Talk:Halifax, Nova Scotia/Archive 3

Confusing!

I've got no association at all with Halifax, NS or Canada, and having had a look at all the Halifax articles, I gotta say that the word that comes to mind is "confusing".

I'm not sure why provincial/local government boundaries are considered of such significance in how the articles are organised. This is of no interest to anyone outside Canada, and I'd bet of debatable interest even to most Canadians. A city, meaning an overall built-up area with a distinct history, culture and demographic makeup, can exist independently of how govt boundaries are drawn.

For example, I'm in Australia, which doesn't even use urban areas as local govt entities. That doesn't stop people referring to places like "Sydney" or "Melbourne" without causing confusion. There is in fact a City of Sydney local govt area, but it only covers the Sydney CBD, which is a tiny fraction of the area commonly known as Sydney. 99% of people browsing Wikipedia neither know nor care about it (nor is there any reason why they should care). When someone wants to know more about "Sydney", the information they're after can be found at Sydney, the obvious place to look.

I'd bet that when someone wants to find out more about "Halifax, Nova Scotia", what they mean is the urban area, with its distinct history and culture. However, half of the information they're after is at Halifax Regional Municipality, and the other half at City of Halifax. A regional municipality is an entity in the Canadian local govt system which nobody outside Canada would be interested in; treating it as the main point for information about Halifax seems misguided at best. Even Halifax Urban Area, the other obvious place to look, contains relatively little of interest. All of this is needlessly cluttered and confusing, and only makes the wiki less usable for people who aren't already familiar with Halifax and its environs. -- Hongooi 08:16, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Checking the archives, I see this is something that has come up repeatedly in the past. Well, just so that I'm adding something constructive, how about the following:

• Halifax, Nova Scotia - includes most of the information currently in HRM and City of Halifax, including history, suburbs, culture, demographics, locations of note, etc
• Halifax Regional Municipality - specific information about how Halifax is governed (cf New York City Council, City of Sydney, Greater London Authority)
• City of Halifax - specific information about the area of Halifax within the old boundaries (cf Lower Manhattan, Sydney central business district, City of London)
• Halifax Urban Area - mostly unchanged

-- Hongooi 08:40, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Or even more simply:

• Rename current Halifax Regional Municipality -> Halifax, Nova Scotia
• Rename current City of Halifax -> History of Halifax (ie, reverse current redirect)
• Rename current Halifax, Nova Scotia -> Halifax, Nova Scotia (disambiguation)

-- Hongooi 09:34, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I support this. --Kmsiever 15:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Halifax Nova Scotia is not the Halifax Regional Municipality

The proper article the applies to the term "Halifax, Nova Scotia is the article City of Halifax the area designated by both the province of Nova Scotia and the Halifax Regional Municipality as "Halifax , Nova Scotia. Putting Halifax Regional Municipality as Halifax, Nova Scotia caused more confusion as thier 207 other places within the HRM including place like Sable Island which is part of the Halifax Regional Municipality . Like how many times wikipedia editors have changed Halifax Nova Scotia changed when 1. its the wrong term and 2. Not verifiable . Please leave it alone .--19960401 16:54, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see why this is important. I live in Sydney. I also live in Hornsby. This is explained by the fact that Hornsby is a part of the broader Sydney urban area, which is what people generally mean when they use the term "Sydney". I never have to explain to people that I don't live in the City of Sydney, and the fact that the article is called Sydney as opposed to "Sydney urban area", "Greater Sydney", or some other awkward construction doesn't cause problems.

Similarly, just because an obscure island 100 miles out in the Atlantic is part of the HRM is not going to cause confusion if the HRM article is renamed to "Halifax, Nova Scotia". The only mention of Sable Island in the HRM article is one line pertaining to offshore resources; 99.9% of the information in the article pertains to the Halifax urban area. If people want specific information about Sable Island, as opposed to the overall Halifax area, they are not going to search for "Halifax" in any case. They will go straight to the Sable Island article itself, so your objection is moot. -- Hongooi 00:15, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

This map from the Halifax Regional Municipality itself shows that Halifax, Nova Scotia is only the area designated by the NS government as a community .--19960401 17:10, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the NS government has designated "Halifax" as a regional municipality. And...? Nobody said otherwise. This has nothing to do with the entity that people from outside Canada, or indeed people in Canada, call "Halifax". What the NS government chooses to use for regional boundaries is a matter for the NS government alone. -- Hongooi 00:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that you are both at least partly right. As Hongooi observes, firstly, the articles concerning Halifax are badly organised and thus needlessly confusing, and, secondly, most anyone consulting an encyclopedia expects to find basic information about Halifax, Nova Scotia in an article entitled "Halifax, Nova Scotia" (or just "Halifax", arguably) and conversely expects "Halifax, Nova Scotia" to hold such information. At the same time, Halifax Regional Municipality does not rightly equate with Halifax, Nova Scotia. Halifax is that centuries-old human settlement which is now grown into a large city -- though, curiously for a city, it lacks any municipal government (or governments) unto itself. Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), by contrast, is the municipal government of all of Halifax County, including Halifax, the city. Much the greater part of Halifax County is countryside, dotted with many separate towns and villages that are not part of Halifax, the city. The regional municipality is thus roughly the same thing as Halifax County. (To split hairs, the regional municipality is the municipal government of the area while the area itself is Halifax County.) Failure to distinguish Halifax (the city) from Halifax Regional Municipality is thus akin to failure to distinguish between the Zürich and the Canton of Zürich.
Much of the material in "Halifax Regional Municipality" belongs in a "Halifax, Nova Scotia" article. In fact, the article on the regional municipality has largely been turned into the article that most readers would expect to find under "Halifax Nova Scotia". Other material in it pertains only to the regional municipality at large, though, and (as just shown) the two topics are not truly identical. Thus simply re-titling the article on the regional municipality would not be sensible. Rather, the article on "Halifax, Nova Scotia" should be restored -- which is essentially to say the same thing as the first point in Hoogai's first proposal.
-- Lonewolf BC 03:38, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

