Talk:Hustler

"Cleanup" issues

I've copied the following from WT:MOSDAB as at least some of these issues are specific to this page. We should weed those out first here, IMHO. (John User:Jwy talk) 23:17, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

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WP:MOSDAB needs some serious work, including work to bring it into actual line with consensus (i.e. general real-world editing practice on Wikipedia), if this kind of massive change is warranted by MOSDAB. The "cleanup" performed at that DAB page:

1. Removed any indication to the reader that this is also the DAB page for the plural and non-capitalized forms
2. Made a PoV-problematic decision that the nudie mag is "the" primary topic for the word "hustler", despite the fact that it is obviously derivative of one of the other meanings, and the publication is not even published in all English-speaking countries, much less all countries
3. Removed entry for the trademark itself, which is obviously at least closer to a "primary topic" than the magazine, since it includes the magazine and all spin-off media (think Star Wars (franchise) vs. Star Wars (film)).
4. Moved the two most common usages aside from the magazine (the street term and the pool term) down into a morass of random entries
5. Deleted 2/3 of the definitions of the street term (another PoV problem)
6. Used a whole boatload of misleading "surprise links", with redirects that do not go where the user would expect (e.g. Hustler (prostitute) instead of Male prostitution); by this logic, we ought to be creating tens of thousands more redirects so that every single entry on every single DAB page begins with a link instead of ever being in plain English and linking to an actual article (ex. '* "Hustler", the nickname of United States Marine Corps helicopter squadron HMH-772')
7. Separated all of the Hustler trademark-related items, which were neatly put together in one clump
8. Removed at least one redlink very likely to soon have its own article
9. Moved things that barely belong on the list, because they are not simply "Hustler" but "something Hustler" or "Hustler something" to near the top of the list instead of the bottom where they logically belong, if retained at all
10. Undid grouping of plural entries together
11. Deleted WP:NPOV fixes, factual corrections and other important changes
12. I could go on.

I allege no bad faith of any kind on the part of the editor who did this, but rather allege that MOSDAB is a mess and needs 1) an examination of the rationales behind its specific points of advice if they lead to reader-hateful DAB pages like this, and 2) clarification to prevent such poor results where its advice does not actually call for such changes but is confusing well-meaning editors into thinking that it does. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 22:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

END OF COPY FROM WT:MOSDAB

Item 1: point-by-point

I made the comment below initially on WT:MOSDAB, however discussion there suggested that it would be wise to copy it here.

Of all the statements made by SMcCandlish in this discussion, the one I find most problematic is the initial equating of consensus with "general real-world editing practice on Wikipedia". Consensus may be achieved as a result of the editing process, but this achievement of consensus is based on edits and reversions of a particular page where issues may be concisely resolved, not over a plethora of disparate pages, as with the current discussion of disambiguation pages in general. Whenever editing of a particular page fails to achieve consensus, the burden of consensus falls to discussion, either on the article's talk page or in a more central community area. Consensus is not the same as the standard editing habits of the masses; there are solid reasons for establishing guidelines.

I would like to address the specific issues SMcCandlish mentions above.

1. The first I do not see as necessary, but have no objection to; WP:MOSDAB states that "it is not necessary to mention minor variations of capitalization, punctuation or diacritics" in the introductory line, but indicating some such variation is OK. I do not believe that the guideline should be changed so that all such variations should necessarily be mentioned in the introductory line, however.
2. The primary topic, on a disambiguation page, is the article corresponding to the title of the disambiguation page without any disambiguators. In this case, this happens to be a magazine. No WP:MOSDAB guidelines should be altered because a user feels that the magazine should not be the primary topic; that is outside the scope of disambiguation page formatting. Such a user should suggest on WP:Requested moves that the magazine article be moved to Hustler (magazine) and that the disambiguation page be moved to Hustler. This issue has nothing to do with WP:MOSDAB.
3. This entry suggests that a topic about which there is no article on Wikipedia should be included on the disambiguation page. If the topic is important enough to merit its own article, it should be given its own article; then, and only then, should it be included on the disambiguation page.
4. Ordering of entries is highly subjective. I have no objections to the ordering SMcCandlish suggests.
5. There is no indication on the Pimp or Illegal drug trade articles that "Hustler" is a term which could refer to them. If it can, there should be sources to demonstrate this possibility given on those articles. Then the entries may be included on the disambiguation page. Otherwise, the entries constitute original research.
6. I do not understand this objection or why entries formatted in a more straightforward and easily understandable way would be considered "surprise links." Entries which include the term being disambiguated in their title demonstrate more transparantly why they exist on the page.
7. This objection suggests that partial title matches should be included on disambiguation pages. The reasons that they should not are clearly outlined on WP:MOSDAB.
8. See issue 3.
9. See issue 4. Also, I would like to assert that there is no such thing as "barely" belonging on a disambiguation page; a topic is either referred to by a certain term or it is not.
10. Again, see issue 4. I do, however, feel that grouping entries based on use of singular or plural is not normally a helpful manner of organizing a disambiguation page.
11. I don't know what this refers to considering the allegation is so broad and ambiguous.

