- Southeast (talk|edit|history|logs|links|archive|watch) (RM)
There was a proposed move to move Southeast, Northeast, Northwest and Southwest to Southeast (disambiguation), Northeast (disambiguation), Northwest (disambiguation) and Southwest (disambiguation). There was no mention by the proposer of what the base names (e.g., Northeast) would redirect to in the event of the move passing (he mentioned something about "the articles on the directions should all be moved to the base name", despite the fact that there are no such articles); therefore, I at least was unable to make a !vote. It was a mess, rather atypical of User:Bkonrad, whom I respect immensely, and unfortunately User:BD2412, the closing admin, read that move request and determined that when a user types in Northwest (for instance), they should be taken to boxing the compass, which is problematic for three reasons. First, that's a poor choice of landing--boxing the compass doesn't say anything about the direction Northwest in particular (which makes sense, because we're not a dictionary and I doubt anyone could write and source an article about a direction--in any case, that article doesn't exist at boxing the compass). Second, there is no consensus anywhere at that move request for primary topic being boxing the compass, because primary topic wasn't even discussed, because nobody proposed a primary topic and the closer just picked a location for those links to redirect to. Third, our primary topic criteria would reject this decision if only the question had ever been raised. Just check the pageviews. boxing the compass has 26k views over past 90 days whereas Southwest Airlines, which is just one example for just one direction, has 158k!. In summary, this move close did not correctly identify a consensus to move the pages to disambiguation pages and to redirect the base names to boxing the compass. I respect and appreciate the nominator and the closing administrator; I do however believe this was an error. (The closing admin has been notified.) Red Slash 00:24, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- The problem here is that there really is no good, consistent outcome. It seems logical to have Southeast, Northeast, Northwest and Southwest all treated the same - that is, to have all of them be disambiguation pages, or all of them be articles, or all point to an article that discusses each of them. However, it also seems (based on prior treatment) that the primary topic of at least some of these is the direction itself, but that not enough information has been gathered on any of them to support a distinct article just on that direction. The one place where it seems that all of these directions are best addressed is Boxing the compass#Compass point names, where I have also added a hatnote to the section indicating the separate disambiguation pages for each of these, as well as a link to Southwest Airlines. Incidentally, I am not convinced that the number of people looking at the Southwest Airlines page indicates that this is the primary meaning of Southwest, any more than the number of people looking at Sears Tower would indicate that this was the primary meaning of Sears. However, User:Red Slash is correct that there was no consensus specifically to move the pages to disambiguation pages and to redirect the base names to boxing the compass. What I did find was that was a consensus for all of these titles to receive the same treatment. User:Necrothesp and User:168.12.253.66 both felt that the directions were the clear primary topics; User:Ezhiki preferred "to either have all these articles be about the directions, or to have them be disambigs"; and User:Bkonrad was "inclined to support having the disambiguation pages for all at the base names". Thus, there were three editors who either felt that the directions were the primary topics, or were at least okay with that so long as their treatment was uniform, and a fourth editor who preferred having them as disambiguation pages, but also expressed a desire for uniform treatment, and that is what I implemented. I tend to agree that uniformity of treatment is more encyclopedic, and I feel that I did the best I could with what I had to work with. bd2412 T 00:51, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Why would we need to treat them all the same? We don't treat Alabama, Florida and Georgia the same; we don't treat London, Hong Kong and New York the same; we don't even treat Chicken, Pheasant and Turkey the same... Sometimes we have a clear primary topic, and sometimes we don't. Again, the problem is not even with you so much as it is that this malformed move request probably could never have ended in a consensus since it failed to say what the proposer was actually proposing. (And because the proposer never said what he planned to do with the base names, the discussion about primary topic - like for Southwest Airlines v. other topics - never got to take place.) Red Slash 00:58, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Because of WP:Article Titles. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:51, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse. All is well. Compass directions should take the reader to content on compass directions. Someone typing "southwest" should be taken to the compass directions, not to the airline, because this is an encyclopedia, not an internet search engine optimized for the lowest skilled user. The hatnotes at the target section seem quite sufficient. If Red Slash is saying the format of the discussion was unclear, I agree. I do not agree that the close made the encyclopedia worse. The use of terms such as "base name" and "primary topic", RM-specialty terms opaque to the unencultured, pushes me to reject the nomination per NOTBUREAUCRACY, and congratulate the closer on distilling a sensible outcome. If the current situation is unclear, I urge Red Slash to propose a change, starting from this point, with better clarity than both the RM and this MR nomination. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:09, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes it did make the encyclopedia a little bit worse, because people who type in Southwest are in general not looking for boxing the compass. Nobody who commented at the requested move made the assertion that they are, and page view statistics also strongly suggest that they are not looking for that. Is that clear enough for you, SmokeyJoe? Red Slash 03:00, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- I think the close created order from disorder. I think that the consistency applied is good. Maybe I overvalue consistency. I think you overvalue page view statistics, US residents having considerably easier access and ability to click and load quickly, are overrepresented. Personally, I think optimising the encyclopedia navigation to serve company brand names is something to be avoided. Maybe there is merit in all directions being redirected (or becoming) the disambiguation pages. In any case, I think the way to move forward is to make a new proposal from the state of order than to overturn this decision and to go back to disorder. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:43, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: While I think disambiguation pages at all four would have been a better consistency, I'm not going to recommend overturning this move. If anything, it should be clarified that the move was not based on a strong consensus (with zero objective evidence of any sort) and as a result this move outcome should not prejudice future move discussions. In effect it was cleaning up a mess. older ≠ wiser 11:04, 9 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse - per WP:AT "Consistency" - would be inconsistent to have different compass points treated inconsistently. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:51, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Support compass directions redirecting to points on the compass, and also support consistency among the compass directions. Canuck89 (converse with me) 09:47, September 20, 2013 (UTC)
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