We have a disambig page because it is confusing. It points people to appropriate articles. Please read the archived discussion to understand how we ended up with this compromise. WayeMason 13:54, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

At risk of sounding inflammatory, it wasn't clear to me that consensus was reached. In Archive3, there was a proposal from User:WayeMason, which User:Lonewolf BC disagreed with but is yet to construct a complete alternative proposal. I'm not sure who I agree with, except User:Hongooi because his/her arguments from analogy make sense to me. I'm not sure what the best proposal is, but I offer the following comments:

• The arrangement of articles needs to make sense to people outside Nova Scotia, not just those inside it.
• The pre-1996 city of Halifax might not exist now as a legal identity - but it did, and there are a large number of articles in WP that refer to events that occurred in that place in that time. For example, it would be ridiculous to talk about a 19th-century person who was born or who died in a location, with that location pointing to an article about legal entity that only came into being in 1996. We need to be able to accurately place current and future articles that occur in Halifax (for any definition of Halifax), but also to correctly (and, I would assert, intuitively) link in articles about past events.

To develop User:Hongooi's comments a little more:

• Most people who use WP would (correctly) expect an article on Sydney, Australia to be about an area measuring roughly 12,000 km² that contains 4 million people, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Sydney Opera House and hosted the Olympics in 2000 - the (lowercase) city.
• The (uppercase) City of Sydney, which is a legal and governmental entity, is only about 25 km², contains only 150,000 people, and doesn't contain said Bridge or the Olympics venues.

If I told anyone that I don't live in Sydney (on the basis that I'm about 15 km from the City of Sydney boundary), they would think I'd lost all grasp on reality. WP acknowledges the reality of the legal entity of the City of Sydney, but also acknowledges that the world at large has an accurate understanding of what "Sydney" is that does not match with the legal reality. People and governments here sometimes use the term "Greater Sydney" to mean the (lowercase) city of Sydney (in contrast to the (uppercase) City of Sydney), but I wouldn't expect many people outside of Sydney to know or care about that term, so I'm in no hurry to create a redirect for it, let alone an article.

I believe that the set of pages for the Halifax should work in a similar way. They need to make sense to the 99.9% of people who don't live in Halifax, just like the Sydney pages make sense to the 99.9% of people who don't live in Sydney. Acknowledge the legal entities, but also acknowledge the reality that the common understanding of what Halifax, Nova Scotia is doesn't match that legal entity (and maybe, like Sydney, never will). Whatever article is placed at Halifax, Nova Scotia should reflect that common understanding, and (like Sydney), include links to the article that explains the legal/governmental entity. And, ideally, the 1600 odd articles that refer to famous people or events that took place in the city (which might also have been the City, until 1996) of Halifax should be able to link to the correct place through Halifax, Nova Scotia, without having to be disambiguated. Paddles ^T_C 17:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree. --Kmsiever 15:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Halifax Harbour

I've added Halifax Harbour to the page, mainly because I've been doing some stuff that refers to the port of Halifax, and I previously didn't know where to link it to. Now I do, I find it's not on the Disambiguation page, so I've added it. But I feel I'm diving into a can of worms by doing so, so apologies!
And I agree with the above; it is confusing as it is! Xyl 54 16:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll toss in my 2 cents as well. I agree with the above. This current arrangement clearly does not follow the principle of least astonishment and is needlessly confusing. Remember that consensus can change, and in this case it seems to have. Am I wrong here? heqs ·:. 11:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

No your not "Halifax, Nova Scotia" today is the area described in the page City of Halifax according the Civic Addressing and survey offices of the Halifax Regional Municipality See Map of the Halifax and surrounding communities of the Halifax Regional Municipality from HRM GIS and Halifax Regional Municipality Community List . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 19960401 (talk • contribs) 17:02, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

Shambles

This disambiguation page is a shambles, and is clearly the consequence of an incredibly unhelpful edit war. Any person not entirely familiar with the peculiarities of local government in the Atlantic Provinces (e.g. me, and probably most other Wikipedia readers) would expect the article "Halifax, Nova Scotia" to be the main article about the capital of Nova Scotia. Not so. Furthermore, when presented with this page, it is not at all obvious to an outsider which article they need to read, which transpires to be the one entitled Halifax Regional Municipality. How is anyone supposed to tell that? To someone who doesn't know what a "Regional Municipality" is, it's impossible.

