Talk:Hemicircle

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I think this should be a redirect to Semicircle, hemicircle is not included in any dictionary I have consulted, and in any case, it seems to be a synonym for semicircle, and should not have a separate entry as per WP:Dictionary. I will be bold, and make the change, feel free to revert if you disagree. Quasihuman (talk) 22:10, 28 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hemi- is a productive prefix in the English language; which means that there are more compounds with hemi- than you may find in most dictionaries. (COD, the Concise Oxford English dictionary, explicity states that it only gives some instances of the uses of hemi- and semi-.) It is also perfectly possible to form new compunds with hemi-, - if you follow the rules. (E.g., if I for some reason wanted to express the concept "of half-wing type" in a biological context, I might coin the word hemipteric. On the other hand, I might not introduce that new word into a WP article, unless I first had got it acceptedin some relevant independent source context.)

The compound Hemicircle doesn't follow the rules, and thus isn't appreciated. The CED gives a reason, that you may read there, or in my text which you deleted. On the other hand, hemicycle indeed is found in COD, and has its own WP-article. Actually, the COD definition of hemicycleis considerably wider and more similar to semicircle than is our article Hemicycle.

When I looked through the links to hemicircle, some were clearly referring to the parliamentary architectural concept we describe in Hemicycle, not the abstract geometrical object we describe in Semicircle. I note that most links to hemicircle have disappeared; I really hope that they weren't automatically replaced by links to semicircle, in the case where clearly the parliamentary architectural feature was intended. Such changes would be rather misleading.

Adding to the confusion: Note that our article Semicircle refers to fr:Hémicycle as its French sister,; but that French article refers to ours Hemicycle.

I've no definite idea of what the best way to solve this is. I made a try, and was not very happy with the outcome. Seemingly, nor were you. I'm not going to revert; but I'm also not quite satisfied with your solution, either. Further ideas would be appreciated. JoergenB (talk) 12:54, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PS The on-line (full, I suppose) Oxford English dictionary actually does contain hemicircle, but marks it "Obs. or arch.", i.e., "obsolete or archaic. JoergenB (talk)

Ok, I see your point that it is not appropriate for a link to Hemicircle, meaning a parliamentary architectural feature to be redirected to Semicircle, however it seems that hemicircle is a word which can be used for two separate concepts which already have articles, namely Hemicycle and Semicircle. I hope I am correct in this interpretation, and that hemicircle does not represent a unique concept not covered in either of those articles. I suggest the possibility of turning Hemicircle into a disambiguation page with links to both Hemicycle and Semicircle? Quasihuman (talk) 18:23, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I have checked briefly in Special:WhatLinksHere/Semicircle for pages that inappropriately link to Semicircle, rather than Hemicycle, and there are no blatant examples that I can tell, (United States Senate and Parliament are possible examples, but they do not seem to have been automatically changed). Only one article, Tunnels of San Antonio, currently links to Hemicircle. Quasihuman (talk) 19:58, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, there. I'm afraid I do not know how to reconstruct the links as they were at that time. JoergenB (talk) 17:12, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you provide an example of an article (or articles) that once linked here, and now link to semicircle so that I can check the history to see if there is a problem. The two articles mentioned above did not link to Hemicircle at any time recently. If there has been a change, it is unlikely that it was made automatically since this page was made a redirect, but more likely that editors decided to use another word.

I have made Hemicircle into a disambiguation page, I think that this is probably the best solution Quasihuman (talk) 18:29, 31 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]