Talk:Toil

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Move discussion in progress[edit]

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Toil which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 13:45, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 15 March 2016[edit]

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: pages moved, there is no consensus primary topic. It's sad to see such polarization over something that shouldn't be worth fighting that hard over.

  • There are two pillars upholding the WP:Primary topic guideline. Most editors focus their arguments on the more quantifiable current usage pillar, while neglecting the more subjective long-term significance pillar. How significant will this four year old album be thirty years from now?
  • It was really sad to see such a nice effort as In ictu oculi's article on the concept get deleted. I will be happy to userfy that for you, if you would like to merge it into the article on manual labour. Those who disparaged this as a WP:COATRACK shouldn't have any objection to that, as presumably they felt that your article on the nominal subject of "toil" was really focusing on the other subject of manual labor. Though arguably when I toil away all day on Wikipedia I am not performing manual labor (my bots think otherwise;).
  • Suggestion for In ictu oculi. In the future, when you create other broad concept articles about everyday-word concepts, start them at a disambiguated title, as you did with toil (concept), and let them sit there for about six months to build up a page view history. That will minimize the perceptions about your agenda, and perhaps the risk of someone filing a deletion request. Then, if the page views are in your favor, these move requests will be easier. And if not, you still may have the long-term significance pillar to fall back on.
  • Now my advice for those on the other side. In my view, the case is harder to make for these single-everyday-common-word titles, as Wikipedia article titles don't distinguish proper names from those that aren't. Better to concentrate on titles that are two words or more long. The case for this album isn't that strong anyway (even if it was longer than a single word) – only (12 views/day). Compare with Brand New (band). 850 views/day, and still it's parenthetically disambiguated. That could displace the dab at Brand New (100 views/day) without upsetting the status of Brand-new (brand new), which only gets a baker's dozen views/day (actually four dozen when you add in the redirect from the non-hyphenated lowercase title). wbm1058 (talk) 18:56, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]


