Talk:35 mm movie film/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Requested move 28 April 2019

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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. There is a consensus for a move. (closed by non-admin page mover) qedk (t 桜 c) 06:21, 8 May 2019 (UTC)

---

• 35mm movie film → 35 mm movie film
• 35mm → 35 mm

– Based on a brief discussion (above) not mentioning our own guidance at MOS:UNITSYMBOLS, spaces were removed from these titles, making them inconsistent with the rest of wikipedia and the advise of standards organization. So let's undo that mistake. The only other place that WP squeezes out the space is in the names of lenses, and it's OK there because those are names as used by their manufacturers. In the case of 35 mm movie film and the other 35 mm topics, it's a measurement, not a name. Dicklyon (talk) 19:28, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. WP:COMMONNAME is policy, and supersedes both ISO/MOS guidance on how to format units and "a foolish consistency". We're not here to correct mistaken names that are in common usage; see WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:14, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

  The difference between the current and correct titles is a styling issue, not a different name. COMMONNAME is not applicable to that decision. And there's no absolute wrong here, just a deviation from following our own consensus style (which is a style that follows the recommendations of standards organizations, by the way). The unspaced version is not a "great wrong", just a wrong style for WP, arrived by a small discussion where opinions were expressed without acknowledging tht we already have a consensus style answer. In that sense, the move was wrong, but that's not so great either; just something we need to fix. Dicklyon (talk) 01:34, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Usually 35 mm film doesn't even say 35 mm on it anywhere, since its size designation is 135, but sometimes it has the image format size, like the 24 x 36 mm here. Not sure about how movie film is packaged or labeled. Dicklyon (talk) 04:18, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

• Support—Ngram example showing sizeable drop in squashed version as opposed to the ISO version. Large proportion is quite sufficient justification for keeping WP consistent with ISO. Tony (talk) 23:54, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support per MOS:NUM and WP:CONSISTENCY policy. Given that source usage is mixed, and the sloppy, run-together style is primarily news style, used by people who wouldn't know a standard from ISO or SI if it bit them in the buttocks, and that WP is not written in news style as a matter of policy, and that we have an entire guideline saying not to do this, and that there is no objective, reader-facing improvement made to the article (i.e., WP:IAR) in running the unit and measurement together in this case (which is not special in any way), this is an obvious move-back. This actually could have been done at WP:RM/TR as an effectively undiscussed move (the thread above exists but takes no account of our own guidelines or other factors, so is not a valid consensus discussion, but WP:NOT#FORUM noise, basically).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:36, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support per SMcCandlish and Dicklyon. —BarrelProof (talk) 03:04, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support: It's a width of film. It's also a set phrase and where space is limited, like on a film box, I'm sure it's shortened. But it is better for this article title to be in sync with all the other Wikipedia articles and follow our MoS than to stand out as an exception.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  03:23, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
  • The n-grams have been instructive. They show that the unspaced version is about twice as common as what we are proposing. That tells me that it is not overwhelming enough to override our standards of formatting and we should move to 35 mm so that it matches other measurements on Wikipedia. SchreiberBike | ⌨  17:00, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - Clear evidence that the shortened version is the WP:COMMONNAME - see Google Ngrams comparisons for movies, film, and cameras. WP:TITLE policy trumps any MOS guideline because WP:Verifiability is far more important. We cannot name a topic something which does not match a preponderance of sources. -- Netoholic @ 04:45, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support. It is just a style. I’ve looked at a lot of references and primary source images, and both “35mm” and “35 mm” get used, but never with any meaningful dinarinction bewteen the two. Google Ngrams are always fun to look at, but as the results are not overwhelming, and as Ngrams are not realisable sources, they should be discounted from the decision making in favour of the observation that the difference is nothing but style. As it is nothing but style, and both are used, follow the style guide. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:46, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. As Google Ngram shows, "35mm" is more than twice as common as "35 mm", so following WP:COMMONNAME would indicate that we should use "35mm" without the space. Qono (talk) 14:01, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support, a close call but site consistency would support the spacing. Common name does apply (and yes, styling of a name does translate into Common name) and supports the present title by a little (the 2008 ngrams, the last year ngrams can be found, seem to be closing with the space-mm gaining in usage). The way to assure non-spacing would be to RM all of the mm names at once, which I don't think would pass but worth a try if it can be backed with evidence. But as of now this one example does stand out. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:03, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
• Support. There is no overwhelming reason why we should not follow WP's style guide (WP:UNITS). Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 18:28, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

  Move discussions are based on arguments related to Wikipedia:Article titles policy, specifically WP:CRITERIA/WP:COMMONNAME. WP:UNITS is a style guide which covers article prose, not titles. Per WP:PGCONFLICT, policy trumps guidelines. -- Netoholic @ 11:06, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

  I agree. WP:TITLE is policy and is specific to titles, so it should prevail over WP:UNITS, which is a guideline, per WP:PGCONFLICT. WP:COMMONNAME, a section of the WP:TITLE policy, states "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's 'official' name as an article title; it generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources)." As Google Ngram clearly shows, "35mm" is used more commonly, and so it should be used in Wikipedia's titles. The shortened "35mm" is so common that a Google search for "35 mm" prompts "Did you mean: 35mm". Furthermore, "35mm" is the form preferred by the Getty Vocabularies's Art and Architecture Thesaurus, the authority for nomenclature for libraries and museums. They recommend this form both when referring to the film size and cameras. Qono (talk) 14:45, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

• Support - WP:COMMONNAME doesn't get much weight when we're talking about a small gramatical detail. MOS:UNITSYMBOLS should prevail here. No reader is going to misunderstand what this article is about based on whether or not there is a space. ~Kvng (talk) 12:58, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support. This is a style issue and Wikipedia is entitled to set its own style guidelines (as it does at MOS:UNITSYMBOLS) regardless of whatever else is done out in the world. Omission of the space between value and unit is a style widely found out in the wild and is applied to numerous things other than 35 mm film. Personally, I think the space is a nuisance because it requires use of nbsp or nowrap to stop the two elements becoming separated. Nevertheless, we should be consistent in applying our styles and Wikipedia is not being outrageously different in this. I don't know of any style guide that says don't put in the space.

COMMONNAME is not a valid argument here. If it were, other styling issues would fall under it. For instance, sub-headings are capitalised in many works, but they are not in our style guide. Many works columnate their text, but that is not our style. In short, typographical styling should not be considered to be an essential part of a name for the purposes of determining COMMONNAME. SpinningSpark 13:39, 6 May 2019 (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.