Talk:Decision-making/Archives/2017

Decision making should not have a hyphen in the title

No one ever writes "decision-making" in American. We should change the title to "decision making", like normal. "Making" is not a suffix, it is a separate, distinct word. Ace Frahm (talk) 11:41, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

This article used to be Decision making (unhyphenated) but it was moved to Decision-making (hyphenated) by User:Prof. Squirrel at 21:02, 31 October 2013 ‎(UTC). I tend to think of the hyphenated form of "decision-making" as a phrasal adjective, however my New Oxford American Dictionary lists the hyphenated form of "decision-making" as a noun, and has no entry for the unhyphenated form. Therefore the hyphenated form seems correct, although I can see why User:Ace Frahm finds it to be counterintuitive, as the unhyphenated form is widely used (as can be seen in a search on Google Books, for example). Biogeographist (talk) 16:34, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

The Encyclopaedia Britannica has it under "decision making". I think it should be moved on the basis that "decision-making" looks wrong to some people, so the more intuitive and widely accepted version is better. John V John (talk) 11:56, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 28 July 2017

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: no consensus DrStrauss talk 17:42, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

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Decision-making → Decision making – "Decision-making" looks like a mistake to some people (see above), and "Decision making" seems to have a majority on Google Scholar John V John (talk) 12:01, 28 July 2017 (UTC) --Relisting. No such user (talk) 14:27, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose: That it "looks like a mistake to some people" is insufficient rationale for renaming the article, and Google Scholar searches do not distinguish between "decision-making" and "decision making" so I don't see how Google Scholar is relevant. As I noted above in my comment above from 14 September 2016, my New Oxford American Dictionary lists the hyphenated form of "decision-making" as a noun, and has no entry for the unhyphenated form. As can be seen at Special:WhatLinksHere/Decision-making, within Wikipedia mainspace, currently 395 articles link to the unhyphenated form and 427 articles link to the hyphenated form, so there is no clear preference for the unhyphenated form; in fact, the majority of articles link to the hyphenated form. My opposition does not imply that I personally prefer the hyphenated form, only that insufficient rationale has been presented for the requested move. Biogeographist (talk) 14:38, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

@Biogeographist: Regarding Google Scholar, I just counted occurrences of "decision-making" not "decision making" in a search for that term, and came up with about 15 of the first 50. John V John (talk) 16:14, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Does that include uses as an adjective? —BarrelProof (talk) 17:41, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

I have just struck my opposing vote, based on the additional evidence provided. See my comment below. Biogeographist (talk) 17:57, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Good point about adjectival uses, I make it 12 out of 43 with the hyphen, discounting those. John V John (talk) 18:03, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

• Support: Per WP:NOUN. Hyphenation is ordinarily used to create compound modifiers, not compound gerunds (see MOS:HYPHEN). The current form appears to be an adjective (e.g., part of the phrase "decision-making process"). —BarrelProof (talk) 00:12, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

@BarrelProof: I don't see anything in WP:NOUN and MOS:HYPHEN that would justify renaming the article. In fact, MOS:HYPHEN says: "Consult a good dictionary", and as I noted above, the New Oxford American Dictionary lists the hyphenated form of "decision-making" as a noun and has no entry for the unhyphenated form. Biogeographist (talk) 01:30, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

To explain my comment, the reason I cited MOS:HYPHEN is to show that it says that hyphenation is typically done to create a compound modifier (rather than a compound noun), and the reason I cited WP:NOUN was to assert that since the hyphenated term appears to be a modifier rather than a noun, the article should be renamed with a form that is (at least more clearly) indicating usage as a noun. I do not dispute that knowledgeable people sometimes use hyphenation to form compound nouns, although that seems to be a practice that is generally avoided.

I note that the above comment about the number of Wikipedia articles that link to the hyphenated-vs.-unhyphenated form fails to distinguish between when the link is from an adjective usage and when it is from a noun usage (and when it is from a mere listing of related articles). Checking the first few such links, I find that many of the hyphenated links are due to the title being linked in Template:Systems engineering, Template:Management, and "See also" sections, rather than reflecting actual usage in running text. In such uses, the link may just indicate inertia from the form of the current title. Where the hyphenated link appears in running text, I see that the links in Benjamin Franklin, Alcohol intoxication, and Higher education are from adjective uses (whereas Cognitive science, Evidence-based medicine, Garbage in, garbage out, Herbert A. Simon, and Nervous system are using the term as a noun).

From this, I conclude that many of the links to the hyphenated form cannot be interpreted as evidence that the phrase is hyphenated nearly as often on Wikipedia (when used as a noun in running text) as the prior remark would appear to indicate. In fact, since the unhyphenated form would very seldom be used as an adjective, it appears to me that the vast majority of noun links in running text on Wikipedia do not use a hyphen.

—BarrelProof (talk) 14:48, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

@BarrelProof: Thanks for the additional information. My personal preference is for the unhyphenated form (as a noun), and the additional evidence and argumentation does begin to provide better support for renaming the article to that form, but there is still the troubling fact that the dictionary I regularly use, the New Oxford American Dictionary, lists the hyphenated form of "decision-making" as a noun, and has no entry for the unhyphenated form. However, the dictionary wouldn't convince me to use the hyphenated form in my own writing, so why should I use it as justification for not changing the title of this article? I've just convinced myself to strike my vote. Biogeographist (talk) 17:57, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

• Comment. Having closed the RM, moved the page, and performing post-move cleanup, I'm starting to have second thoughts about this RM: first, the article uniformly used the hyphenated form, as well as many references therein. Second, now we have a WP:CONSISTENCY issue with Group decision-making, Category:Decision-making and several articles therein. Perhaps this should have required a broader input, and perhaps a note at WP:PSYCHOLOGY. It seems the scope of this change has not been foreseen well, and I'm reluctant to carry it on; in hindsight, it seems like a solution in search of a problem. So, I'm reverting my close and move, and I'll relist the discussion. No such user (talk) 14:27, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps User:John V John, who requested the move, would like to consider invoking a requested move of "Group decision-making, Category:Decision-making and several articles therein", following up on the previous comment by User:No such user? If not, the inaction would seem to implicitly support the status quo, per WP:CONSISTENCY. Biogeographist (talk) 16:07, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose: The rationale makes little sense to me. Also, the argument that the version with a hyphen 'looks less intuitive' is just absurd. Rovingrobert (talk) 08:21, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose: Looks like a mistake to some people is not a rationale. The current wording is grammatically accurate. Some things are just correct and others are dumbing down. This proposal is unfortunately in the latter category. Mere weighing of numbers of usages on google (scholar) doesn't make the argument. That's apart from the massive knock-on dumbings-down that will be required for consistency. .Zymurgy (talk) 15:09, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

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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.