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You should at least mention that Clyde, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg Ohio really exists. I was raised in Clyde, Ohio, and the Presbyterian Church mentioned in the book still exists. Also available are pictures of two houses Anderson lived in while he called Clyde his home. My Father, Clarence F Homan, brought Sherwood Anderson's name alive in the 1960's, by naming several of his developmantal properties "Winesburg Enterprises" in honor of the author. Jeffrey R. Homan

The town vs. the novel

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The page for Winesburg, Ohio should probably go directly to the novel rather than the unincorporated town. The MLA ranks it as the 24th best novel of all time, so it's slightly more notable. Benplowman 07:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But that's not the way things are usually done. If nothing else, places seem generally to be notable inherently (we have to prove that they exist, but that's really easy), while books aren't. The article for the "Big Apple" is New York City, but it really would be a bad idea to put the famous Sinatra song at New York, New York instead of at its current title, Theme from New York, New York. It's the general pattern to have places at the simple name and other things with disambiguated names. Nyttend 22:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, the actual rule is that the page should go to what people would most likely be searching for. In the case of New York, more people would be searching for the city than the song when entering in the name. In the case of Winesburg, Ohio more people would most likely be searching for the novel than the location when entering in the name, i.e. the novel in this case is actually more well known than the place. However, as there's a disambig link on the top it doesn't really matter 24.190.34.219 (talk) 21:00, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The standard naming convention for communities is simply [communityname], [statename]. We don't favor fiction over real places. Nyttend (talk) 21:28, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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My apologies, it was I who removed the external link to Winesburg, Ohio on amlit.com without logging in. I'm new to editing Wikipedia and should have posted here first before removing it (I expect I'm not the only one editing from the County of Los Angeles IP, though). If there is an external link to the novel, it might be better if the link was to the Project Gutenburg version of the novel since that one has the title in many formats and without ads. Any objections? --Olegkagan (talk) 18:26, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 11 July 2016

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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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move. We have a fairly clear consensus that the novel is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC over the CDP, and this appears borne out by the evidence. As such, it will move to the base name, with a hatnote for the town. There were several suggestions about what to title the town's article; I'll move to Winesburg, Ohio (town) as two editors supported it, it's concise, and it distinguishes the title from the novel (Winesburg, Wayne County, Ohio would distinguish it from other towns, but not really the novel). If a better disambiguator is identified, a new RM can be opened without prejudice. Cúchullain t/c 20:43, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]


Winesburg, Ohio → ? – A census-designated place with a population of 352 is not Wikipedia:PRIMARYTOPIC compared to Winesburg, Ohio (novel), a fairly significant 1919 book which far more people have heard of and which is studied in many literature courses. When this point was raised in 2009, @Nyttend: seemed to believe that real places should take priority over fictional places, which AFAIK has never been Wikipedia policy. Special:WhatLinksHere/Winesburg,_Ohio shows several articles that mean to point to the book, and the rest are nearly(?) all from {{Holmes County, Ohio}}. Points I have no strong opinion on:

