Talk:Howard Johnson's/Archive 1

Archive 1

The famous roof

I know at least in the North East the orange roof and spire were pretty notable... and I remember seeing a bunch die out and become local diners or whatnot. Does anyone have a picture of the old ones? because I think that's probably a good thing for this article... and does anyone else think that HoJo or HoJo's should link here? Because I remember them being commonly called that. gren 12:28, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

By all means, add redirects for HoJo and HoJo's. Just create an article named HoJo and make the entire contents of the article be the single line

#REDIRECT [[Howard Johnson's]]

and similar for HoJo's. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:36, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

The Ground Round

No mention of "The Ground Round" and "Red Coach Grill" concepts introduced by Howard Johnson's in the 1960's?

It needs to go in there, but I unfortunately don't have the information on hand to do so. SchuminWeb (Talk) 21:43, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Hotels in other countries

There are now also Howard Johnson hotels outside of the U.S., which could be mentioned in the article. I stayed in the Howard Johnson hotel in Xian China, which is a 5 star hotel that features extravagant use of granite/stone/glass everywhere--a vastly different experience than typical HJ hotels in the U.S. I don't know if that is common with all HJ operations in other countries or not.HOJO China news site -- Bovineone 02:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

My use of the {{fact}} tag

Regarding my use of the {{fact}} tag in the article, here's my concern:

It seems that the writer of the passage regarding Mr. Hostage is onto something, but I think that they have their facts wrong. From what I could find [www.referenceforbusiness.com/history/He-Ja/Howard-Johnson-International-Inc.html], Hostage never personally owned the company, but rather ran it while it was under Marriott's ownership. I just want to get a second opinion before fixing it, to make sure this agrees with what everyone else thinks first. SchuminWeb (Talk) 06:36, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

If you go to this link, it will explain the relationship of Hojos and Michael Hostage. http://orangeroof.org/Massachusetts/Boston/SoutheastExpy/southeastexpy1.html

In any case, the tag is appropriate and a citation is needed. All Wikipedia content needs to be traceable to published sources, not just disputed content. When citing http://orangeroof.org/Massachusetts/Boston/SoutheastExpy/southeastexpy1.html, however, it probably needs to be made clear that this seems to be Richard Kummerlowe's personal opinion, and I'm not sure who he is or whether he qualifies as a reliable source. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:12, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

cleanup tag

While its content is helpful to an alert reader, this article is mostly a mess in terms of narrative flow and syntax. It reads more like a sloppy executive summary dictated by a careless, moderately articulate and somewhat opinionated executive. Gwen Gale 05:06, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

A Relatively Unknown Fact

As one of the company's last expansion effort, it opened a "short order" restaurant called HoJo Junction on A1A in North Miami Beach in the early seventies. The limited menu and limited seating restaurant was designed after the motor lodge office architecture, but it was a free-standing unit. Travis P. Dungan 16:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC) I am new to this and am unsure of protocol but my user name is Travisp and my email is [email protected]. Please let me know if I have submitted improperly or screwed up anything.--This should probably go at the end of the paragraph on expansion before the paragraph on the "beginning of the end."Travis P. Dungan 16:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

WPFood assessment

This article just needs citations from reliable sources to be brought to a B-class article. --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 06:22, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:FOOD Tagging

This article talk page was automatically added with {{WikiProject Food and drink}} banner as it falls under Category:Restaurants or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. You can find the related request for tagging here -- TinucherianBot (talk) 09:51, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Offical Hotel of Sega?

Was that true? If so, shouldn't there be some mention of it? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2aaJmMQ8UI --Drkirby (talk) 07:03, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Sega and Howard Johnson's did at one point do a promotion together in the 1990s, I want to say around 1993 or so. I remember seeing the ads in Sega Visions magazine, and remember that the Harrisonburg location had "WE HAVE SEGA" on their sign's message board around that same time. I unfortunately don't have or know of any reliable sources that we can use to include the information, however. SchuminWeb (Talk) 13:27, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

A minor matter

The 'test of time' phrase could probably go. Lots42 (talk) 22:27, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

disambiguation page

I believe adding a link to the disambiguation page at the top would be good, because google directs me to this page if I google for Howard Johnson, but I don't want the hotel. I think it's quite useful, at least for this wiki editor. Rogerdpack (talk) 18:55, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I did a Google search on "Howard Johnson" without quotes [1] and with quotes [2], and Wikipedia does not come up in at least the first five pages of search results. Wikipedia only comes up in Google results if you search "Howard Johnson's", where it comes up third.[3]

As long as Howard Johnson does not redirect to Howard Johnson's, the hatnote is unnecessary per disambiguation guidelines currently in place, since "Howard Johnson's" is very specific, and the disambiguation page already links to the article.

