while identifying the township with the word "Township".

  More broadly, normal US usage is for the "Place, State" form to refer to a populated place like a city or town; civil or administrative divisions like townships and counties generally tend to keep the "township" or "county" part attached. This is the pattern we use for our other Ohio township articles, so for consistency it's probably best to follow it here (per our US guidelines for minor civil divisions). ╠╣uw [talk] 20:23, 6 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Neither of these places are properly just "West Chester, Ohio", and are not commonly referred to this way. I would agree that this larger one leans toward being the primary topic, so West Chester, Ohio could reasonably redirect to it (with a disambiguating hatnote at the top pointing to the one in Tuscarawas Co.). But it is actually a misnomer, so it should not be the actual article title. It's also possible to have West Chester, Ohio as a short disambiguation page; while we generally avoid those per WP:TWODABS, we do have them in cases where neither article is absolutely certain to be the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:30, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. The opposes are premised mainly on WP:CONSISTENT, so it's possible that a wider effort to shorten unambiguous township-related titles would be successful—feel free to start that discussion at any time. (closed by non-admin page mover) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 04:16, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

West Chester Township, Butler County, Ohio → West Chester Township, Ohio – This is the only West Chester Township, Ohio that exists, so for the sake of its lengthy page name, I am suggesting this move. Bringing to discussion due to prior debates over the name (concerning simply "West Chester, Ohio"). 636Buster (talk) 15:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:33, 8 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment This article was previously at West Chester Township, Ohio, and moved without discussion last year. @Mxn: 162 etc. (talk) 16:37, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

From its creation in 2003 until November 2019, it seems the article was at West Chester Township, Butler County, Ohio. It looks like someone moved it to the short title in November 2019, then someone else returned it to its original title in August 2021. Neither one was discussed, as far as I can tell. ╠╣uw [talk] 17:12, 9 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose As I said at the time when undoing another undiscussed move, no other uniquely named township in Ohio was omitting the county from its name. We should be consistent with the naming convention for this state. However, recently 636Buster has been renaming other unique townships haphazardly. Has there been any discussion about that effort? Is the motivation only about length, or are there other considerations? – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 16:49, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I'll note that WP:PLACE does say that some states may use the additional disambiguation even though it's not needed, per local consensus. Has this ever been discussed at WP:WikiProject Ohio? 162 etc. (talk) 17:03, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Ohio township articles use the long names because one former admin strongly preferred consistency over conciseness, and for many years, would vigorously oppose changes like the one proposed here. - Eureka Lott 14:52, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @EurekaLott: Interesting, I was unaware of that backstory. Nevertheless, it seemed intuitive to me that township article titles for Michigan omitted the county name but those for Indiana and Ohio included it. After all, a township in Michigan is just another kind of municipality, but in Indiana and Ohio it's subordinate to a county to an extent that cities and villages generally aren't. But I don't know if that's an adequate justification for the status quo. Minh Nguyễn ^💬 03:35, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I digress on the name for this page because I did not see that there was prior discussion on it already. As for my other efforts, I had been acting off of disambiguation from WP:PLACE and I was not aware of minor civil division. Furthermore, on WikiProject Ohio's Township Taskforce, the "TOWNSHIP NAME Township, COUNTY NAME County, Ohio" format has been selected (although my edits to those other pages were almost all reviewed which is why I carried on in the first place). So this is likely a moot discussion. 636Buster (talk) 14:19, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONCISE. A WP:LOCALCON shouldn't override the overarching policies under which all other articles on US towns are titled.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:39, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Amakuru: Note that this is about civil townships, not towns. As far as I’m aware, the lengthier form is consistent with other states that have “weak” townships, like Indiana. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 18:04, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  That may be the case, but my line is still that we should avoid unnecessary disambiguation. If I were the sole Lord-of-the-Wiki I would scrap USPLACE altogether, and title this West Chester Township, but I'm aware that the need to include a state runs very deep. I don't see a need to extend that even further though, and I'm not aware of a strong site-wide consensus to do so. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 18:26, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Amakuru: Hehe, removing the state from article titles would be quite a rabbit hole. I don't feel that strongly about whether to keep the county name in township article titles in general. But I don't think this should be a referendum on a single move I did just to align this article to others of its class; it needs to be a broader discussion. For context, I often write articles about the Cincinnati area and border cities like College Corner and Union City, so I would very much prefer for the format to be consistent between Ohio and Indiana townships. I'd probably keep mentioning the county name in articles about former townships and cities with their own paper townships, to avoid additional confusion, but this doesn't depend on the article titles. Minh Nguyễn ^💬 22:28, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose for WP:CONSISTENT. Retaining a single form for all makes more sense and results in a predictable and consonant set of titles. Exempting one article while practically every other includes the county (as they must, since so many are ambiguous) only makes the list more confusing. Also re consistency, I agree with Mxn's point about keeping to the same pattern as similar states (e.g., Indiana), unless there's some compelling reason not to. ╠╣uw [talk] 18:35, 9 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]