Talk:Queen's University at Kingston

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Good articleQueen's University at Kingston has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
On this day... Article milestones
DateProcessResult
December 18, 2006Featured article candidateNot promoted
May 9, 2007Peer reviewReviewed
October 9, 2012Good article nomineeListed
On this day... Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on October 16, 2012, October 16, 2016, and October 16, 2023.
Current status: Good article

Correct student enrolment[edit]

Universities Canada (https://www.univcan.ca/universities/facts-and-stats/enrolment-by-university/) and Queen's own Planning and Budgeting site (http://www.queensu.ca/planningandbudget/institutional-data/enrolment) peg the instiution's enrolment at over 27,000. Perhaps they are using a different way of calculating enrolment.

However, Queen's Common University Data Ontario gives a different number, at around 23,000. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.64.2.22 (talk) 05:33, 23 October 2017 (UTC)Reply[reply]


"The Tea Room" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect The Tea Room. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. DMacks (talk) 16:17, 10 October 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Requested move 28 January 2020[edit]

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: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) NNADIGOODLUCK (Talk|Contribs) 22:04, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]


– So that Queen's University (disambiguation) can be moved here per WP:NOPRIMARY. It is not at all clear that this Queen's University should be the primary topic over Queen's University Belfast kingboyk (talk) 07:21, 28 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  • Oppose. The Canadian university is the WP:PTOPIC for "Queen's University". The university in Kingston has consistently received much higher page views than the university in Belfast, and Google Trends data shows consistently higher search interest for the university in Kingston than the university in Belfast. feminist (talk) 07:42, 28 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Obviously I don't agree that the Canadian University IS the primary topic, which you appear to be presenting as fact; it is up for debate and I assert that there is no primary topic.
The figures you appear to me to fall way short of demonstrating primacy, which requires "with respect to usage that it is highly likely — much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined — to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term" (emphasis mine). The numbers show that Queen's in Canada attracts more interest than Queen's in Belfast, but it's something like 3 to 1, not 10 to 1 - and that's not including the other Queen's besides Kingston and Belfast. My view is that the stats provided do not prove that it is highly likely that people searching for Queen's want the Canadian institution; merely, let's say, it's more likely than not. There is ambiguity.
Furthermore, whilst this will likely be region dependent and isn't particularly scientific, when I Google "Queen's University" I get Belfast as the top result (even on Google Canada in incognito mode).
The guidelines also say that "A topic is primary for a term with respect to long-term significance if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term". The 2 main universities of this name are of a similar vintage (19th century) and have significant student bodies (in the 20-30,000 range). Belfast is ranked higher (see Queen's_University#Reputation and Queen's_University_Belfast#Rankings_and_reputation), but the Canadian institution is larger. It's pretty much a tie.
I am suggesting that with 5 universities called Queen's, 2 of them of similar stature and age, and all of them having full, official names which are not "Queen's University" ("Queen's University at Kingston", "Queen's University Belfast", "Queens University of Charlotte) etc), it is in the interest's of readers for Queen's University to be a disambiguation page. --kingboyk (talk) 08:32, 28 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
The Canadian university gets more page views than all articles combined on Queen's University (disambiguation). 3 to 1 is "much more likely" by most definitions of the term. Also, Google doesn't really allow you to search for region-specific results. Specify for Canadian results on DuckDuckGo, and Queen's University Kingston dominates. feminist (talk) 14:44, 28 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support - QUB and QUK are both well-established, and the conditions for WP:TOPIC do not seem to be met by Kingston (and not by Belfast either), and there are other Queen's cases, so I think a clear case for a disambiguation page, and each Queen's to be at its own distinct page. The numbers do not support the current position. In Europe, for example, I suspect Queen's of Belfast is much better known, and more likely to be searched (as someone who could name a couple of dozen North American universities, at least, I'd never even heard of Kingston, had to search it out), and probably a mirror of this in N. America. This is the sort of situation for which we have DISAMB pages.SeoR (talk) 09:26, 28 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support. The Kingston one is the primary topic in North America. The Belfast one is the primary topic in the UK. Neither is the primary topic worldwide. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:01, 29 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Weak support the Kingston one gets less than double the views of the Belfast one [[1]] which probably isn't enough for the "much more than any other" and when I Google Queen's University I get most results for the Belfast one but the Kingston one is there however that might be partly due to my location. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:50, 29 January 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support. This is entirely informed by individual regional experiences. My first thought was that it describes all of the universities in Queens, New York. BD2412 T 05:17, 11 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[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 18 February 2020[edit]

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: NOT MOVED. This discussion happened very quickly after the previous move request, and since this discussion failed to develop a clear consensus one way or the other after having been relisted, I also considered the comments from the previous discussion, which did form a reasonably clear consensus in favour of the current title. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:04, 5 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Queen's University at Kingston → Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario) – While I'm not opposed in principle to the legitimacy of moving this to a disambiguated title, the title that actually resulted from the earlier discussion is not the right one on WP:ENGVAR grounds. "Queen's University at Kingston" is not its proper name, or even its common name, in any context whatsoever, so it's not the right choice on "proper name" grounds — but even if "at Kingston" is meant purely as a disambiguator, that's a characteristically British construction not reflective of Canadian speech. Canadians never speak of "[Institution] at [City]", except in a couple of very isolated unusual cases where that actually is the thing's proper name — if we have to disambiguate something by location, we say that it's in the city, not "at" it. So the appropriate new title here is parenthetical disambiguation by location, not an inaccurate proper name with an "at" in it. I accept that it was a good faith request by a speaker of British English, but as a Canadian university this article's title and text should preference Canadian usage over British usage. Bearcat (talk) 00:04, 18 February 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. —Nnadigoodluck🇳🇬 18:19, 25 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