In short, I am not convinced that WP:MOSDAB should change in any way based on the arguments presented above, neither am I convinced that my edits of the particular disambiguation page in question were unjustified. I am, of course, open to further discussion on both subjects. Neelix (talk) 04:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Your opening paragraph (on "the [point] I find most problematic") I have addressed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Houston, we have a problem because it is more relevant there. For the point-by-point, okay, here we go:

1. There's no issue on this one then. So, I do not understand why you reverted this if you don't have a problem with it. (See below.) And I did not advise "that the guideline should be changed so that all such variations should necessarily be mentioned in the introductory line"; please do not complicate the discussion with points that no one's advocating. If it is vague enough to cause editwarring for no apparent reason, then MOSDAB should be clarified on this matter in some way, which would probably be a discussion in itself at WT:MOSDAB. Oh yeah! That's why I posted there.  :-/
2. What the primary topic, if any, should be for this word is the subject of open discussion on this page now (and is not properly a matter for RM discussion at the talk page of one article, in my view, as that will unnecessarily bias the discussion). At any rate, the problem with dogged adherence to the DABing style that the guideline (not policy) would normally recommend is that it hinders actual usability in some cases, such as this one, where it is much more useful to the reader to group related entries. If WP:DAB is so unclear on "primary topics" that one of many "Hustler" magazines, themselves named for a common slang term (and not even the one you keep reverting to!), and all part of a much broader branding and marketing enterprise, ends up as the "primary topic" here, despite not even being common outside of North America (the UK, for example, has a large number of its own nudie mags, and we haven't even touched on Belize, South Africa, New Zealand, etc., etc., etc.), then WP:DAB needs editing to clarify. (I incorrectly identified this as WP:MOSDAB issue at first; it isn't.)
3. The entry for the trademark/franchise was actually entirely appropriate and matched various examples shown at MOSDAB in which an entry does not lead with a blue link but has one in the middle or the end (Larry Flynt Publications in this case), that does not actually match the term/name in the DAB page's title ("Hustler", here). If MOSDAB, despite these examples, is unclear on the concept then it needs to be clarified.
4. If you did not object to my ordering, why did you revert it? (See below.) The ordering was chosen specifically to aid users finding material a) related to the proper franchise, b) in the forms "[h|H]ustler", "The Hustler", and "[The] [h|H]ustlers", respecively, c) in the form "Hustler[s]" something" and "something Hustler[s]", and finally d) relevant for a see-also section. This seems a pretty straightforward order. It could also be done more topically, and recent edits have been made in that direction. Either way is fine. The point is that there actually is some structure, not just a (to me) haphazard pile of entries which you seemed to prefer, but for which I can't see any rationale. Maybe there is one and I'm just not seeing it, though. If MOSDAB does not provide clear enough guidance on this matter, then it needs to.
5. You can't use WP articles as sources! That's a matter of policy at WP:V, because WP is itself a tertiary, unreliable source. Whether the WP articles on pimping, etc., are broad and well written enough to cover all such usages is sort of an interesting side question, but of no relevance at all to this DAB page, since the question should be sourced externally, per WP:V and WP:RS. It won't be cited here – we don't put citations in DAB pages. But if someone chooses to object to the assertion of these definitions (there's actually a fourth that I forgot - grifter/con artists/scammer), then bring it up on the talk page. Since you do appear to be so objecting, here are examples of all such usages "in the wild", found in a matter of moments with Google: conman and manwhore definitions, dealer, pimp, and so on. There's loads of this stuff. Which definition any one reader has in mind is entirely up in the air, as the meaning varies widely with generation and subculture, and is a moving target (even the meaning of the word "pimp" has changed radically in hip hop subculture with a strong effect on mainstream usage). A DAB page isn't the place to split such hairs; just link to whatever articles some readers are likely to be looking for when they come here. That means any commonly-known meaning. This is not a WP:NOT#DICT issue at all (the entry does not provide definitions or other dictionary material such at etymology, pronunciation, etc., it provides links to synonyms that have actual articles). And denying meanings and links to them that can easily be attested in the real world, in favor of a single preferred one, is a POV problem even if not intended as one (I make no accusation that it was). I'm not sure MOSDAB needs any updating on this, issue. It clearly demonstrates examples of entires that are not even redlinked, but just provided, with a bluelink to a relevant article. It also says to usually use one bluelink per entry; the case of several related meanings of one term in street slang is a really good case for multiple links, since putting each on its own line would be a waste of reader time and make the page longer for no real benefit.

