Talk:Washington Tree

Photograph

Location

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was - uncontested move. Keith D (talk) 22:23, 14 January 2008 (UTC) [reply ]

Washington tree → Washington Tree — Both external links and the intro to this article use capital "T." —LeSnail (talk) 02:38, 9 January 2008 (UTC) [reply ]

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support. Appropriate capitalisation. Andrewa (talk) 13:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC) [reply ]
• Support since it is not just any tree, it is the name of one tree. Tigeron (talk) 23:00, 11 January 2008 (UTC) [reply ]
• Support, as per nominator and Andrewa. --203.94.135.134 (talk) 03:46, 14 January 2008 (UTC) [reply ]

Any additional comments:

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

Requested move 30 April 2025

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. All moved except for President (tree). A solid consensus was not found for the capitalization, meaning another discussion in the future may be able to resolve that. In the meantime, I will process this as nominated. (closed by non-admin page mover) ASUKITE 15:18, 16 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

• Washington (tree) → Washington Tree
• Adam (tree) → Adam Tree
• Allen Russell (tree) → Allen Russell Tree
• Boole (tree) → Boole Tree
• Chief Sequoyah (tree) → Chief Sequoyah Tree
• Floyd Otter (tree) → Floyd Otter Tree
• Franklin (tree) → Franklin Tree
• General Grant (tree) → General Grant Tree
• General Noble (tree) → General Noble Tree
• Genesis (tree) → Genesis Tree
• Hart (tree) → Hart Tree
• Hercules (tree) → Hercules Tree
• John Adams (tree) → John Adams Tree
• Lincoln (tree) → Lincoln Tree
• Nelder (tree) → Nelder Tree
• (削除) President (tree) → President Tree President Tree (削除ここまで)
• Robert E. Lee (tree) → Robert E. Lee Tree
• Sentinel (tree) → Sentinel Tree
• Stagg (tree) → Stagg Tree

– The main guideline motivating these moves is WP:NATURAL, which prefers titles that are also commonly used (e.g. Washington Tree) vs a parenthetical disambiguator (e.g., Washington (tree)).

The main question is: what is the most commonly used name for all of these Giant Sequoia? Washington Tree or Washington tree? The capitalized form "Washington Tree" (and equivalent) seems to be the most common. See, e.g., Washington Tree Google ngrams, Boole Tree Google ngrams, General Grant Tree Google ngrams, President Tree Google ngrams.

There are two other considerations:

• We just moved General Sherman (tree) to General Sherman Tree. These moves would make the article titles consistent with General Sherman Tree, per WP:CONSISTENT
• In 2008, there was a discussion (above) for moving Washington tree to Washington Tree. I don't believe there was discussion or any consensus in 2011 to move to Washington (tree). — hike395 (talk) 15:12, 30 April 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 02:42, 8 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

• Support as the page mover who closed General Sherman Tree. I think the same logic that applied there works on the majority of these. At the very least, Washington Tree should be restored per the above RM consensus. Bensci54 (talk) 16:30, 30 April 2025 (UTC) [reply ]
• Support. Please consider removing President (tree) from the list. Its common name is "The President" and should probably be changed to "The President (tree)". Thanks. Most of these could have been moved non-controversially, including the General Grant Tree. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:00, 1 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

I'll remove President (tree) from the list and we can discuss separately. — hike395 (talk) 10:52, 1 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Thanks. Added 'Support'. My concern was adding and uppercasing 'tree' onto a partial name. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:19, 1 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Kind of a round robin here. Hike395, I moved the page 'President (tree)' to The President (tree), and if it sticks maybe you can consider adding it back to the list under the fuller but maybe not better name, The President Tree (although it makes it sound like all the other trees in the forest elected it, hopefully not in a landslide). Randy Kryn (talk) 01:45, 2 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

I think we should just have a separate discussion over at Talk:The President (tree) and keep this batch uniform. — hike395 (talk) 03:04, 2 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Sounds good, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:29, 2 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Like Randy, I wonder about the capitalization of "tree". In most of these case, "tree" doesn't really seem to be part of the name, so if it is to be added, it should be in lowercase. Floyd Otter (tree) is an example. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 06:21, 2 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

@BarrelProof: I don't think Randy is disputing the capitalization? For many of these trees, it's tricky to understand their common name (e.g., Floyd L. Otter was a person). I would suggest that "Floyd Otter Tree" (capitalized) is actually a common name, if you do a Google Search for "floyd otter tree", you'll see that the capitalized form is common (but not ubiquitous). Searching books and papers is not useful because almost all of the links talk about Floyd L. Otter. I think for consistency, we should use the capitalized version for all of the individual sequoia, but am open to other data/arguments. — hike395 (talk) 18:00, 2 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Overall, the sourcing seems rather thin for these. It might be helpful to search for things like "Floyd Otter" with "redwood" or "sequoia" instead of "tree" to avoid predisposing the outcome of the search to include "tree" in the names. There are certainly sources that do not include "tree" in the names, at least most of the time – e.g., [1] and [2]. When including "tree", it doesn't really seem like a proper name, but rather as a descriptive identifier. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:24, 2 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

@BarrelProof: I agree that the sourcing is thin for some of the less prominent trees. What I would suggest is that we determine the correct name for the more famous trees (e.g., "General Sherman Tree" vs "General Sherman" tree) and then apply WP:CONSISTENT to have all of the individual sequoia names have the same pattern of capitalization. Looking at Google ngrams (General Sherman Tree, General Grant Tree, Washington Tree), it appears that "XYZ Tree" is relatively common. The full name of these trees may thus end with "Tree". — hike395 (talk) 02:26, 5 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

• Support, I am not very knowledgeable on trees but these moves seem to be in accordance with Wikipedia's policies. Easternsahara (talk) 00:36, 2 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]

Relisting comment: I'd like to see more discussion on the capitalization debate, given how many articles are in this move request. Skarmory (talk • contribs) 02:42, 8 May 2025 (UTC) [reply ]