  • Comment The 'Ontario' part is a little unnecessary, '... (Kingston)' or '... , Kingston' would be be enough. Sleath56 (talk) 00:49, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support move. The current title of "Queen's University at Kingston" makes absolutely no sense in Canadian English. Flibirigit (talk) 02:59, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support move as proposed or in the alternative, support moving back to the previous title. I just saw that this had been moved. From the American perspective, the Queen's University in Ontario is more notable than the one in Belfast, because the Ontario university was responsible for creating the software that in turn was commercialized and licensed to create Westlaw. --Coolcaesar (talk) 03:33, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    From my American perspective, "Queen's University" sounds enough like "Queens University" to make me first think of the various universities in Queens. BD2412 T 04:03, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    From my British perspective, "Queen's University" means Queen's University Belfast. Narky Blert (talk) 09:17, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
    • Coolcaesar, I'm not proposing that we move this back to the original title, and in fact would oppose that if somebody were to propose it — the rule here isn't "what's the primary topic to American lawyers", it's "what's the primary topic to the world in general", and there is a North American vs. European dichotomy here where the likely primary topic is indeed Kingston to some readers and Belfast to others. Bearcat (talk) 10:20, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose I'm not sure what the proposer is suggesting in that its not "a proper name," but "Queen's University at Kingston" is literally the institution's formal and legal name. Its in the governing document of the university (see Queen's University royal charter from 2011), where it states in section 12 of the royal charter, "Corporate name changed to "Queen’s University at Kingston" (from Queen's College at Kingston, amended in the Statutes of Canada, 1912, c.138, s. 1.). I mean, I personally don't really have an opinion on the matter (don't really care about whether its a parenthesis or "at"), but if the proposal is based off the idea that "at Kingston," is not its proper name, I'd have to oppose it, as that is not the case.. at all. Leventio (talk) 05:20, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
It doesn't matter what it says in the university's charter — for Wikipedia's purposes, the common name that people would actually use in everyday speech is the canonical title that takes precedence over any overly formalized alternative. Regardless of what the university's constitution does or doesn't say, the proper name for our purposes is always the thing the general public would call it — so if Joe Blow on the sidewalk wouldn't say "Queen's University at Kingston", then that's not the appropriate title for our article about it. Bearcat (talk) 10:14, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Well this seems to be a matter of misinterpretation than. I assumed by proper name, you meant the institution's formal name, and not a "proper name" for a Wiki article (based off WP:COMMONNAME I assume). I'll retract my opposition to it than. Leventio (talk) 10:19, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Our naming conventions on Wikipedia are not governed by the thing's official name, they're governed by the thing's common name. The thing people would call it on the sidewalk trumps what is or isn't in its constitution, not vice versa. Bearcat (talk) 23:37, 23 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Support. Generally I would prefer natural disambiguation, however the legal name (Queen's University at Kingston) is quite unnatural in Canadian English and is not very recognizible – even to those familiar with the topic (WP:NAMINGCRITERIA). BLAIXX 17:18, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
  • Oppose. Since it's the legal name there's absolutely no problem with using it when we need disambiguation. Also, I'm not sure why the proposer thinks this is "a characteristically British construction"! It really isn't. It would sound odd to us Brits too. It's actually far more common in Eastern European languages like Polish. So no, this has absolutely nothing to do with anyone being a "speaker of British English". -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:29, 19 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Our naming conventions on Wikipedia are not governed by the thing's official name, they're governed by the thing's common name. The thing people would call it on the sidewalk trumps what is or isn't in its constitution, not vice versa. Bearcat (talk) 23:37, 23 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Indeed. But when disambiguation is needed (as it is here) then defaulting to the official name is often better than using a convoluted disambiguator. That serves no one. Also, your proposal was inaccurate as it suggested that the current title was a "characteristically British construction", which is, as I have pointed out as a native speaker of British English, utter rubbish. This is merely the official name in Canadian English. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:26, 24 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
I would hardly call the city (Kingston, Ontario) a "convoluted disambiguator", I think it is quite logical. Don't get too hung up on the exact wording of the nomination, even if the nominator was wrong about British English. Now it's clear that the current title is awkward and unnatural in both variants of English! BLAIXX 18:40, 25 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
Well, it is very clear that British English does use "at" in many places in speech where Canadian English would use a different preposition instead. But I digress. The thing is, invoking the city's name parenthetically is hardly a "convoluted disambiguator" — in fact, it's far more "convoluted" to invoke "natural disambiguation" as a reason to force a title that virtually nobody would recognize as the normal name of the topic in everyday speech. In an ideal world, either everything would have a unique name and we'd have no disambiguation conflicts at all, or there would be some other way of handling disambiguation so that all the Queen's Universities could be titled just "Queen's University" without actually colliding — but in the world we actually do live in, there's no reason whatsoever why an officialese name that virtually nobody would recognize as a normal or expected way of referring to the topic is in no way more "natural" than an alternative that is much more consistent with the "common name followed by a parenthetical clarifier" way that our readers expect a topic with a non-unique name to be disambiguated. Bearcat (talk) 13:49, 26 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
And still you insist that it's common British English. <sigh> I really do not know where you've got that from. If a native speaker can't convince you that it isn't (and that I've moved a number of articles about Eastern European buildings because it isn't instinctive usage in any variety of English) then I give up. About the rest I maintain my stance that use of the official name is best if we need to disambiguate per WP:NATURAL. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:50, 26 February 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]
And I maintain my stance that WP:COMMONNAME is the final word in any naming disagreement. The thing the average reader would recognize as the usual name of the subject in everyday speech takes precedence over official forms, not vice versa. Parenthetical disambiguation is not "unnatural". Bearcat (talk) 19:28, 4 March 2020 (UTC)Reply[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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