[Interpolation for the record: Further support for my approach to the street slang entry at issue in #5 here is WP:COMMONWORD, which specifically recommends linking to topical articles that match the more uncommon meanings of otherwise common words. It's "just an essay" and a guideline proposal, but a very well accepted one. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 14:15, 18 January 2010 (UTC)]

1. "Surprise links" (aside from being a usability no-no in any hypertextual context) are so strongly deprecated by MOSDAB that even *[[topic (disambiguator)|topic]], description is "forbidden" as a DAB page entry. If we can't even slightly futz the name of the article to make reading it as plain English a little easier, then replacing the clear, 100% truthful, if slightly awkward link to the real article name with instead a completely differently named redirect is clearly beyond the pale. MOSDAB really, really clearly wants so to link to the real article without any subterfuge no matter how well-meaning, with the sole exception of formatting twiddles for song/book/movie/whatever titles. "Demonstrat[ing] more transparantly why [entries] exist on the page" is not a rationale mentioned in any form at MOSDAB, which goes out of its way to provide examples of the opposite. (So much so that I have to admit that my own version of this page wasn't quite in line with MOSDAB on this particular point, because I intentionally began entries that linked to pages with other names with something like *Hustler, a ... when it should have been *A .... If that was wrong (and it was, by MOSDAB), then using redirects to pages that do not even contain the word is even more wrong. MOSDAB seemed clear on this point to me, but evidently is not or this conversation wouldn't be happening, so it should be qualified.
2. Grouping related entries does not in any way generally suggest including partial title matches. If they are present, they should be grouped if related, just like any other entry. You did not object to their inclusion, which predates my edits to format them, and have been keeping items that also match this description, such as B-52 Hustler. If you object to them all, then object to them all and even remove them all, but there doesn't seem to be any rationale for keeping some but not others, nor for reverting an effort to tidy them up. I won't keel over and die if these stay in the "See also" section, but I've already noted elsewhere on this page that splitting the franchise-related ones out this way is a disservice to readers. It is arguably a bad decision because of the WP:OFFICIALNAMES issue: Someone looking for the franchise's movie division may not even realize that the company (or subcompany or whatever) is officially called "Hustler Video". We can't presume that just because we know the official name and have used that as the article name that the reader will not find the magazine entry, widely separated from the buried video entry, and simply go to the former and get lost. MOSDAB needs clarity on this issue in a big way. Having edited many, many DAB pages created by many users from many different areas of interest, it is very clear to me that there is no WP-wide consensus that partial title matches should never be included, even if they do seem to generally be discouraged when there is no good reason to include them. See for example Star Wars (disambiguation). A strict intepretation of that rule would reduce the utility of that DAB page considerably, since entries like the arcade and roleplaying games would have to be moved to "See also" at best.
3. Actually 3 and 8 were entirely different issues. Anwyay, it is common practice, under various criteria as already discussed elsewhere on this page, to include redlinks in DAB pages. This "then and only then" business (under your point #3) is not supported at all by WP:MOSDAB, WP:DAB, WP:REDLINK or any other policy or guideline. See in particular WP:MOSDAB#Red links, in which it is even advised to keep entries that won't have their own articles but instead link to something useful that is bluelinked. We don't even have to go there for this, since both of the redlinked entries are likely to eventually have articles, and both are in fact linked to from other articles (not DAB pages), the sole criterion for whether or not to include such an articleless entry as a redlink to its proper but missing ariticle name, or as a one with a bluelink to something else. If MOSDAB is not clear enough on these points, then it needs to be edited to be clearer. I suspect this is the case, because this is not the first time I've had to deal with improper deletion of redlinks from DAB pages.
4. You misunderstand me: By "barely belonging" I am referring to the same items you are in #7, namely partial title matches. The entries in question were already present on this page, and I have made no assertion that they belong here, only that they be grouped for reader sanity if they are retained. (I could argue the "barely belong" point further, e.g. something with an acronym of "HUSTLER" and another, perhaps a game, called Hust13r might or might not be good additions to this DAB page; I have seen DAB-related arguments break out over considerably less. But it's not all that on-point, and probably better saved for another time.) By your own assertions, at any rate, #9 and #4 are not actually the same issue. If you consider partial matches improper, you shouldn't have moved them to the top of the article. None of that really gets to the point I was going for, however, which is that DAB pages when possible should present the most-likely search targets first, followed by decreasingly likely ones. My assertion is that this is the general street slang term which has multiple related meanings, the also- but less-related pool gambler/con artist term (really a sub-entry; I will fix that), followed by the smut franchise (under which the main, original Hustler magazine would be the first, most obvious target, but not more so than the franchise - Hustler.com probably has more, ahem, "readers" today than the dead-trees publication; I'd bet good money on it), followed by other misc. matches to "hustler" and "hustlers", with and without "the" and capitalziation. One can debate this assertion of mine, but at least it presents some kind of structure with a logical rationale behind it, instead of apparent randomness. If MOSDAB leads to disputation of such an utterly basic level, it needs clarification. Two intelligent, constructive long term editors who have both read MOSDAB should not generate such radically different DAB pages.
5. In the absence of grouping directly-related entries and/or of subsectioning by categorical type (music, individuals, etc.), the most obvious helpful ordering I can think of for any short DAB page (after listing most common first) is by how closely the entry matches the DAB page's name. I'm genuinely curious how you can say that you find this "not normally a helpful manner of organizing a disambiguation page", as if you've done a careful study of the matter. What alternative are you proposing? I discern no pattern at all to your preferred ordering.
6. Some examples of those other issues: Describing the casino as a "visitor attraction" suggests that it is like Disneyland or Catalina Island, when it is in fact just another gambling establishment; it's a WP:PEACOCK issue, which by definition is a WP:NPOV issue, even if a subtle one. The street slang term's entry incorrectly only provided one of several common definitions (a non-trivial factuality issue). Some entries like the squadron used redundant wording. One entry required clarification to adhere to MOSDAB and was tagged as such. And so on. You reverted all of it, without any justification (this is the only part of the entire discussion that to me has anything to do with you, Neelix, and I put it down to just reverting the whole thing without actually looking at it very closely; thus I've struck the "why did you revert that part?" comments above, since the reason seems clear). So "please be more careful with reverts" is the only editor-to-editor part of this. All of the rest is about whether MOSDAB and DAB are being applied correctly here and whether they need clarification on several points because they are being (I assert) incorrectly applied too often.

— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 06:00, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Item 2: primary topic

The editor did not make the choice of the magazine as the primary topic. It happens that the magazine is currently at Hustler and is therefore was and is currently identified as the primary topic - and should be formatted at the top. This is intended to remove the primary topic from the search list - as most people on this page are NOT looking for that item (they would not have clicked through to the dab page). I am going to edit the page to reflect the current state. If you believe it should not be the primary topic, it should be discussed here. (John User:Jwy talk) 23:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I do indeed believe it should not be the primary topic, as it is obviously derivative of one of the other topics (street hustlers), is only one trademarked item within a larger frachise, and is only familiar to certain classes of people in certain English-speaking countries. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 02:15, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The selection of the article title and primary topic is based more on what the user expects when they enter Hustler as opposed to the derivation of the word, trademarks, etc. That discussion should probably take place at Talk:Hustler as that is where the initial change would be made. It might be that Hustler should end up redirecting to this dab page and Hustler move to Hustler (magazine). See also WP:NAME and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. (John User:Jwy talk) 02:39, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, make up your mind please. You just suggested "it should be discussed here". :-) I go with here. The proper place to discuss whether one meaning of 20 or so on a DAB page is the primary topic is clearly at the DAB page, since many "invested" editors at any given candidate for primary topic will pretty much automatically insist that the article they've been working on is the primary topic. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 03:10, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The actual DAB'd name should probably be discussed at Talk:Hustler, but it obviously should be Hustler (magazine), in absence of any evidence that it has some other name. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 03:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not trying to give you the run around on purpose, just want to get the right people involved (and those that are not interested un-annoyed!). You've talked about a lot of topics and there are different audiences for some of them. Leaving a message briefly explaining what you are up to where people might be interested at Talk:Hustler and pointing them back here should be fine. I am getting to like more the idea that the dab page should be at Hustler. (John User:Jwy talk) 03:39, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay. I wasn't going to go there just yet. This is a big lot of issues, some small some larger. I'm not trying to call for a sudden sweeping change to MOSDAB, nor a coup of some kind on this page. Just pointing out various problems I'm seeing. One possible solution to one of them is a page move, but I'm actually more concerned about the fact that someone smart and productive like Neelix is coming to really very, very different interpretations than I am of what MOSDAB is actually advising, on many points. Either I'm not a smart, productive editor and in fact am a retarded nutter, or my estimation of Neelix is overly positive, or (most likely) some points really do need clarification. :-) PS: Sorry if I sounded a little frustrated; I wasn't entirely thrilled with having the discussion moved from the one page to the other so I got a little testy. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 06:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Item 3: franchise