– "the album and its single failed to chart" Wikipedia:Disambiguation: this 2012 album is not "more likely than all the other topics combined — to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term", see Google Books search "toil is". Note that if there were any media subject which passed both parts of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (there isn't), it would be "Toil" by "Shlonsky", with over 400 Gbook hits. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:52, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support per nom. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 07:45, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. We had this conversation less than five months ago, and the consensus was not to move. In the meantime, we have a new article on Toil (concept), and a brand-new article on the Shlonsky poem. And the album article is still getting two thirds of the pageviews for "Toil" topics. And while that number is boosted somewhat by the basename bias, only 1 person per day is using the disambiguation page. If people are looking for the dictionary definition, we can direct them there from the album article as well as from the dab page. Also - if the Shlonsky poem develops decent usage, we can revisit in a few months, but for now, no need to direct readers unnecessarily to a dab page. Dohn joe (talk) 12:47, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose this is classic asking the other parent from when In ictu oculi was told no a few months ago --In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 13:42, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Guerillero: in those six months, this album article you created is still getting 3x the other 2 albums by the same band. Why? Why would there be more fans for this album than the one by the same band which charted?? In ictu oculi (talk) 17:51, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose largely per my comments in the previous RM here. This is clearly the primary topic among the very few articles we have titled "Toil". It receives 74% of the page views of all other articles called "Toil" combined.[1] The fact is, we have very few other articles that are actually ambiguous (and most that exist, were created recently to justify moving the album):
The album isn't terribly well known but it's much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined to be sought by readers. If Toil (concept) is deleted and when Toil (Tolstoy book) is moved, the gap will only increase.--Cúchullain t/c 15:10, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per In Actu, Dohn joe and Cuchullain. Calidum ¤ 00:11, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support multiple topics, and this album/song didn't chart, per the nom; per the usage stats, that isn't the primary topic, as it isn't an order of magnitude more likely, and by being the base title, already gains a pageview default hitrate ; We probably do have a primary topic, and it is Manual labour so the album should be renamed in all cases, and perhaps redirect the base term to Manual labour if the dab page is not moved. -- 70.51.46.39 (talk) 05:15, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. This has been discussed to death. The album is still the primary topic. sst✈ 12:12, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comment we have here again the culture-clash between an encyclopedia of named products called X---, capital X, and ideas/things/concepts x---, such as toil small "t". Why is it so inconceivable that out there in the world's population no one would search for a common word like toil, small "t". Why by "toil" must they be looking for a non-charting Celtic punk album? What is the evidence for that? In ictu oculi (talk) 17:34, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  1. here is a comparison of the three Celtic punk albums by this band, Black Thorn (album), Jungle of the Midwest Sea and Toil ... Why does Toil get such high hits related to the other two albums? The only one which charted was Black Thorn (album), so why is Toil (album) getting 3x the hits of the album that charted? In ictu oculi (talk) 17:41, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  2. And here's the other search: Manual labour getting 304/day, paradox of toil getting 18/day, toil (small t) getting 10/day..... that compares to the charting album Black Thorn (album) getting 3/day. If "toil" in the economic sense is so obscure, why does a subset paradox of toil get 6x the results of the charting Celtic punk album?
  3. Again 2,974x en.wp articles have the word "toil" -Flatfoot 56, only 10x en.wp articles have "Toil" + Flatfoot 56. What does that tell us about what "toil" means on en.wp? In ictu oculi (talk) 17:59, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is still looking at things the wrong way. Words get used in sentences - that's how language works. It doesn't mean a word is a topic on WP:
    As for why the album gets more views than the other albums by the same band - part of that is explained by the basename bias I referred to earlier. But it's actually not that dramatic a difference - a few people a day - and, more importantly, we already are helping the people who want the dictionary definition by giving them a link to Wiktionary. There's not much else we can do for them. Dohn joe (talk) 18:30, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What we could do for them is not make their mobile phones whirr and chug to download a massive article on a non-charting album rather than giving them a dab page. That's the point of this RM. Bear in mind that until this article was inserted readers used to be able to find the other content. But you already know that - that's the point of those redlinks Undoubtedly Quite Hopefulness Earnestness. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:40, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's hard to image many readers are coming to "paradox of toil" or even manual labor by typing in or clicking on toil. They're definitely not getting there through the dab page, which only had 118 hits in 90 days.--Cúchullain t/c 20:30, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
How then do you explain that toil is getting so many more than the other albums by the same band? In ictu oculi (talk) 21:15, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Some of them probably want the dictionary meaning of "toil", and follow the link to Wiktionary. That still leaves this album as the primary encyclopedic topic called "toil". Dohn joe (talk) 21:37, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As i told you over at the discussion at Misfortune (disambiguation), that is not how primary topic works. In order to have primary topic status, the topic has to be the most likely to be searched more than all the other topics COMBINED.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  23:24, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Um, which it is, as said above by me and others.... Dohn joe (talk) 13:34, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Support - There seems to be a consistent bias of late toward opposing any move making a term into the dab page when there isn't a primary topic. There is no WP:PRIMARYTOPIC here, therefore "Toil" should be the dab page. the guidelines are very clear on this. In ictu oculi has provided strong evidence that the current occupant topic at Toil does not meet WP:PRIMARYTOPIC requirements. Moreover, page view statistics supporting "primary topic" status are a chicken and egg situation, because having the base name term results in more views due to search error.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  23:19, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. I see one piece of evidence presented above, and it's the evidence you're choosing to ignore (the page view statistics showing the album to be the primary topic by any reasonable measure). Everything stated in opposition to the move is conjecture. Calidum ¤ 23:32, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Calidum: perhaps, but there is an even better reason not to trust the page view statistics, they cannot give us any information about the poem, as the article is very new. As a result, we should trust other search methods such as the Gbooks search provided by the OP, which would indicate that the poem is at least more of a primary topic than the album (Per both usage as well as long term encyclopaedic importance).  InsertCleverPhraseHere  05:53, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Or perhaps this RM should have waited until we could get a better picture of what editors are really looking for. This is one of the problems with creating articles to justify moving pages around.--Cúchullain t/c 13:55, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relist please, to get a broader editor base. No offence to pop music editors intended. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:45, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