I've made a quick fix to that, but the split of information across the City of Halifax, Halifax Regional Municipality and Halifax Urban Area articles is really unhelpful. Worse still, comments on articles such as "[...] and often simply, although incorrectly, as Halifax" appear to me to be more like POV-pushing digs at other editors than encyclopaedic information.

While this situation may have been a compromise that was reached to end an edit war, it is most unsatisfactory to the general reader. --RFBailey 04:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

I cleaned up this page. It was evolving into its own article and looking less like a dab page. Hopefully things are a little clearer. --Kmsiever 15:29, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that, but it still doesn't solve the problem of this being a dab page. --RFBailey 16:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

See Talk:Halifax, West Yorkshire#Discussion for a little more on this. Andrewa 20:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

To my mind, it neither was a compromise nor had a proper consensus. Be that as it may, it is, as RFBailey observes, "most unsatisfactory to the general reader." -- Lonewolf BC 22:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The page move discussion going on at Halifax, West Yorkshire really highlights why this situation is a mess. In short, the argument being used by the proponent of that move was essentially that Halifax, NS isn't called Halifax, but is called "Halifax Regional Municipality" (and he was more-or-less quoting directly from the article), so therefore the one in Yorkshire is clearly the most important out of all the others (taking Halifax, Massachusetts as the next largest). Had the main article here been entitled Halifax, Nova Scotia this argument wouldn't have been available. But it goes to show why something really, really needs to be done here! --RFBailey 22:35, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Just to pile on, the current situation is far less than ideal. To anyone new to the discussion, read User:Hongooi's extensive comments above and his use of the example of Sydney are instructive. I would add London to his argument. City of London, Greater London, Greater London Urban Area, &c. are articles of their own that discuss aspects specific to the repsective entities (often administrative and statistical points) but the bulk of the information on the city in general is at London as it should be. The different definitions of London are discussed (not merely listed) in the first section of the London article making it easy for those seeking a specific administrative unit to find it. Granted it will take real work to selectively move information from Halifax Regional Municipality and City of Halifax to Halifax, Nova Scotia but Wikipedia will be well-served by it. — AjaxSmack 00:50, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

"...Wikipedia will be well-served by it."
Yes. Very much so. I tried for something along those lines, early this year. Other folk had a different idea. Although they were but few, they were more than myself and (as I recall) the one or two others with similar views to mine, and they posted faster and more aggressively. Things ended up much as they had been before.
-- Lonewolf BC 05:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that's not quite how it went: Re-reading the old discussion just now, I see that most commenters essentially agreed with me.
-- Lonewolf BC 06:51, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

You never met a flame war you could walk away from, eh? And you know that is not true. WayeMason 13:55, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

I suggest that we need an article similar to the London article, giving an overview of all the various things in Nova Scotia that are or have been called Halifax, something that someone like me with no previous idea of the various complications can read without getting confused. This article should link to more detailed articles on the various legal and/or historical entities on which there's enough information to justify a separate article.

In view of all the discussion that precedes this (see particularly Talk:Halifax, Nova Scotia/Archive3 but the earlier archives have more of the same) I'd like consensus on this before I'm much interested in going any further. However, I'll foreshadow we're I'm headed... We need to next decide the name of this article. Personally I'd call it Halifax, Nova Scotia, and have only one disambiguation, currently at Halifax, which already includes all the entries of the lower-level diambiguation page currently at Halifax, Nova Scotia.

But this is negotiable, and cuts across some past decisions. What matters most to me is just that this new top-level article is created, by whatever name. Comments? Andrewa 07:12, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

These are all good ideas and the name Halifax, Nova Scotia is a good location. At a minimum, it would require reassembling the former History of Halifax material along with general geographical and cultural info. Ideally the proportion of material in the main article vis-à-vis the City and HRM should be quite large. (By comparison, the quantity of London material in he main article is very roughly 10:3:3 compared with City of London and Greater London; Sydney is 5:1 in relation to the City of Sydney.)

For those opposed to one main Halifax article, please step back and think about "When a reader enters a given term in the Wikipedia search box and pushes "Go", what article would they most likely be expecting to view as a result? " I would wager that for most users, wading through two or three disambiguation pages only to find that there is no article on Halifax, Nova Scotia and that a rather detailed understanding of Nova Scotia's administrative structure is necessary merely to find out basic information on the city is not ideal. — AjaxSmack 19:36, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't why we need to have one main Halifax article, nor why we need to reassemble any of the former material, nor why we need the proportion of material in the main article to be large. Personally I'd keep the high-level article as short as possible, with links to more detailed articles. Having a longish top-level article can work too but personally I don't think it's the best way.

But more to the point, it's not the best way to start. We can and should start with a short article. If others, including yourself, want to then expand this article, that's a different issue. It's far more important for this top-level article to exist than it is for it to be a particular length, short or long. Provided it has a good lead section, it will remove the problems that you and others have highlighted.

