Talk:Lady of Spain

Requested Move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. I'm moving the current Lady of Spain to Lady of Spain (disambiguation), but it may be appropriate to delete or rename it. --BDD (talk) 04:03, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Lady of Spain (song) → Lady of Spain – The only other item on the disambiguation page is a redlink, so there's no need for disambiguation. Powers ^T 01:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

• Support - only notable item with this name, although there is a possibility of confusion with Spanish Lady and Spanish Ladies, but the can be dealt with by hatnotes. Green Giant (talk) 02:32, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
• Comment - I can understand why Spanish Lady (song) and Spanish Ladies (song) don't need "song", capital-L indicates a title. But with this lady of Spain could also mean what it says. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:48, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
  • If we had a women in Spain article, perhaps... but "Lady of Spain" is awkward as a generic reference to women in that country, as well as being a very well-known title. I don't see a problem. Powers ^T 12:51, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
    • Support - okay. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:34, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support, possible ambiguities can be covered by a hatnote. Tassedethe (talk) 04:24, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose—Could be anything to the reader-in-search. Vaguing this up would be a profound disservice. Tony (talk) 13:25, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. While it remains an article about a song there is no need to remove the word "song." It is not misleading, incorrect or otherwise. Contrary to common belief there is no policy or guideline that says it must be moved. --Richhoncho (talk) 18:21, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

--- Notification of Wikipedia talk:DAB 12:54, 1 May 2013 ---

• • WP:AT requests that article titles be concise and natural. The current title is neither; we only add parentheticals when necessary to disambiguate from some other topic. Powers ^T 12:57, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• Before quoting policy you should actually read what it says, WP:AT says in the first and second paragraphs:-

1. The title indicates what the article is about and distinguishes it from other articles. Lady of Spain (song) meets that criteria.
2. The title may simply be the name (or a name) of the subject of the article, or it may be a description of the topic. Again, Lady of Spain (song) meets the criteria.

The other two guidelines that we see trotted out are:-

1. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC merely says what should happen if there are two topics with the same title. It does NOT prescribe what should happen when there is only one subject.
2. WP:PRECISE mentions Mother Teresa, but not what should happen to songs, which, at best, are only a fraction notable of MT.

Having seen this we need to ask ourselves what is actually wrong with the title Lady of Spain (song). Is it misleading? No. Is it incorrect? No. Are there any pressing or necessary reasons for renaming? No. Will retaining the word "song" in the title namespace help readers and editors of WP? Yes. So, over all there really is no reason to move the article.

Now we have the final question, come on guys, answer it honestly, why are we actually bothering to nominate this kind of move? It actually serves no purpose whatsoever, and as I have shown above is not backed by policy or guideline.

I note that similar pointless RMs have failed recently, please check out Talk:Your Body (Christina Aguilera song), Talk:Pompeii (Bastille song) and Talk:Never Be the Same Again (Melanie C song). In each case because the words in parenthesis were not misleading or incorrect. Much the same as this RM. Cheers.--Richhoncho (talk) 19:30, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Crikey, instead of quoting the general introduction (which is very generic for a reason -- to avoid bogging down the intro in details), look instead to the section of the policy that explicitly addresses the issue of Deciding on an article title? Article titles are based on how reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject. -- does any reliable source use "(song)" in the title? None have been provided. For each of the five criteria, "Lady of Spain" is preferable to "Lady of Spain (song)".