--Relisted.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  09:55, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Lol. In ictu - you realize you are a "pop music editor", and that most of the participants here are not, correct? Dohn joe (talk) 14:20, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't need to be relisted now. It's only been open for 3 days, it hasn't hit the backlog yet. And if things keep going how they are at RM, it's likely to be backlogged for a considerable time even without being formally relisted, so there's little risk of too-small participation.--Cúchullain t/c 14:26, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • About the reason why Toil is viewed more than other albums by Flatfoot 56: it's their newest album, so not unexpectedly it gets more views. sst✈ 09:29, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
sst✈ that is unlikely, since it isn't that new:
Jungle of the Midwest Sea = 2007 Dove Award.
Black Thorn (album) = 2010 charted, best selling album.
Toil = 2012 failed to chart, single failed to chart, band not produced another album since.
The reason it is getting 3x the hits of the other two in 2016 is much more likely to be because of us having been inserted over a common term baseline. In ictu oculi (talk) 19:04, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. The other users here seem to be arguing that we should keep this at the Toil title because we don't have any better articles to send them to. However, it isn't Wikipedias job to promote someones album when people are not really searching for it just because someone wrote a good article for it. I suggest moving the article as suggested, and then waiting to see if the usage calms down, if it doesn't, then we will know that the hits were genuine and we can revert the move, if the dab starts picking up more hits, then we will know that it was because of the title.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  20:21, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
people are not really searching for it[citation needed] it isn't Wikipedias job to promote someones album ... just because someone wrote a good article for it. Nobody ever claimed that having the primary topic at the base name is for promoting recognized content. sst✈ 14:02, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The page view statistics in theses types of cases are always at least somewhat biased toward the status quo. We don't know how much they are biased but this point by sst✈ is also a good one. However, it doesn't support making the album the primary topic, rather, it suggests that the album won't have any long term significance, something generally required for something to be a primary topic. Otherwise we will just be revisiting this in a few months.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  09:41, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You are absolutely correct about the basename bias - I referred to it earlier. As for revisiting this in a few months (or a few years), that's certainly a possibility - as it is with any article. But that's a WP:CRYSTAL ball-type argument. It is just as likely that there will never be a topic called "Toil" that would exceed anything here by usage or significance. The wonderful thing about WP is nothing is fixed - we can come right back here in a few months or years, and respond to new circumstances. Dohn joe (talk) 14:20, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I originally typed out a longer argument, but Dohn joe summed it up better than I did. sst✈ 14:21, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well Dohn joe summed it up better than I could too: "is just as likely that there will never be a topic called "Toil" that would exceed anything here by usage or significance." - exactly. This is exactly the point of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. In ictu oculi (talk) 19:10, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom. The evidence above suggests that the album is perhaps currently marginally more visited than the other subjects and that isn't sufficient justification for 'Primary'. Pincrete (talk) 23:18, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Toil (concept) was deleted at AfD, and the misnamed Russian work has been moved to The Triumph of the Farmer or Industry and Parasitism. The only remaining ambiguous article is Toil (Shlonsky poem); the rest of the dab entries consist of a poem, an album and two songs with no articles, and the WP:PTM paradox of toil.--Cúchullain t/c 20:27, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • The album is still not the primary topic. that being manual labor and not the album -- 70.51.46.39 (talk) 05:26, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • Indeed, just because we don't have a topic called "toil" doesn't mean that the majority use of "toil" is not manual labor. If anything there should be two choices here; toil as a dab page or toil as a redirect to Manual labor. Note that even if the wikipedia article is known as The Triumph of the Farmer or Industry and Parasitism, this work is still consistently referred to as "Toil" in published literature due to it being the original title of the english translation. Even the poem has more of a claim to the primary topic than the album (per In ictu oculi's original post). "Toil" as an obscure non-charting album makes about as much sense as picking up a turd from the clean end.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  05:42, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The Triumph of the Farmer or Industry and Parasitism is rarely if ever called "Toil" in any source. The heavily abbreviated version that called it "Toil" is obscure to the point that I've had trouble finding sources that even refer to it. Naming the article "Toil" and attributing it to Tolstoy were errors on In ictu oculi's part. If anything, the other translation of 1890 by Mary Cruger, "Labor, the Divine Command", is better known, but both are from the highly truncated 1888 version of the text rather than the full 1906 version and aren't good titles.
But anyway, the goal here is to get readers to articles they want. Primary topics are decided among subjects we actually cover, and even if none of the options are particularly well known, the album still looks to be the most common by all accounting. I have a hard time imagining any large number of readers actually looking for manual labour by typing in or clicking on the term Toil. And certainly no one will be looking for the Bondarev book under the title "Toil" except for folks confused by previous erroneous title here on Wikipedia. More likely they're looking for topics that are actually called "toil", or else things we don't cover, such as the dictionary definition. For those readers, there's a link to Wiktionary and to the dab page. Sending all readers to the dab page just ensures that no one ends up at the article they're looking for.--Cúchullain t/c 13:55, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I call on the person closing this RM to make the obvious move. This is not a vote, and strength of argument, when it is so strong must take precedence. Sorry, but I can't accept any argument that envisions that more than <1% of persons typing the term "Toil" into the search box want, expect, or would not be confused and annoyed to be taken to some page about a long-forgotten sub-notable work by some D-list local punk band. "the album article is still getting two thirds of the pageviews for 'Toil' topics" because people are being taken to page wrongly and against their will and desire, of course. They are looking for something important and are instead being taken to a page of nonsense. Why would you want this very sub-optimal condition to remain. The concept of labor (also often called "toil", a synonym) is a very very very (insert as many verys as you can stand) important concept in economics, society, politics, history, art, and so forth; an unlistened-to cacaphony by some idiots in Chicago isn't. Jeebus. I can't believe this is even a question. Just make the obvious move. Herostratus (talk) 05:16, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Generic term should not be occupied by a rather insignificant album. I agree that it is likely the pageviews are inflated because of this undisambiguated title. Nohomersryan (talk) 18:44, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. In no possible world is this insignificant album the primary topic. The primary topic is actually the normal meaning in the English language, but as that's obviously not suitable for an article it should point to the disambiguation page. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:49, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – I have to agree that the present primarytopic is ridiculous, no matter what the viewcounts say. And what happened to Toil (concept)? Is there no article related to the generic concept of toiling? Dicklyon (talk) 05:03, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • No, because the concept of toiling fails notability guidelines. SSTflyer 08:46, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • Realistically the generic concept of toiling is just a synonym for Manual labor, which we definitely have an article for and definitely passes notability guidelines.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  08:50, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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