Again, see London... which is not a particularly good lead section IMO but still does the job of clarifying a very confusing situation. For example, the British Houses of Parliament aren't in London in a legalistic sense. They're in Westminster. Andrewa 21:18, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The Term "Halifax , Nova Scotia " is the Area in the article City of Halifax . not the Halifax Regional Municipality which is incorrect according to the Nova Scotia government. There are 200 communities within the Halifax Regional Municipalty and each are civic divisions for civic addressing which means they separate places . Also places like Bedford, Nova Scotia and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia also have separate histories to both the Halifax Regional Municipality and Halifax, Nova Scotia . The term Halifax Regional Municipality only represents the municipal governce of the area and is also not use as a location as at represents a very large area . Also the Halifax Regional Municipality is not a incorporated city nor there are any incorporated cities in Nova Scotia--19960401 02:45, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Maybe to someone from there. But to those of use outside of HRM, there's no difference. Just like people outside of Vancouver use "Vancouver" to refer to more than just Vancouver proper. --Kmsiever 04:24, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Even HRM council is debating whether or not to change the name of the HRM to just be "Halifax" this situation is far from clear. I strongly support a merger of Halifax, NS and HRM, NS page with clear descriptions of the different uses of Halifax in one article. As was said above, it cuts across all the arguements and documents it and puts it on one page.WayeMason 13:54, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia does pay attention to official names, but we don't slavishly follow them, for just reasons such as these. The whims of bureaucrats don't impress us overly! Instead, we have Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Well worth a read.

Or to put it another way, the statement which is incorrect has no great bearing on Wikipedia article names. It belongs to the era of now-discredited prescriptive linguistics. Instead of asking what should people say? recent linguists ask what do people say?, and Wikipedia's guidelines follow this school of thought. Andrewa 10:47, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, it's now been a couple of days and nobody has yet opposed the proposal. There's been some repetition of the various POVs as to what Halifax means in some sense of correctness which has little relevance to Wikipedia's article naming practice anyway, but little discussion of the issue I raised, which is the need for a top-level article whatever it is called. So do I go ahead and create the article? I think I'll call it Halifax, Nova Scotia (temporary article name) because I can't think of a better one than Halifax, Nova Scotia. But I'm open to suggestions.

And at the risk of rererepeating myself, the article name is a separate issue. Andrewa 06:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

For more of what I'm on about here, see London, City of London and Greater London, three different articles. The issues are not identical but look at how well the information is presented in these three articles. Both people with no preconceptions as to what the word London means and others with strong and conflicting views on its meaning can all find the article they want with a minimum of fuss. We can and should do as well here. Andrewa 06:43, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your proposal for an article, your choice of name, and your contention that the name choice is a separate issue. One possible location for the article could be Halifax, Nova Scotia/New article, something I've seen done somewhere else on Wikipedia. I don't have the knowledge or time to help so good luck. — AjaxSmack 03:29, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be best to turn this title back into a proper article, and move its the present contents to Halifax, Nova Scotia (disambiguation), or perhaps better yet just integrate them with Halifax (disambiguation). This is the title where people will expect to find information on Halifax, Nova Scotia. Any other title will make for awkward and troublesome linking. As with London, differing concepts "Halifax, Nova Scotia" can be accounted for in its article without too much trouble. There is, so far as I can find, little disagreement about that among standard reference works, though.
-- Lonewolf BC 04:07, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

When last I looked, Halifax (disambiguation) contained (duplicated) all the entries of the disambig at [[Halifax, Nova Scotia, and wasn't too long for that. So I question whether there's any need for a second disambiguation page just for the Canadian entries. Andrewa 11:06, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

For the record --- I am entirely in favour of an article on "Halifax" that incorporates ALL the various uses of the word Halifax to describe places in Nova Scotia. I am glad to see growing consensus that we need to revamp these articles.

I pointed out that even the government is arguing to change the name not because I feel the govt is a definitive source, but to point out to those of you who have been participating in this discussion for over 3 years that even the government is starting to refer to the whole area as Halifax. the main arguement of people who wanted to perpetuate historic place names as the only current fact have certainly been happy to use the government websites as quote definitive sources endquote! But things are changing, and evolving, and that change and evolution should be a part of the wikipedia article!

I am glad to yet another person in this discussion making the point that we don't just follow the dictat of technocrats or out of date govt sources. Andrewa wrote Instead of asking what should people say? recent linguists ask what do people say?, and Wikipedia's guidelines follow this school of thought. As I have said repeatedly, the media and the man on the street refers to metro, or urban Halifax as "Halifax," but also when talking about local issues inside of Halifax, they will still use local place names like "Dartmouth."

Many people beside myself have argued against the appropriateness of a Halifax, Nova Scotia article that does not clearly define the difference between the old administrative area of the City of Halifax, and the modern definition of Halifax, which is far more flexible and ambiguous. The article needs to recognize that outside of the Halifax Regional Municipality, most people just refer to the whole area as Halifax.

I would say that in line with the London example, I would like the see a Halifax, Nova Scotia article that would absorb most of the current Halifax Urban Area, Halifax Regional Municipality articles. I think the City of Halifax article should be maintained, to describe the historical town and city 1749-1996.

As has been stated repeatedly, the issues here are difficult in part because 1 - there is no general agreement on naming conventions either officially or in everyday use 2 - the municipal government itself uses different definitions of urban and rural depending on which department is doing the talking and 3 - politically motivated editors continue to try and insert their own POV.