As for the list of WP:OTHERSTUFF that that are supposedly similar -- these are all apples to oranges comparisons. In each case, the pages were not moved because there were other songs with the same title. That is not the case here. At present, there are no other articles with this title. older ≠ wiser 19:55, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. as bad idea. Right now the title follows a convention whereby the majority songs (the rule rather than the exception) are dabbed. It isn't ambiguous. The reader will know exactly what it is when searching or even googling. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:58, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
  • It's not ambiguous now. Since when do we pre-emptively disambiguate? Powers ^T 12:52, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• There is no such "convention": have a look at Category:Pop standards, one of the cats this song is in, and there's no "majority" which are dabbed. PamD 17:20, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• Support Per nom and comments by Green Giant & Tassedethe. I would also point out that the song would likely be considered the primary topic for this term in any case, and so should be at the plain (undisambiguated) title anyway.--ShelfSkewed Talk 13:08, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support per nom and per WP:AT, which embodies the KISS principle. Article titles should be as simple as possible, except where needed to avoid ambiguity; here, there is no other article that could conceivably be titled "Lady of Spain" (at least, none of the opposers have identified a single one). --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:30, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Err, at least one other prospective article is listed at the disambiguation page - since 2006. Now, that might be indicative both ways: it could mean that there's been no real opposition to the prospect of Ethel Smith's album getting an article, and it could mean that the potential for it is low given that so much time has passed without anyone creating one. But, on a more general note, I think it needs to be said that we shouldn't decide these things without doing some basic investigation into what may be missing from Wikipedia, esp. because we have search engines that are free and trivial to use. The onus is primarily on the nominator (and the supporters) to present a positive case for making the change. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 22:46, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• Support, there is no other ambiguously titled article and there is no naming convention that indicates the current title should be used instead of the simpler title. older ≠ wiser 13:32, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support: no need for disambiguation, so should not be disambiguated. PamD 17:20, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Both the current and proposed titles are reasonable. That's the problem. With multiple reasonable titles, how do we decide which to use? Luckily, we have a a policy to guide us in situations like this, with specific criteria designed to help us out. The proposed title is clearly more natural and concise than the current title. Neither is more recognizable (to anyone familiar with the topic) nor precise. The proposed titles is also favored by consistency, since other songs with ambiguous sounding names, but without actual conflicts on WP, are not disambiguated with (song). --B2C 22:22, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
• In principle I don't believe there's anything wrong with disambiguating a common title when the list contains one blue specific entry and one or more red specific entries (but which satisfy WP:DABRL). Certainly this disambiguation page proves that - it's been sitting there since August 2006 like that. Now, whether that blue entry is the primary topic, in this case the song, someone please do the necessary investigation, e.g. analyze https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Lady+of+Spain%22&tbm=bks&tbo=1&pws=0 I've gone through the first three pages and it looks like it might be, but I won't immediately put my finger on that because there's many repetitive Billboard entries that might be disproportionately represented. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 22:33, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
  • WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is a section of WP:D, which is for resolving conflicts when [a given term] refers to more than one topic covered by Wikipedia articles" (from the first sentence of WP:D). The only topic covered by Wikipedia articles to which "Lady of Spain" refers is the topic of this article, so WP:D, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and Google results are all irrelevant here. --B2C 23:11, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Uh, no, the other topic was indeed covered by a Wikipedia article, which is why it qualified for disambiguation under WP:DABRL. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:04, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Support. As discussed above, the parenthetical qualifier is unneeded. The song is the primary topic, so the newly created Lady of Spain (album) article should simply be linked via a hatnote. —David Levy 23:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support: Sources don't call it "Lady of Spain (song)", and readers aren't going to be looking for "Lady of Spain (song)". bobrayner (talk) 09:32, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
• Support, with sources for Joy. I did a 21st-century search in Google Books for "lady of spain", and found the following results in the first 50 returns:
  • Song - 32
  • Crossword puzzle clue - 6
  • Generic usage (i.e., "a lady of Spain") - 5
  • An author known as "Lady of Spain" - 2
  • Limerick usage ("There once was a lady...") - 2
  • Misc/false positive - 3

My analysis? In current, reliable sources, about two-thirds of the usage is for the song. The album doesn't appear at all. Even combining all the others under the umbrella of generic usage, it seems clear that under any rubric, the song is more likely to be sought by our readers than any other usage. Dohn joe (talk) 22:06, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

