Talk:Cartel (concept)

Answer to the merger proposals of Feb 2020 „cartel (intergov. agreement)“ and „cartel (concept)“ or „cartel (intergov. agreement)“ and „cartel“: Hierarchical levels as criterion for article mergers, article divisions, or article renamings

I think, to jugde about merger proposals, we should develop a compass about what change leads to more clarity. For this, I would suggest a map of the hierarchic levels of the relevant lemmas. So, what among the existing article terms are general or – on the other hand - sub topics or even sub-sub-topics?

I try to develop such a scheme as follows: The top level is of course the „cartel“ as a general, comprehensive concept. For this we have „cartel (disambiguation) and „cartel (concept)“. Thus, these could, in principle and following linguistic logic, be merged. But under what title? – To choose „cartel (concept)“ would be an innovation for Wikipedia, nevertheless a concept explanation provides the disambiguation anyhow. To choose „cartel (disambiguation)“ would provide a more than short article limited to the switching function for other articles.

Having identified the general term like above, all specific cartels, such as „cartel (intergov. agreement)“, „state cartel“ and so on, are second level. Third level is for instance, the „cartel (ship)“, because subordinate to „cartel (intergov. agreement)“. In this perspective, the seemingly general article „cartel“ is wrongly named. It should better be called „cartel (economy)“, because it is limited to this sub area of real cartels, who regulate prices and output quantities. (However, this is the most important subject area of „cartel“). Thus, we have at least three articles of the second level: „cartel (intergov. agreement)“, „state cartel“ and „cartel (economy)“. Now the above reasonings can be applied to the proposals of article mergers:

• „cartel (intergov. agreement)“ and „cartel (concept)“: this would be the same as merging „vegetable“ with „beans“, while having other special vegetable separate
• „cartel (intergov. agreement)“ and „cartel“ [in the identified sense of economic]: this also would mean the merger of a general and a specific term

Nevertheless, to my opinion, one change should surely be done:

• Rename „cartel“ to „cartel (economy).

Two other changes should be discussed and, if positive, done:

• Could „cartel (ship) be integrated into „cartel (intergov. agreement) = a ship running to fullfil such an agreement. (This would be no violation of the rule of separating general and special subjects, because on the level of „cartel (ship)“ there is nothing similar, meaning: no second manifestation of the sub-sub-topic level. This material stands alone yet.)
• Can a disambiguation („cartel (dis …)“ be merged with an analytical article (on the same ground = „cartel (concept)“), which tells about the reasons of the different meanings?

L-scriptor (talk) 11:10, 1 March 2020 (UTC)