All I want, and have ever wanted, is a full and complete picture of what is really going on on the ground here in Halifax and area, the best most comprehensive wiki article we can produce, that lets people from "away" understand the complexities around self-identity here now since amalgamation. Not trying to perpetuate old divisions as "facts" nor create new labels that have no legitimacy in the real world. Lets make good wiki! As long as we are all working on that, then let's, as we say, giv'er. WayeMason 01:15, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Halifax, Nova Scotia is the legal community name for what is covered in the article City of Halifax. Halifax Regional Municipality is not ,Halifax Nova Scotia legally either . What HRM council (and it is not even pass yet ) is rename Halifax Regional Municipality just plain Halifax as Halifax, Nova Scotia is proposed to be separate from Halifax .--19960401 01:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Please read the above discussion thoroughly. While what you say about the names of legal entities is (as far as I can tell) accurate, your logic is what contributes to the shambolic situation we have. To quote from an earlier remark, "Wikipedia does pay attention to official names, but we don't slavishly follow them [...]". While Halifax may (under present local government arrangements) not have any legal status, it is still a well-known entity. According to the Wikipedia Naming conventions:

Generally, article naming should prefer what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.

In this case, the name "Halifax, Nova Scotia" is what would most easily be recognised. Yes, there should still be an article about the Halifax RM, in the same way that we have an article about the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall (a local government district), but that article coexists with the one on Walsall (the town after which it is named). Excessive pedantry is detrimental to Wikipedia. --RFBailey 01:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

At the risk of pedantry myself, it is by definition excessive. But I heartily support these comments. Andrewa 11:06, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Halifax, Nova Scotia, can refer to Halifax/Dartmouth, Halifax, Halifax Peninsula, Halifax Regional Municipality, and urban Halifax. 19960401, they are all correct, depending on context. Driving to work today the CBC again referred to damage in the "city of Halifax" after Noel this weekend, as apposed to rural Haifax. They were referring the to the Nova Scotia Hospital being damaged, and that is in Dartmouth, Woodside to be precise. This is but one example. The CBC, Herald, and CTV all use Halifax to refer to metro Halifax, including Dartmouth and Bedford. Our job is to document ALL of these usesWayeMason 20:45, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Radio and TV stations nor do the Newspapers in the Halifax Regional Municipality do not have the authority to give out place names onlly the Halifx Regional Municipality Civic Address office does . Halifax, Nova Scotia is the area that is legally name that is covered in the article City of Halifax for the present name is Halifax ,Nova Scotia given by the Halifax Regional Municipality .There 190 other legal and separate placenames in the HRM as well and they do not refer themselves as Halifax --19960401 14:00, 6 November 2007 (UTC).

Yes, we understand that Nova Scotia placenames (and administrative areas) have a legal definition, and that local (or provincial) governments have the authority over that legal definition. And: yes, we understand that Halifax is not the HRM (as your edit summary puts it)--that was my point about Walsall, which is in a similar situation. However, we are supposed to be writing an encyclopaedia, and the Naming conventions which I quoted above are what should be followed; in particular, what is in most common usage. This includes what is used by the media, as well as what is used by "the man in the street" (in the Halifax area, in the rest of Canada, and beyond). Thus the "Halifax, Nova Scotia" article should describe both the legal and common usages of the name. It should not be a disambiguation page. --RFBailey 14:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The term "Halifax Nova Scotia" only refers to the area and the present unincorporated area that used to be City of Halifax and does refer anywhere else in the Halifax Regional Municipality . Making HRM -- Halifax Nova Scotia confuses of which area the article is suppose to teell sa there are 199 other places within the HRM other than Halifax .--19960401 16:29, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by your second sentence--if it had proper spelling and grammar it would help. As I have said several times, there should be articles about both Halifax and the HRM. The Halifax article would describe the area covered by the article City of Halifax, for sure. But the common usage of the term "Halifax" is to refer to the urban area (i.e. Metro Halifax), and there is material in the Halifax Urban Area article which is also relevant. On top of that, a lot of the stuff in the current HRM article doesn't pertain to the local government area as much as it does to Halifax itself, or the immediate surrounding area (e.g. the list of buildings).

No-one is doubting the existence of the "199 other places" in the HRM that are not Halifax, so I fail to see what you are worried about there. --RFBailey 16:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The Halifax Urban Area article is based mostly on the Stats Canada Area for the most part is a statistical area . I do agree on your statment that the current HRM article doesn't pertain to the local government area because it focuses to much on the Halifax City of Halifax area too much , than discribing the diversity of the municipality as a whole . Which is complicated .--19960401 18:31, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Attempt at a compromise article

I've attempted to make a first draft of a new Halifax, Nova Scotia article, in my userspace here. It's in a very rough-and-ready form, and needs a lot of tidying, sorting, and being made consistent, as well as a proper opening, before it's ready. But it should give an idea as to what I believe that article should contain. If implemented, it would replace the City of Halifax article as well as the current disambiguation page, and would also contain material transferred from the Halifax Regional Municipality article, and from the Halifax Urban Area article too.

Thoughts are welcome! --RFBailey 19:29, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

A second version is now available. --RFBailey 03:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Can somebody tell me where the article on the place called Halifax in Nova Scotia is?

WP seems to have lost its way here. There seem to be lots of articles on different obscure permutations of local government areas, but nothing I can find on the place. In most cases WP writes articles on places, not local government areas.