• Response. My opposition to moving has nothing whatsoever with "primary topic" - whether this song is or not primary topic is totally irrelevant to the argument. The argument against moving is far more mundane, why does it have to be moved? What is misleading about where it is? We are unlikely to remove "(song)" from every song article, so why is it so important to remove it this time? There has to be a reason to move an article, a guideline is not a reason. User:Bkonrad missed this basic premise that I, and probably other opposers, are using for our opposition. It's simple - "why bother?" Cheers. --Richhoncho (talk) 07:27, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Is that the philosophy with which you approach Wikipedia editing in general — that we shouldn't bother to change things unless they're bad? And you feel so strongly about this that you actively oppose others' efforts on the basis that they shouldn't be allowed to bother?
  I don't even know how to respond to your argument that "a guideline is not a reason" (i.e. that consensus regarding best practices should be disregarded), though I suppose that it's an improvement over your previous claim that no such guideline exists. —David Levy 09:24, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• You are twisting what I said to suit your own argument, so I will rephrase my question for you, What improvement is there by moving? The discussion is not about good or bad editing. Nor did I deny the existence of any guidelines. Also, please see WP:CCC, --Richhoncho (talk) 10:14, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

You are twisting what I said to suit your own argument,

How so? You appear to assert that the article's current title is fine, so there's no need to bother changing it (even if others believe that another title is better). If that isn't your position, just say so (and explain what is).

so I will rephrase my question for you, What improvement is there by moving?

You noted that "whether this song is or not primary topic is totally irrelevant to" your argument, but it's quite relevant to others' arguments.

Readers will be taken directly to the article that they probably seek (instead of being forced to navigate through a counterproductive disambiguation page).

This is superior to the hypothetical option of redirecting Lady of Spain to Lady of Spain (song), thereby conveying to readers that preemptively redirecting "Foo" to "Foo (disambiguation term)" is a standard practice and encouraging further superfluous parenthetical disambiguation (including moves carried out for this purpose).

The discussion is not about good or bad editing.

Others advocate a move on the basis that "Lady of Spain" would be a better title. You oppose said move, apparently on the basis that "Lady of Spain (song)" isn't a bad title, so it's pointless to bother changing it. (Again, if that isn't what you meant, please explain the disparity.)

Nor did I deny the existence of any guidelines.

You wrote: "Contrary to common belief there is no policy or guideline that says it must be moved."

Also, please see WP:CCC

I'm well aware that consensus can change. Do you assert that the consensus behind our current naming conventions has changed? If so, that's an argument for modifying them, not one that a guideline is not a reason to move an article. —David Levy 12:11, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Rather that reply to all of your comments, I will merely re-quote your re-quote of mine, adding, for emphasis, a little bold, "Contrary to common belief there is no policy or guideline that says it must be moved." Correct me if I am wrong. How you managed to turn that into a denial of guidelines is totally beyond me. --Richhoncho (talk) 12:26, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• So why bother having naming conventions if they are to be ignored? There is no naming convention under which this article should be titled in the way it is. older ≠ wiser 12:31, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• I have no problem with naming conventions, it's the misquoting of them I object to. --Richhoncho (talk) 13:06, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• I disagree that those supporting the proposed move have misquoted our guidelines. —David Levy 13:31, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• I don't claim that you've denied the existence of guidelines in general. But if we were to disregard any guideline not explicitly indicating that something literally must be done a certain way, the effect would be essentially the same. —David Levy 13:31, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

One of the axioms of Wikipedia disambiguation is that we don't do it by default. IOW we don't name articles "John ABC Smith (person)" if there's nothing else of encyclopedic importance named "John ABC Smith". Your argument against that would be more suitable in a more generic forum, not in this specific case. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:10, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Response to David Levy, Above you wrote (about me), ...though I suppose that it's an improvement over your previous claim that no such guideline exists. As you are patently unable to read what others have written or understand and believe what you have written yourself, there seems little point in continuing this conversation. --Richhoncho (talk) 14:17, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, I referred to your assertion that a particular guideline doesn't exist. I didn't state that you denied the existence of all guidelines.
But again, if we were to dismiss any guideline that doesn't mandate the practices described therein (and deem said guideline an invalid basis for change), the effect would be tantamount to having no guidelines at all. —David Levy 14:33, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

"Contrary to common belief there is no policy or guideline that says it must be moved."