If you want to make a case that Howard Johnson should redirect to Howard Johnson's, and the disambiguation page on the former's title be moved to Howard Johnson (disambiguation), you might have a point, since it's quite possible that the hotel chain would be the primary use over all these other notable figures named Howard Johnson. And in that case, a hatnote would be appropriate, since making the hospitality chain the primary topic would cause more people to land on the page accidentally, where they would now go straight to the dab page. So including something along the lines of "'Howard Johnson' redirects here" would get those accidental landers that would currently land on the dab page directed to that dab page in short order.

So let me know what you think... SchuminWeb (Talk) 23:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Corporate Name

Technically speaking the company's name is Howard Johnson not Howard Johnson's if no one objects I'd like to redirect to Howard Johnson (Hospitality) or Howard Johnson International which is it's legal corporate name. Rosie, Queen of Corona (talk) 03:30, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Objection per WP:COMMONNAME. SchuminWeb (Talk) 06:27, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I am in agreement. The title of the article should be Howard Johnson, as that is the name of the hotel chain. Tall copy (talk) 01:12, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

You might have a case, but the restaurants were always "Howard Johnson's", and the hotels were "Howard Johnson's" for a long time. I'm still saying WP:COMMONNAME on "Howard Johnson's". SchuminWeb (Talk) 17:00, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Move

The following discussion is an archived 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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. —Darkwind (talk) 01:50, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

---

Howard Johnson's → Howard Johnson (motel) or Howard Johnson (hotel)– The motel chain currently does not have the "'s" at the end and has not had it since the 1980s. "Howard Johnson" is the proper name for the chain, as evidenced by this page full of Google News hits not using the "'S", as well as the obvious lack of any "'s" on the Howard Johnson website. While it might be too much to ask for this to be called WP:PRIMARYTOPIC — indeed, the baseball player is the third hit on Google — let's at least have the proper spelling without the S. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 22:21, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

One Small thing, they also have several Hotels so I am not sure if (motel) it the correct choice.--64.229.164.74 (talk) 23:29, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Added "hotel" as an alternate option. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 00:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• Support - either (motel) as nom, or as (hotel), or (hotel chain) per Category:Hotel chains. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:02, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. These were more commonly known as Howard Johnson's. Apteva (talk) 21:34, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• Key word being "were". Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 22:37, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

  The article is not about what they are now, but mostly about what they were. They are not very notable today. Apteva (talk) 23:09, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

• So? Kmart was S. S. Kresge corporation for far much longer than it was ever Kmart, and it's "not very notable today". Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 18:31, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• It's not just a hotel chain, though, even if the hotels are dominant today. What about Howard Johnson (company)? --BDD (talk) 16:26, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• Could work. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 18:31, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - Although "Howard Johnson" is the official name, it's debatable which form is actually more common. And we should use natural disambiguation over parenthetical disambiguation wherever possible. Ibadibam (talk) 01:04, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose; using the still-common possessive obviates all need to discuss what disambiguation to use. Powers ^T 14:35, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
• Comment: WP:COMMONNAME usually trumps the trademark name unless, of course, the trademark name does not involve any special characters or non-standard capitalization (as is the case here) and can be shown to be the name most commonly used in secondary sources. So my question is which name is most commonly used in secondary sources? It looks to me like "Howard Johnson" (no 's) is more common by a comfortable margin (see Books Gtest results: 112k (no 's) and 36.2k (with 's)), but I am happy to see other evidence. Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 15:39, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I think it's still too difficult to establish commonality. Looking more deeply into Google Books, I see that the possessive wins for restaurant, the currently used trademark wins for hotel, and then motel is very close and has changed over the years. Given that Google Books is not likely to push us to consensus, I'll suggest we look at WP:NAMINGCRITERIA for guidance. Using "Howard Johnson's" seems to me to be more natural, precise and concise than "Howard Johnson (company)", and still manages to be recognizable. Ibadibam (talk) 17:25, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

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.