If the magazine is not the primary topic, then it should be moved to Hustler Magazine or some such title and replace with the appropriate topic (either an article about the franchise or this disambiguation page, for examples). (John User:Jwy talk) 23:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The article about the franchise essentially already exists, and was linked to by me here, in the form of Larry Flynt Publications (Hustler (franchise) now redirects there, which is about LFP as the parent company of this franchise. There is redundant material at Hustler (which should be Hustler (magazine); I don't see any evidence on its cover, though the frontispiece/legal page might have some, that the actual name of the publication is Hustler Magazine and tehre are actually a bunch of "Hustler"-branded mags in the franchise) that should be merged into the LFP article or simply deleted, as I believe all of it is already in there. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 03:16, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Furthermore: Moving the "Hustler" branded video label, casino, etc., away from the related magazine entry and into "See also" is pretty much guaranteed to confuse readers and lead them down rat holes if they are actually looking for things like the casino that are related to the magazine, because they'll see the magazine entry and go there. The mag article mentions some of the other stuff in the franchise (for now; this material should really be moved to Larry Flynt Publications, as it is redundant and off-topic), so the reader wouldn't be lost indefinitely, but the whole point of a DAB page is to help users get unlost, not more lost. We also have the problem that Hustler magazine per se is not by any means the only "Hustler"-branded magazine in the franchise! It's simply the older, "basic" one. So this DAB page can and probably someday will be considerably longer (at least 5 more entries), with the new material mostly pertaining to that franchise. Anyway, if MOSDAB actually encourages a user-unhelpful structure like that (in my reading it does not, but in yours it seems to) then it needs at least a discussion if this is a good idea. I liked my way of addressing the issue, but if a ==Media franchise== section is desired, that's fine. I can't see that the entries in it would be any different from my version, but I really don't care. The user would still be helped in finding what they are looking for, without being misled by contorted redirects. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 03:40, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Item 4: definitions

There is consensus the Wikipedia is not a dictionary. The dictionary box gives some of the definitions. Since there are related articles, perhaps we should add them in the see also section. (John User:Jwy talk) 23:35, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

At least. My version of the DAB page already linked to them, and grouped them sensibly. I'm not saying it was the only way to group them - and again this isn't some kind of SMcCandlish vs. Neelix thing (I have nothing against Neelix at all), but I think it is more user-helpful than moving very closely-related entries away from their "relative" down into the "See also" section. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 03:35, 6 January 2010 (UTC) We're talking about two different things here. I now understand that you are talking about the terms linked to in the street slang entry, and that's what I continue talking about below. What I was talking about in the struck material above was the added senses of "hustler" that relate to the trademark/franchise; but I address that in more detail elsewhere. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 11:35, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe the second two links were removed as the word hustler does not appear in them. (John User:Jwy talk) 05:37, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

That's a problem of defective articles then, not a matter of concern to this DAB page. If it were a concern, that would be dangerous, because a very easy and very sneaky form of vandalism would be zip about from DAB page to DAB page looking for entries in the form *Term, a [[link]], where the link doesn't match the term, and go to all such links found and replace term in each article with something from a thesaurus! Innumerable sneaky-bastard edits of that sort would go uncared about and unreverted, looking like legitimate editorial discretion, but meanwhile all of the victimized DAB pages would have to be edited to remove the "mooted" entries eventually, over a long period of time and wasting a lot of editorial energy, unless someone actually caught on to the subtle disruption campaign. I.e., demanding that entries of this form only be permissible when the term in the DAB page's title actually appears in the article linked to is an inverse form of WP:BEANS, and even without the potential for abuse is WP:CREEPing nitpickiness that leads to a severe maintainability problem, in which DAB page entries would need to be frequently checked against what they link to. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 11:23, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I have more faith in editors than that. People that spend time improving dab pages have a different focus than those editing the articles. They cannot be experts on all topics. A reasonable way to determine if a dab term applies to a particular article (with sufficient notability) is that the term appear in that article. As you believe this is a deficiency in the other articles, the best solution would be to fix them. (John User:Jwy talk) 19:50, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