This statement has caused quite a stir. Taken literally, of course it's true. That is, there is no policy or guideline that says this particular article must be moved. But that's because there is no policy or guideline that address this or any other specific article. Policy and guidelines are stated in general terms, not addressing any specific articles, except for the occasional illustrative example, perhaps. Taken literally, the statement says nothing meaningful.

What can it mean if not taken literally? That no policy or guideline exists that indicates this title, and others like it, should be moved. Is that true? Well, near the top, WP:AT states that "editors choose the best title by consensus based on the considerations that this page explains". That suggests that if consensus is that the considerations explained on WP:AT indicate the best title for this article is something other than the current title, it should be moved. So that's what we're trying to figure out here. So, again, the statement in question seems meaningless. If nothing else, it's putting the cart before the horse. The statement is essentially declaring that the considerations explained on WP:AT suggest the current title is the best title. But this declaration is not explained. --B2C 21:00, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Probably we should also have a guideline to not spend so much talk-page ink on debunking obvious nonsense. Just ignore it instead; nobody is going to be swayed by it. Dicklyon (talk) 21:25, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose – this is the usual tension about PRIMARYTOPIC claims: whether removing some precision from a title makes it better or worse, when the resulting title would be somewhat ambiguous. Comments in opposition that I agree with include "this lady of Spain could also mean what it says" and "Vaguing this up would be a profound disservice" and "the title follows a convention whereby the majority songs (the rule rather than the exception) are dabbed". And while Richhoncho's "there is no policy or guideline that says it must be moved" is meaningless, I sympathize with the underlying feeling of "it it ain't broke, don't fix it." In particular, the title criterion on "precision" suggests that it's better to have a title with enough precision to unambiguously point out the topic. The disambiguation page currently occupying the proposed title presents the clear evidence of ambiguity. So then it devolves to the primarytopic argument, where people who routinely push for minimalist titles (read B2C) treat precision as best avoided if you can get away with it, and people count Google hits to justify allowing ambiguity in titles. It's not a good scheme, but until we can turn back the clock on some of B2Cs changes to titling guidelines, it's the mess we're stuck with. Dicklyon (talk) 21:41, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Any changes I ever made to the guidelines, especially if they stuck, simply reflected community consensus opinion, such as the one about unnecessary precision being "pointless at best, and misleading at worst", expressed just below by Bretonbanquet.

    If you believe any changes made to any policies or guidelines by me or anyone do not reflect consensus, please propose addressing them accordingly. But please also pay heed when your opinion is contrary to consensus. --B2C 23:13, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Support – no disambiguation required, and I fail to see the logic in having applied the disambiguator in the first place. The dab page shows that there is no other article with this title; the Lady of Spain album is not notable, and named after the song anyway. There are no doubt other songs called "Lady of Spain", but that isn't a reason to further disambiguate this to "Lady of Spain (Eddie Fisher song)". Sure, if it ain't broke, don't fix it – but to my eyes, it's broke. Having a disambiguator on this article suggests that there is at least one other article with this title, and there isn't. Pointless at best, misleading at worst. Bretonbanquet (talk) 22:29, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• "Lady of Spain (Eddie Fisher song)". would fail WP:NSONGS, but that's another issue. ;). Cheers. --Richhoncho (talk) 23:28, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Support. There are only two items on the DAB are actually titled "Lady of Spain," so WP:TWODABS applies. Not only that, but Lady of Spain (album) is a redirect. Kauffner (talk) 13:50, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.