. jnestorius(talk) 14:56, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why? People can just be directed to the page Winesburg, Ohio (novel) from this page already. The town is a real thing while the book is a work of fiction. Why is a move so necessary? Other sites mirror Wikipedia, and link to it, and such. So there has to be a really good reason for a move to a page that has been here for years to my knowledge, no? Philmonte101 😊😄😞 (talk) 17:48, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, if it is moved, people will just be directed to the moved page from here. The benefit is that fewer people will need such a redirection because more people will first-time round have found the article they were looking for; which is the basis for the Wikipedia:PRIMARYTOPIC guideline that is currently being violated.
  • Google site:http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Winesburg,_Ohio is not showing any external links to the page. I'm sure there are some, but not many.
  • What harm will a move do to mirrors and why should we care?
jnestorius(talk) 14:11, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: Favor reality over fiction when the fiction is derived from the reality, in keeping with the thrust of MOS:FICT, or it's very confusing for readers (vice-versa otherwise, if a primary-topic analysis support; if someone founds a town in Texas named Hobbiton, the fictional location would remain the PT in all probability).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:48, 11 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    1. Winesburg, Ohio (novel) is not an article about a fictional place; it is an article about a book. A real book!
    2. The setting of Winesburg, Ohio (novel) is not based on Winesburg, Ohio; it is based on Clyde, Ohio.
    3. There is nothing in MOS:FICT to the effect that the title of an article about a work of fiction should have some indication that it describes a work of fiction. We have Jane Eyre, not Jane Eyre (novel); any danger that a reader might infer that Jane Eyre was a real person is averted by the opening words of the article "Jane Eyre (originally published as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography) is a novel ..."; similarly, if Winesburg, Ohio (novel) were moved to Winesburg, Ohio it would still begin "Winesburg, Ohio (full title: Winesburg, Ohio: A Group of Tales of Ohio Small-Town Life) is a 1919 short story cycle ..."
    4. "vice-versa otherwise, if a primary-topic analysis support" That's exactly my point; a primary-topic analysis does support the move.
jnestorius(talk) 14:12, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. As noted above, a real place generally takes priority over a fictional place, in large part because doing otherwise would confuse your average reader. Winesburg(h) has been getting coverage for many years (sometimes even before Anderson published his Winesburg), and together with the naming convention that concepts other than places don't get place names, we shouldn't go against conventional behavior. Nyttend (talk) 04:27, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't believe this move "would confuse your average reader". Your average reader has never heard of the small place in Wayne County, or even of Wayne County.
    • It would confuse a reader who believes that any article with the title "Foo, StateName" must perforce about a place called Foo in a place called StateName. It is true that the convention in North America is that placenames should be referred to in that format; however, the converse (that anything in that format is a placename) is not true, and I don't believe many people are silly enough to believe it.
    • Where is this naming convention that "concepts other than places don't get place names"? I've never come across it. What about Synecdoche, New York, Madrid County, California, Eerie, Indiana, Almost, Maine, Jerusalem's Lot, Maine, Perfection, Nevada, Push, Nevada?
    • Of course outside North America there is no such convention for placenames so any confusion there would be in the opposite direction.
  • The place is older than the book, so naturally it has been getting coverage since before the book. But older things do not get priority of Wikipedia article name; compare Boston and Boston, Lincolnshire etc etc. The point is the place has been getting far less coverage than the book for the last hundred years or so. You cherry-picked a single WorldCat hit for the town; searching WorldCat for "Winesburg" throws up far more works referring to the book than to the place.
jnestorius(talk) 14:11, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You distort my meaning profoundly; real subjects take priority over fiction, and when both actual and fictional subjects bear the same name, we give priority to actual names, which is just slightly different from comparing Massachusetts and Lincolnshire. Morever, WP:USPLACE makes no exceptions for places sharing their names with books; WP:CONLIMITED prohibits local discussions from overruling project consensus, so there's no real point to wasting further time here anyway. Nyttend (talk) 15:50, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
User:Nyttend, though I agree with your point entirely, I think we should at least give the user a chance to speak up of his/her opinion more before we just throw this discussion out the window. That makes it more fair, as someone else could come along anytime agreeing with Jnestorius, even though it hasn't yet happened. Both of you bring up valid points, so we should let whoever wants to continue to discuss this do what they want.
