This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.
A fact from Trolleybuses in Philadelphia appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 15 September 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that of more than 300 trolleybus systems currently serving cities worldwide, the 1914-opened trolleybus system in Shanghai is the oldest, and its counterpart in Philadelphia(pictured) the second-oldest?
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As this is about SEPTA's system, and they use the term "trackless trolley", wouldn't a factually correct article use the same term as more than just a passing reference? According to the article itself the term is even more commonly two words in American usage (though I don't know if I'd call it common by any form). So I'm wondering if we shouldn't move this to "Trackless trolleys in Philadelphia". oknazevad (talk) 01:53, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
English Wikipedia has a worldwide readership. By consensus, the word generally used in it to describe this form of transport is Trolleybus, which is the English language descriptor most commonly used worldwide. The lead of the Trolleybus article specifically refers to various North American similes for that descriptor, as does the Trolleybuses in Philadelphia article. The word Trolleybus is also the descriptor used in other international English language publications, eg Wikimedia Commons and Trolleybus Magazine.
In keeping with the consensus, the standard form name for English Wikipedia articles about individual trolleybus systems is Trolleybuses in [name of city]. The only present exception is Boston-area trackless trolleys, which is likely to have a name change soon.
Standardization of English Wikipedia article names about trolleybuses assists with searching, etc, and also helps readers of English Wikipedia to understand the true, and significant, place of the North American systems in the context of the rest of the world. The two main contributors to all of the recently created English Wikipedia articles about trolleybuses (Bahnfrend and SJ Morg), live in Australia and the US, respectively, and they both adhere to the consensus just described. The latter has already created a number of appropriate redirect pages, including Trackless trolleys in Philadelphia. Bahnfrend (talk) 04:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I agree. Also, "trackless trolleys" is a regional preference only, and we are talking about a term for a mode of transportation (or "transport" to speakers of non-North American English), not a formal name. Even within the U.S., "trolley bus" (or "electric trolley bus" in recent years, to avoid confusion with trolley-replica buses) is by far the most common term for this mode, so it seems to me that the vast majority of people reading this article will be most familiar with either "trolley bus" or "trolleybus" for this mode. Personally, I also don't support renaming the article from "Trolleybuses in ..." to "Trolley buses in ...", even though this particular article is about a U.S. system, because those two terms are so similar that I believe consistency of format across WP internationally supports keeping it as "trolleybuses" (one word), for the titles, and just using the common American English term within the text, but I don't feel strongly about this. Also (and referring to outside WP), the common non-North American spelling, "trolleybus", is starting to be used occasionally in the US, I've noticed in recent years, but the two-word version is still far more common. I also agree with Bahnfrend that the Boston article's title probably should be changed in the not-too-distant future, but I don't see that as an urgent priority. That article needs a lot of clean-up and expansion, and as far as I'm concerned that renaming can wait until I (or someone else) gets around to doing that expansion. I do feel it's important for the Phila. article to make it clear that "trackless trolley" is the common name used for this mode by residents of the area, and I've tried to do that with my editing of the article. SJ Morg (talk) 05:20, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To make my view clear, I believe this article should be renamed per WP:COMMONNAME. "Trackless trolley" may be a less common regional variant over all, but it is by far the most common term used when describing the Philadelphia routes, as it's the one used there. To that end, I also oppose any undiscussed move of the Boston article either, as they too are almost always called trackless trolley. I would advise that a formal WP:RM be followed for any such move.
The idea of a one-size-fits-all naming convention is in good faith, but I believe is a mistake. The fact is terms are not universally used, and accurately reflecting the term actually used to describe the routes is important. Truthfully, if "trolleybus" is almost never used to describe either the Boston or Philadelphia routes, imposing it on those article is a poor solution. oknazevad (talk) 17:31, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Describe by whom? The terms "trolleybus" and "trolley buses" are almost universally used to refer to Philadelphia's and Boston's such vehicles/routes in publications and websites not originating in the region. For example, virtually all of the sources cited for the article. (Also, a comparison of Google hits for Phila. or Boston with "trackless trolley" or with "trolley buses" or "trolleybuses" finds many times more hits for the latter two than for trackless trolley, but I realize there are limitations to that method of comparison.) Local residents are not the only people who talk about and write about trolleybuses in their city. SJ Morg (talk) 20:10, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestion: look things up! The spelling given by Merriam-Webster, a standard American reference, is single-word "trolleybus"; no two-word variant is even mentioned, so I've put a citation-needed tag on the two-word spelling suggested in the article. M-W also admits "trackless trolley" as a synonym for "trolleybus"; it is not tagged as being a merely regional term.--BillFlis (talk) 07:49, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For such a specialized term as this, the terminology used by transit publications is much more relevant to determining what is common than a general dictionary is (even if it's a widely used dictionary). The US transit glossary here does not even mention the one-word form (trolleybus). Speaking as the person who wrote the vast majority of the article's content, I had to use British sources for a lot of it, simply because I had much more such material available and because there are no US magazines that cover trolleybuses exclusively, but if one were to check US transit magazines (such as Mass Transit, Metro, Passenger Transport, Bus Ride, etc.), it would be clear that the two-word spelling is much more common. Personally, I prefer the one-word spelling, but this is a US subject, so we should be using the most common US term, which is the two-word "trolley bus". SJ Morg (talk) 08:50, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
