Talk:John Vickers (disambiguation)

Requested move 18 February 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. Perhaps something that might be better off being discussed at project level to see what sort of guideline we should have for cases like this. Jenks24 (talk) 05:03, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

John Vickers (disambiguation) → Jon Vickers (disambiguation) – Among this disambiguation page's five entries, only one uses "John" as part of the main title header, while three use "Jon", thus indicating "Jon" as the most common form, rather than "John". —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 07:22, 18 February 2017 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 14:13, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I am not aware of any guideline that says that the title of a dab page is or is not determined by the majority spelling of entries on the page. However, this page has " (disambiguation)" in the title, which means that John Vickers is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Moving this page to Jon Vickers (disambiguation) would imply that Jon Vickers is the primary topic. John Vickers (disambiguation) would be a redirect to Jon Vickers (disambiguation), so we would end up with two (implied) primary topics, one dab page, and two redirects. I don't see this multiplicity of confusing pages as being more use to readers than just leaving the situation as it is. — Gorthian (talk) 22:43, 18 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If a dab page has no primary topic, then the majority spelling of entries may well be preferable to an arbitrary selection of a minority name variant.
Moreover, since there has never been a discussion which arrived at a consensus regarding this dab page's WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, John Vickers is presently the putative primary topic solely by default of arbitrary selection.
Through its form, this nomination does, indeed, contend that Jon Vickers is the primary topic, rather than John Vickers. Depending on the outcome, a second nomination may be submitted to determine whether John Vickers and Jon Vickers cancel each other's primacy to such a degree that this page should not indicate a primary topic.
If Jon Vickers is determined by consensus to be an entry which is sought after to a greater degree than John Vickers, then Jon Vickers should be the primary topic and John Vickers (disambiguation) should be deleted so as not to compete with Jon Vickers (disambiguation), thus serving users to an equal if not greater degree than they are being served by the existing situation. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 23:53, 18 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Announcement of this discussion appears at Talk:Jon Vickers, Wikipedia talk:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Saskatchewan, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canadian music, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Opera and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject University of Oxford —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 20:57, 20 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No !vote, just $0.02 for the pot. In a situation like this, where the naming issue is "John" vs. "Jon" (names that have different spellings, but are pronounced identically), which form of the name is more common among the denizens of this specific dab page is not the only relevant issue. We do live in a culture in which information is not gleaned only visually, but can also be learned through audio forms — there is, for example, a significant risk of a person hearing about Jon Vickers the opera singer on Saturday Afternoon at the Opera, or about John Vickers the economist in a BBC Radio documentary, but then coming to Wikipedia to learn more about them and typing the wrong form of John/Jon into the search bar. So the question of which form of "Jo(h)n" is generally more common in the world at large is, if not a trump card in this debate, certainly a factor that has to be taken into account. Accordingly, I have no particularly strong opinion either way about which title this dab page should be located at — but the issue is more complicated than simply tallying up the number of John Vickers vs. the number of Jon Vickers: the relative likelihoods of "person typing John when they're actually looking for one of the Jons" vs. "person typing Jon when they're looking for John" is relevant to the matter as well.
And for the same reason, regardless of which form of "Jo(h)n" the dab page ultimately ends up at, the other form should remain in place as a redirect to wherever the dab page ends up, not simply deleted or left redlinked. Bearcat (talk) 14:59, 24 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ultimately, however, the question of the primary topic must be taken into account. As of this writing, we have, "John Vickers is a British economist.", followed by "John Vickers or Jon Vickers {Jack Vickers is not even included} may also refer to:".
As an alternative possibility, should this dab page have two primary topics, "John Vickers is a British economist.<break>Jon Vickers was a Canadian operatic tenor" or should we not indicate any primary topic and list everyone under the lead sentence, "John Vickers, Jon Vickers or Jack Vickers may refer to:"? —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 06:14, 25 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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.