Anyways, here's how I see it. I do agree that the article Boston should come before Boston, Lincolnshire, but that's because both of the things being compared there are placenames, and statistically, Boston, Massachusetts would be searched for with the term "Boston" by way more people than who'd search for the Lincolnshire town. But what we're talking about here is a rare case where the two things being compared are a real town and a work of fiction based on a completely different Ohio town, but still named after this one nonetheless. Though the book is far more popular and far more people would be searching for the book than the town, I see it that it's just more proper to have the real town as the central article. The (fewer) people searching for that town rather than the book would probably be more pleased. Anyway, it's not that big of a deal anyway to keep it, since the article literally states "For information on the collection of short stories by the American author Sherwood Anderson, see Winesburg, Ohio (novel).", so people are immediately redirected from this article to that one whenever they want to see that one. So it's not like the novel article is particularly hard to find after coming to the town article or anything. Philmonte101 😊😄😞 (talk) 18:13, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Nyttend:
Articles on populated places in the United States are typically titled [[Placename, State]] (the "comma convention") ... A placename that needs additional disambiguation should include its county or parish
The second sentence does not specify "A placename that needs additional disambiguation from another real place" (though that is certainly the most likely case). This suggests that Winesburg, Wayne County, Ohio is the name that follows both WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and WP:USPLACE.
  • Web page access comparison: the novel article is accessed >10 times as often as the place article. (That's not distinguishing the times where the place article was accessed only for the reader to click immediately through to the other one).
jnestorius(talk) 21:11, 12 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Going back to the main point of this all, the article at "Winesburg, Ohio" is expected to be a place or disambiguation, and having it for a novel would lead to WP:ASTONISH concerns. Even if the novel is the primary topic, it's more likely that the real place is parenthesized and "Winesburg, Ohio" is turned into a dab page.  ONR  (talk)  11:38, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
User:ONR brings up another good point that I didn't even think of. The fact that it could, very unlikelily but possibly, offend someone from the actual town, or astonish them in some way. Philmonte101 😊😄😞 (talk) 16:04, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think your interpretation of WP:ASTONISH is correct. It is true that someone who has never heard of the place or the book would probably guess that an article titled "Winesburg, Ohio" was about a place they had never heard of rather than about a book they had never heard of. Which of Goodbye, New York and Okay, Arkansas is a place and which is not? Wikipedia is not obliged to consider their "astonishment" on finding out their error. Such a reader will never get to the "Winesburg, Ohio" page by entering "Winesburg, Ohio" in the search box; they will only get there by clicking on a link, which should give the context and go to the right article in any case. Wikipedia should consider only readers who have heard of either the place, the book, or both, and what is more likely to astonish them. I would guess anyone who lives in Winesburg is very well aware of the book and would not be at all astonished to find the book article given priority. Not conversely for the far larger number of people who have heard of the book but not the place. As for taking offence, see WP:NOTCENSORED. If the 348,963 citizens of Batman, Turkey can put up with Batman, the 352 of Winesburg can do similarly. jnestorius(talk) 08:39, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I now support the move. Jnestorius is right. The book should take priority over the place, because both the book and the town are real things rather than fictional. The book may be about the fictional town of Winesburg, but the fictional town is not it. Philmonte101 😊😄😞 (talk) 23:11, 18 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. The book appears to be the primary topic, the town certainly is not. Suggest Winesburg, Wayne County, Ohio as the new name, but Winesburg (unincorporated community), Ohio would also be acceptable under WP:USPLACE while Winesburg, Ohio (unincorporated community) is not. Andrewa (talk) 15:51, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. WP:PTOPIC doesn't have to be ignored, just because a small village would have its name upset by it. The novel should be primary topic. Either the county disambiguator, or simply Winesburg, Ohio (town), or something like that can be used for the town.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:33, 19 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom. We usually don't use country disambiguation, so I would support Winesburg, Ohio (town) per Amakuru. ✉cookiemonster✉ 𝚨755𝛀 19:50, 19 July 2016 (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.