I'm trying to update the base Halifax dab page to include a 'most often' list in the lede, but I simply cannot find an appropriate single article to represent what most people do mean when the talk about Halifax, Nova Scotia. Help. -- Starbois (talk) 10:41, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely. That is a real problem and it's a shame that it's been six months since you posted this and nothing has happened. The section I wrote below is sort of my response to this, but I don't know how well it'll go over since this has been discussed before and this was apparently the best that could be done. Guff Brooking (talk) 04:35, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Round Two

I realize that this has been debated to death, and it seems that discussion has died down recently, but the Halifax articles are unacceptable in their current state.

As someone who has never been to Nova Scotia, I am part of the "target audience" of these articles - people who don't know much about Halifax and want a good overview. That being said, I think I know enough about the area from what I have learned to make some educated assumptions about what should go where.

• The City of Halifax article should be the main article in the Halifax, Nova Scotia namespace, because it is the article that most people will want. (The History section in particular is very good.) It should be a general overview of Halifax the place and its relationship to the other articles. This would also be good for consistency - Dartmouth and Bedford are both former cities inside the HRM and yet both get to keep their own articles. The Dartmouth article mentions that the name "Dartmouth" is still used in an official capacity. I am aware that the confusion arises because the former City of Halifax and the HRM both have "Halifax" in their names, but once you get past that, it's really not confusing at all. Imagine the HRM was called something different without "Halifax" in its name, and the division of articles becomes clear. Halifax is still a place, even if it's no longer a city.

• The Halifax Regional Municipality article should mostly contain information about municipal governance. It should not be the first article the reader sees. The list of constituent communities should be more prominent. That being said, I think that a little bit of overlap could be good in this situation.

• The Halifax County, Halifax Peninsula, Halifax Harbour, Metropolitan Halifax, and Mainland Halifax articles are all okay the way they are and can probably stay that way.

That's my brief assessment of the articles. I think I'm just scratching the surface with this - there's the matter of which topics are covered in each article - but it's important to get the ball rolling. It's been two years since any discussion happened.

And if this restarts the debate all over again, that's good, because talking about it is better than just lying back and accepting this half-baked compromise. (winces, hesitantly clicks "save page" and prepares for the worst) Guff Brooking (talk) 04:17, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

To your first point - Dartmouth still exists as an administrative unit, Dartmouth/Cole Harbour. Halifax does not, it has been split into the Mainland and Peninsula. So yes, Dartmouth still is used, but not Halifax in that way, except in the vernacular. Two your second point, HRM is a single polity, to treat it as an administrative district would be like doing so for Metro Toronto or New York City, years after they were amalgamated. Of course the main article for Toronto is the greater Toronto, not the old City of Toronto. Culturally, economically, administratively, HRM is Halifax, and should be the primary article. Are we grown up enough to do that? If so, lets make Halifax, NS point to HRM, and rename City of Halifax to the History of Halifax. Final point - thanks for the props around the history of Halifax, that took a lot of research!  :) WayeMason (talk) 20:51, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I completely support Guff Brooking's point. What he so clearly points out, and was missed out on by many people through the 3-years-ago debate, is that the article is on the PLACE. Just like Victoria, British Columbia does not stop itself from talking about things outside the municipal boundaries of the City of Victoria, because the concept of "the place Victoria" includes many things that intersect with, and touch upon, the Capital Regional District, Oak Bay, and other things. The place is seldom, if ever, delimited by municipal boundaries. As another example, within Canada, there are many places where Indian Reserves fall within the normally-accepted definitions of a given place. They are often very small "islands" that are not formally within the city/municipal boundaries, though any article that attempted to somehow pretend that they were not part of the history and story of that place would be foolish. I believe that, for the encyclopedia to be useful, Halifax, Nova Scotia must be the main article on the place - the one that includes the primary history, transport, culture sections and so on. It should not, simply be a disambiguation page for a bunch of municipal subdivisions. I'm going to try to gather some people who agree (look at that vote up above - it's unanimous in favour of this idea, and yet it didn't quite happen. Then, hopefully, we can make it happen. AshleyMorton (talk) 23:09, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I have reverted two edits which moved this page to Halifax#Canada. It is clear from past discussions that there has been no consensus for such a move.

Like some other contributors, I do not live in Canada, but I do know that know that there is a place called Halifax, Nova Scotia, and that it is not a range of mountains in B.C., nor a parish in PEI, nor a municipality otherwise known as HRM. I do not care much about local government arrangements in Nova Scotia, but I do know that many people will want to find out about the place that Air Canada calls "Halifax, Nova Scotia", that Via Rail calls "Halifax", and that people address letters to. Is it too much to ask that WP helps readers find out about that place?

