Talk:Cooma–Snowy Mountains Airport

Requested move 16 February 2024

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. (non-admin closure) NW1223<Howl at me•My hunts> 13:58, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

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Snowy Mountains Airport → Cooma–Snowy Mountains Airport – Page was moved to this namespace by an autoconfirmed user in good faith per WP:BOLD under the rationale of WP:COMMONNAME. I disagree with this move and would like to seek WP:EDITCON for reasons stated below:

• Under private ownership, this airport has been branded as "Snowy Mountains Airport", However, most sources actually cited as references in the article, both current and historic, refer to either Cooma Airport, or Cooma - Snowy Mountains Airport. Of the 14 sources currently referenced, only 2 refer to the airport exclusively as "Snowy Mountains Airport" and these are self-published by the airport operator, suggesting a rebranding for promotional reasons which may raise issues with WP:PROMO.
• Although Google does return more hits for the specific search term "Snowy Mountains Airport" than either of the above, I note many of these results still preface this with "Cooma" when viewing where the term actually appears in the text, including 3 of the top 10 matches.
• The Qantas booking system was using "Cooma" as the destination as of last season (although marketed as flights to the Snowy Mountains).
• As a pilot who has operated to this airport, all radio calls, flight planning documents and associated navigation are referred to as "Cooma".
• Disambiguation - Originally, the public airport was referred to as Cooma Airport, the Snowy Mountains was added to differentiate it from the private Cooma–Polo Flat Airport, which was historically the base for the Snowy Mountains Authority's aviation ops to a network of airstrips throughout the Snowy Mountains. Although historic, there was a period of time where Polo Flat was colloquially known as the Snowy Mountains Scheme Airport (or just "Snowy Airport" or other iterations) while the public airfield was just "Cooma" airport. Discarding booking engine type search results and considering those with actual content that is of encyclopedic interest, it is possible that many search results for "Snowy Mountains Airport" may be referring to Polo Flat or other SMA airstrips. - This is certainly the case when using search engines such as Trove.

Although the change to the name was only minor, I believe that it is detrimental to the article, however it would be appropriate to add a "nativename" field or such in the infobox, or provide this clarification in the lede. Dfadden (talk) 01:42, 16 February 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. – robertsky (talk) 02:33, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Isn't the suggestion meant to be Cooma–Snowy Mountains Airport, with an en dash, as in Seattle–Tacoma International Airport and Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:44, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Thank you BarrelProof - Redirects exist for both (dash and hyphen), I guess I just copied it from the wrong one. Have edited above. Dfadden (talk) 03:01, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose – Thanks Dfadden for going ahead with the RM. I am the user who made the original move as per WP:COMMONNAME. My rationale is as such: the airport has been promoted as Snowy Mountains Airport and the logo has read Snowy Mountains Airport since 2006. This appears to coincide with the purchasing of the airport by Snowy Mountains Airport Corporation in 2005. Both the two major airlines that have most recently flown there in the past, Qantas and Rex, each refer to the airport as Snowy Mountains (Cooma), using Cooma as a disambiguation in the same way that you may see Sunshine Coast (Maroochydore) or Gold Coast (Coolangatta). Both those airports were previously named after the town and then changed their name to a more marketable name, as did Snowy Mountains Airport eighteen years ago. The New South Wales Tourism site refers to the airport as Snowy Mountains Airport. Google hits in an incognito window have "Snowy Mountains Airport" at 50,200 hits; "Cooma Airport" at 23,500 hits; and "Cooma-Snowy Mountains Airport" at 12,400 hits. The former wins out by a weight of more than two to one – it is clearly, by some margin, the name in most common use. I appreciate the mover's point of view as a pilot, and respect the willingness to use the 'old' name, but I think it may have clouded their view somewhat. The somewhat ironic thing is I actually prefer the names like Maroochydore, Coolangatta and Cooma, in the same way I prefer Spencer Street to Southern Cross – it speaks to location, and not marketing fluff. But Wikipedia is not about personal preference. The numbers point pretty clearly to Snowy Mountains Airport being the common name. Cheers. Gibbsy^spin 05:55, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Procedural comment. The stable title for this page is Cooma–Snowy Mountains Airport, so a "no consensus" close here would result in reverting the article to the proposed title. Also, please note that when objections are raised to recent, undiscussed moves those moves are normally reverted before beginning any subsequent move request (WP:RMUM). Dekimasuよ! 06:08, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  Hi Dekimasu, in the absence of further discussion, may I request yourself or another uninvolved editor relist this RM, or close it if its appropriate? Dfadden (talk) 08:10, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Writehydra (talk) 22:38, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose – Per @Gibbsy. Svartner (talk) 14:25, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.