Requested move 10 January 2018

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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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: MOVED as proposed (Winesburg, Holmes County, Ohio). The supporters have consistency and being more natural in their favour; the opposers argued on not distinguishing enough but on that it was mixed. Galobtter (pingó mió) 15:28, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Winesburg, Ohio (town) → Winesburg, Holmes County, Ohio – Establishing the standard name format for a settled place that needs to be distinguished from another article with the same place/state name combination. It is confusing for those who regularly edit place-name articles to see this Winesburg, which is unincorporated, referred to as a "town". (Having read through the discussion above, an alternative name could be "Winesburg (CDP), Ohio", if people feel the county name is not enough to distinguish the place from the novel. See the category of "Census-designated places in New Hampshire" as an example of the use of "(CDP)" in this manner.) Ken Gallager (talk) 19:48, 10 January 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. ToThAc (talk) 01:35, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(also reopened) ToThAc (talk) 01:35, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I think the current name is the better bet. "Holmes County" doesn't really distinguish the subject from the only other one of this subject, the book. And the "Winesburg (CDP), Ohio", while in use, isn't preferable, as "CDP" is less recognizable than "town", and putting a parentheses in the middle of a phrase conflicts with the standard WP:DISAMBIGUATION guidelines.--Cúchullain t/c 20:05, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Parentheses in the middle of the title is the standard practice for U.S. communities. See especially places in New York and Wisconsin. --Ken Gallager (talk) 15:10, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's in use, but it's still a bad practice. It's a topic-specific convention that conflicts with WP:DISAMBIGUATION. Shifting to (community) would remove the issue (such as it is) of Winesburg not formally being a "town".--Cúchullain t/c 16:29, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I could live with "(community)", but would continue to advocate for the original proposal of distinguishing by county, as this is very commonly done. First, I think adding the county name would effectively stop almost all confusion with the collection of stories, but if there were any lingering doubt in a reader's mind, a hatnote would resolve it.--Ken Gallager (talk) 20:53, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – Wikipedia always prefers natural disambiguation when available and recognizable. The proposed title would be distinguishable from the novel. CookieMonster755✉ 15:27, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Cuchullain. Using a county might make sense if there was another Winesburg in a different county, but in this case it's just to disambiguate against the book, which references the same locality. The current name is perfectly good, recognizable, and ticks all the boxes IMHO.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:42, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with the current title, as previously stated, is that Winesburg is not a town. American place name articles have specific meanings associated with their titles, and "town" indicates that the community is incorporated as such. Calling Winesburg a town in the title falls outside standard practice for disambiguating American place names. --Ken Gallager (talk) 16:07, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per WP:CONSISTENCY and WP:NATURAL. I disagree with Cuchullain that it matters which thing is "Winesburg, Ohio" ambiguous with, as most readers will come here either following a wikilink or from a hatnote at Winesburg, Ohio. It matters more how to format the name in the grand scheme of things, and here's where WP:CONSISTENCY comes into play. The nearby CDP is at Berlin, Holmes County, Ohio, and all other CDPs in Category:Census-designated places in Ohio follow the same Name, [County], Ohio scheme. Every reader passingly familiar with USPLACE is aware of this convention, I don't see a pressing reason not to apply it here. No such user (talk) 13:55, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Standard naming conventions for disambiguation, I think. It's not a civil township (which are actually called "towns" in several states (albeit not Ohio), and does (town) sufficiently disambiguate from (fictional town)? A fictional town is just a type of town. The book does not reference the same locality: per the article It is not the setting of the novel Winesburg, Ohio. wbm1058 (talk) 04:08, 19 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to Winesburg, Ohio (place) instead, as "city" and "town" are very broad terms, and the currently proposed disambiguator does not help distinguish the two subjects at all (Readers could be tricked into thinking that both of them are two different cities!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ToThAc (talk • contribs) 01:40, January 23, 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) (commonly referred to as "USPLACE" here) is a guideline. Guidelines are generally meant to be best practices for following policy standards in specific contexts. USPLACE says, "A placename that needs additional disambiguation should include its county or parish (e.g., Elgin, Lancaster County, South Carolina, and Elgin, Kershaw County, South Carolina). If more than one place within the same county has the same name, specify the type of local government unit in parentheses before the comma, for any article that is not the primary topic (e.g., Callicoon (CDP), New York, and Callicoon (town), New York, but not "Callicoon, New York (CDP)")."
There are not two places named Winesburg within Holmes County, so that deprecates the idea that Winesburg (CDP), Ohio is an option. The fictional town of Winesburg, Ohio (not to be confused with the actual Winesburg) is based loosely on the author's childhood memories of Clyde, Ohio, a city in Sandusky County. I haven't read the book, but I've not seen the claim that this fictional Winesburg is located within either the fictional or actual Holmes County. The guideline clearly points to the requested title Winesburg, Holmes County, Ohio. Why would anyone searching for the fictional town search for Winesburg, Holmes County, Ohio? This seems like sufficient disambiguation to me. Guidelines should always be applied using reason and common sense, but I've yet to see a reasonable common-sense rationale for why we need to make an exception to the USPLACE guideline. If an exception needs to be made, it would be to Winesburg, Ohio in the event that the italicized title is insufficient clue that it is not a place. Readers will correctly assume that Winesburg, Holmes County, Ohio is a place, just as they assume that Oakwood, Montgomery County, Ohio and Oakwood, Paulding County, Ohio are places. The fact that one Oakwood is a city and the other is a village is irrelevant. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:14, 23 January 2018 (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.
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