The article which seems to be closest to the subject is City of Halifax, which starts "Halifax is [my italics] a community in Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) in Nova Scotia, Canada". If the objection is that Halifax is no longer a "city" in the legal sense, let's rename that article Halifax, Nova Scotia and explain its current status in the article.--Mhockey (talk) 11:19, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose per many of the past discussions in the past. Halifax, Nova Scotia is very much an ambiguous term. The area you consider Halifax, Nova Scotia is not what City of Halifax is about. It is only about a portion of the what is currently what Air Canada etc calls Halifax, not the entire thing. A neighborhood basically. It is about the historical city of Halifax which is much different than the current settlement of halifax which is known as the Halifax Regional Municipality. The confusion is clearly the lack of understanding that there no longer is a city of Halifax. It was amalgamated with many other cities to form the HRM. It is the HRM which is the capital of Nova Scotia and what airlines etc are referring to when they say Halifax, Nova Scotia. There is a movement to rename the entire HRM back to Halifax, Nova Scotia but there is push back from the other communities that were not called Halifax prior to the merger. -DJSasso (talk) 15:19, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not a question of what I consider Halifax, Nova Scotia. The issue is whether other communities, including those in other parts of the HRM, consider Halifax to be an identifiable place within the HRM. What is meant by "Halifax" in the opening sentence of City of Halifax? What do road signs say? Nova Scotia Highway 103 starts in "Halifax", meaning the place described in City of Halifax. The article on for example Dartmouth, Nova Scotia refers to Halifax as a different place. The fact that there is no longer a "city" of Halifax is not the point. The issue is whether there is still a place called Halifax in Nova Scotia. Consider many examples in England: Bradford, Leeds, Eastleigh, even Halifax, are all distinct places, with their own WP articles, even though they no longer have their own governments but were amalgamated with other towns to form wider local government units (City of Bradford, City of Leeds, Borough of Eastleigh, Calderdale). Those articles have no problem resolving the ambiguities.--Mhockey (talk) 17:10, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Merge this disambiguation page with Halifax per WP:INCDAB. There are just too many uses for Halifax, Nova Scotia for it to redirect to any one article. I think the arguments make that clear. 117Avenue (talk) 19:42, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah I have no problem redirecting it to the Halifax dab page as was discussed at WP:CANADA. -DJSasso (talk) 15:58, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes it certainly is an identifiable place within the HRM. It is a neighbourhood within the HRM. However, on maps and when organizations like airlines or trains to use your examples refer to Halifax they are not referring to that which used to be Halifax, but to what would now be the HRM. The airport for example is not even close to what used to be Halifax, it is instead on the opposite end of the HRM. There are two places in Nova Scotia called Halifax. What people outside the city/province call Halifax is the HRM. What people inside the HRM call Halifax is a neighbourhood. So if someone from the otherside of the world were to type Halifax, Nova Scotia it would be the HRM that they should be redirected to because that is what they are most likely searching for. -DJSasso (talk) 22:53, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. That seems to boil the issue down to which of two uses (the HRM or the neighbourhood within the HRM) is most commonly meant by the term "Halifax, Nova Scotia". Maps: I have consulted several maps: Geonames, the Atlas of Canada, the CAA/AAA, The Times Concise Atlas of the World, all identify "Halifax" as the place on the south side of Halifax Harbour. The location of the airport is not really the point - it is very common for airports to be located some distance from the city they serve. Mailing addresses can be misleading, but are you saying that mail for, say Bedford, is addressed to Halifax, NS and not Bedford, NS?

I would question the view that most people from outside the HRM mean the HRM when they refer to Halifax, Nova Scotia - the previous discussions seem to me to show the contrary. If there really is confusion about what is commonly meant by "Halifax, Nova Scotia", that is a fact which really ought to be explained in an encylopedia, with commentary on how the meanings have evolved. And the most natural place to explain that is an expanded article entited "Halifax, Nova Scotia".--Mhockey (talk) 22:00, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose This particular page is a waste of space. I doubt that a person would type 'Halifax, Nova Scotia' using instead the single word 'Halifax' for a search. This particular disambiguation page should be redirected to [[Halifax]]. Richard Harvey (talk) 11:35, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
• Comment and questions From the discussion so far, three things are puzzling me:
  

1. It seems to be agreed that there is a community called "Halifax" within the HRM. Which (if any) is the WP article about that community?

2. What is the evidence (from reliable sources) that the HRM is also referred to as "Halifax" (or "Halifax, Nova Scotia")?

3. If both the HRM and the community of Halifax are referred to as plain "Halifax", how are they differentiated in normal speech or text in a context where plain "Halifax" could be misunderstood?--Mhockey (talk) 12:04, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Locally the HRM is differentiated by saying "The HRM", outside of the area if someone is saying Halifax they just mean the HRM because most people in the rest of the country are unaware that things changed just over a decade ago and are unlikely to be referring to just a small section of the area anyways. Halifax is just a neighbourhood now (actually two neighbourhoods as I mention below). Like Soho in London for example. Its not considered a separate community per say, just the name of an area within the community of the HRM. As for what articles cover this area, there are two Mainland Halifax and Halifax Peninsula which are the two neighbourhoods that Halifax was split up into after the amalgamation. There is a third article City of Halifax which covers the entire area of historical Halifax. As for reliable sources that the HRM is just known as Halifax I can look some up but I there wouldn't be much context in them because if they just say Halifax it becomes impossible to know if they are just speaking about one or the other. -DJSasso (talk) 15:21, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, Soho in London has its own WP article - one of very many articles about neighbourhoods or localities which are not precisely defined by local government unit boundaries. It has an article because it is an identifiable place which WP users want to read about. It seems clear from previous discussions that Halifax, Nova Scotia is also, like Soho, an identifiable place (distinct from the HRM) which users want to read about (sections headed Confusing, Shambles, Can somebody tell me..., Search for Halifax to get here).