NOTDICT is not being transgressed here. We are providing links to specific articles that are very likely to be among the articles that a nontrivial number of real users will be looking for when they arrive at this DAB pages. If it could be shown in some source from 1754 that in Squirrel Township, Massachusetts, "hustler" was local jargon for "badger or wolverine", this would not be a good addition, since the usage in that case would be obscure and not current even in an extant subculture, much less in common usage by people of any age group or broad background. This is the opposite of the four meanings given in the slang entry. Per an overly restrictive reading of WP:MOSDAB, and application of this guideline as if it were law instead of something subject to WP:COMMON, they could actually be forked into 4 lines. There is no actual point in doing that, and it wouldn't be very reader-friendly. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 11:35, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I would not add things like pimp, etc. to the "See also" section, because that's not what "See also" sections are for on DAB pages. They're for links to articles that could be confused with the disambiguated term because of similarity of name or inclusion of term in name, not for articles that are conceptually related to something on the DAB page. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 11:35, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Item 5: specificity

Not mentioned in the point-by-point was removal of a {{clarify}} that requested slightly more detail on the Sarnoff painting. This was removed on the grounds that MOSDAB only allows the bare minimum necessary to disambiguate the item in question from other items on the page, and this was the only painting. This is in my opinion and overly rigid reading of the guideline, and regardless it may need clarifying on this. Standard DABing practice very much ignores this "requirement". As just one type of common example, a vast number, maybe even the majority, of song entries on DAB pages are of the form "Song Title", a song by Artist Name from [[Release Title]], and increasingly now include also include the year and/or the genre. A "DABdeletionist" viewpoint might consider this material extraneous and thus deletable, but even a moment's consideration shows that it is not, since any given reader might only know of the song by roughly the year it came out or whether it's a metal song vs. a rap song.

The painting case here is in the same vein. Any reader with much WP experience knows that our DAB pages are very frequently missing obvious entries, just because no one's gotten around to adding them yet. Someone looking for a painting of a billiard scene called "The Hustler" may have no idea who painted it, and for all we know Sarnoff's was of street boys in Cairo. Without at least a few words about the painting the reader could easily be misled into thinking they've found the right entry when they haven't, and this would be exceedingly frustrating in the case of Sarnoff, since the article on him not only doesn't show or describe the painting, it doesn't even mention it. The reader might go on a days-long wild goose chase trying to find a print of the wrong picture.

Anyway, the point of this "Item 5" isn't to pick a fight over the Sarnoff entry or engage in disputation about this DAB page, but rather to use this entry as an example of where something's not working right with MOSDAB, presumably because it needs clarification on this point. (And, as an aside, cf. "Item 4" above: this is another case where we have an appropriate, if insufficiently specific, DAB page entry despite the fact that the target article doesn't actually include the character string "Hustler".) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 12:06, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't quite understand this last paragraph. The Sarnoff article mentions the Hustler. Are you talking about another entry? In any event, the painting is barely notable (apparently) and the (few) people coming to this entry would click on Sarnoff and get what we currently have about the picture. That's where it should be clarified if necessary. Disambiguating against all possible uses of the term won't work - we need to concentrate on what we currently have in WP or have strong reason to believe will be here soon. (John User:Jwy talk) 20:00, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Aircraft

I've split the two aircraft out of the section on motor vehicles as that seems a strange place for them... I came here looking for the Convair B-58 Hustler and almost missed it. Andrewa (talk) 15:14, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Hustling

SMcCandlish, you can point to no basis in MOS:DAB to support your opinion of how the hustling entry should be written. It says "a variation of the term" not "a variation that pleases you vs. one that does not." Furthermore, it is imperative that readers be able to recognize the DAB entry they want, and an entry that describes hustling only vaguely does not enable them to do that. 2601:642:4600:BE10:54F3:2873:7310:F05C (talk) 19:38, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

SMcCandlish has opened a discussion here about the issue that you may wish to take part in. Daniel Case (talk) 01:31, 22 February 2024 (UTC)