The answers to my questions seem to be

1. The article about Halifax before 1996 is City of Halifax, and the article about Halifax since 1996 is Halifax Peninsula - although many editors treat the City of Halifax article as the article about Halifax now (e.g. present tense in opening sentence, links in the road articles). (I am discounting Mainland Halifax: if I understand the article correctly, that is the formal name (since 1996) of an area which was in the City between 1969 and 1996, but is not a name favoured by its inhabitants.)

2. No evidence yet.

3. Not sure I understand this. It would be odd if people outside NS often used "Halifax" in the sense of the HRM (which most probably would not have heard of). Surely they would be thinking of a locality, not a region or municipality. But people within NS? If I am in Bedford and ask for directions to Halifax, would the answer be "Silly question, you're already in Halifax" or would they send me to Halifax Peninsula? Do people use expressions like "Halifax itself" or "Halifax proper"?

The aim of the merger proposal is to help users like the ones who started previous discussions, and probably many casual users, find the information they need quickly. The current position is just unhelpful. The alternative of treating a name like Halifax, Nova Scotia as "incomplete disambiguation" has not attracted support at Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation#Incomplete_disambiguation_(again) - it would not be a good way of getting users to the info they are looking for.--Mhockey (talk) 20:49, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I've got to disagree with 3. I think that most people outside NS think Halifax is a city, because most of the world has cities. Since NS doesn't have cities, they would want the HRM. 117Avenue (talk) 03:26, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

City is often used loosely, in the sense of a large town. Different jurisdictions have varying requirements for formal city status, which are sometimes at odds with the looser meaning. In the UK we have the City of London and the City of Bradford, neither of which are large towns (or cities in the looser, traditional, sense) - one is an area within London (which is a city in the looser sense), and the other is a local government unit which contains several towns, including Bradford (which is a city in the looser sense). I agree that that most people outside NS think of Halifax as a city, but in the looser sense of a large town, which the HRM is not. And the HRM is not a city in the formal, legal sense either.--Mhockey (talk) 18:11, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

this page should not redirect to a sub-section of a disambiguation page

Halifax, Nova Scotia really should not link to a disambiguation page, if only because this more specific references just equates to where Halifax links. To me, the Halifax, Nova Scotia page should contain what is started on Halifax (former city). Halifax, Nova Scotia should not link to Halifax Regional Municipality, as that page encorporates other cities beyond Halifax if I'm reading the comments correctly. The fact that the city formally ceased to be a seperate entity is not relevant; the city still exists, just not as a "City" entity. And also, "former city" to me means that it's gone (like Troy is a former city in what is now present-day Turkey). Just my 2 cents. - Hooperswim (talk) 20:50, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

And everyone has their comments, that's why there is no primary topic. By your own admission, Halifax, Nova Scotia still exists, so why would the title go to the former incorporation? I think that both the former and current are important, and the title can't go to one. 117Avenue (talk) 04:12, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Per your suggestion, I've attempted to write a primary topic article, as one should exist. - Hooperswim (talk) 17:13, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

That isn't what I suggested. Per WP:INCDAB, three or four entries isn't enough for a disambiguation page, if it can be merged into another. What I suggest exists at the Nova Scotia section in Halifax#Canada. 117Avenue (talk) 04:59, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't attempting to write a disambiguation, I was attempting to write the start of a primary topic page. But I give up: if even a proud Canadian such as yourself doesn't care enough about the city to fix this, then I, who am just trying to steer things to a consolidated, simple, make-sense, outcome, will not either. I will just use Halifax, since it links to the same place as Halifax, Nova Scotia. (What I learned from this: Halifax, Nova Scotia doesn't exist. It's an idea of a place/city, but it was apparently torn-down completely in 1996--because that's what the pages reflect.) - Hooperswim (talk) 15:20, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

If I "don't care enough about the city", funny, because it isn't a city; I intend "to fix this" wherever I see this error, I hope this shows respect for the Government of Nova Scotia. I hope you don't actually think "Halifax, Nova Scotia" doesn't exist, because it does, it can mean several places. Just because you hit a disambiguation page, while surfing Wikipedia, doesn't mean you were wrong, it just means the term applies to many things. A couple of other examples I know of is Fairview, Alberta, and Springfield, Wisconsin. 117Avenue (talk) 02:56, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

change need on Canadian Provinces page

I was just on Provinces and territories of Canada, and they have Halifax as the largest city of Nova Scotia. From the discussion here, it seems to me that Halifax is no longer a city, and therefore it should not be listed as the largest city for the province. Someone should fix the other page(s) that also make this mistake. - Hooperswim (talk) 17:15, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Done, but this probably isn't the page to bring that up. 117Avenue (talk) 05:22, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Ahh, so now a non-city is listed in the city category: sounds good. - Hooperswim (talk) 15:22, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit warring

After the edit warring on this page, I have protected it for a week and started a discussion at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2013_January_16#Halifax.2C_Nova_Scotia. The results of that discussion should be respected, and no further edit warring should take place. ‑Scottywong| communicate _ 18:16, 16 January 2013 (UTC)