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Requested move
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Oppose. "Bird of paradise" should redirect to "Birds of paradise". Or more likely "Birds of paradise" should be renamed "Bird of paradise" being the singular as a heading.
Snowman (
talk)
23:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Oppose. As near as I can tell, the primary topic for Bird of Paradise is the plant species botanists have named
Strelitzia reginae (which is not a common name -- in any sense -- for anything, by the way)
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7, etc. There are other uses, but clearlySrelitzia reginae is the
primary topic for Bird of Paradise. As far as actual birds of paradise, there is no clear usage for that, and, so,
Birds of paradise is an appropriate dab page for them.
Bird of paradise (disambiguation) should remain as is, pointing out the primary usage, as well as the other uses, including a link to the dab page for the actual birds of paradise. See new vote below. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
00:01, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Oppose, Snowman is right, Birds of Paradise and Birds of paradise should redirect towards Bird of paradise which should be for the family. Per MOS article titles should be single not plural.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk00:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I should note it is rather bold to extrapolate a pattern from three comments. Lets see what other people think, eh? I would suggest that the bird family is more a primary topic over three unrelated (I assume) genera or species by virtuer of taxanomic weight (family = more important than genus) and age (I assume, but am prepared to be corrected, that the birds have been known as such for much longer and may have even given the plant its name). The page never should have been moved as described below. So we'll see what other people think.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk00:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Hesperian, if anyone besides Una is claiming, or has ever claimed, anything other than
the plant is primary usage, I missed it. Where? If you
google for "Bird of paradise" the results, though not exclusively about the plant, are dominated by the plant in a manner that is emblematic of a genuine primary topic. I would like to see the basis for claiming any other topic is primary for this name. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
01:34, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Uh, I am. You know, that whole bird family. Yes, usually referred to as birds of paradise, because when referring to families you usually say "the hawks" or "the crows and magpies" or whatever, but the MOS states that singulars are used for article titles, hence bird of paradise would be the correct term for a singular unspecified member of the family.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk01:54, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
To be clear, Sabine, you're saying that you believe the family of birds commonly referred to as birds of paradise is the
primary topic for "Bird of paradise", in accordance with the criteria outlined on that page? --
Born2cycle (
talk)
02:40, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Look at the link Fullstop provided, the majority of the links to
bird of paradise are avian related. I do think that a family of forty birds should have priority over a single species? Yes, and while I'll fully admit to birdy-bias but I have also provided reasons above.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk03:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Thanks for clearing that up. For the record, I don't see any statement from you or anyone else that indicates you feel the bird family is the primary topic prior to Hesperian asserting that that was the case, and my questioning that assertion. Apparently he's better at reading between the lines than I am. At any rate, I have been convinced now that the plant/flower is not the primary topic, because there is no primary topic. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
15:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Are the insults really necessary? I am not disputing that the term has other uses, including the bird. The issue is whether the plant/flower is the
primary topic for the name, not whether it is the only topic (which clearly it isn't), and, in particular, whether anyone is claiming anything other than the plant/flower is the primary topic. Asserting that there is no primary topic (which may very well be the case) is a related but separate point from the assertion that Hesperian made and I'm questioning. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
02:40, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Una wants the page to be a dab, which would then include the flower on the very first line. You want it to redirect to the flower. Sure sounds like disputing other uses to me.
The fact that anyone felt dab was the better way should by itself give you cause to pause. But you continue to insist that yours is TheRightOne. Sure sounds like denial of any position but your own.
In the interests of cooperative editing and of the articles linking to "Bird of Paradise", the dab would make sense too. But no, you wanna play rules-'n-regulations-hang-reality, and then don't like it when others call you on it. Not disputing? Ooookay. If you say so. --
Fullstop (
talk)
04:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
If the rule is that one should pause "if anyone felt dab was the better way" than all articles with primary titles should be converted to dabs, because this is essentially what Una Smith is advocating: that all titles are ambiguous. So, no, that one person thought it should be a dab, if that person is attempting to change policy to, apparently, get London made a dab, doesn't work. London has a primary use that's not the least bit ambiguous. Still, not disagreeing with most of what you say, Fullstop, just pointing out there are problems with saying something should be a dab if any one person thinks the name is in dispute. It's not working. --
KP Botany (
talk)
09:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)reply
Support per Una. The issue (which the opposes seem to miss entirely) is whether 'Bird of paradise' should redirect to a flower, or be a disambig. This request-to-move would be a vastly different story if the flower article were actually named "Bird of paradise". But its not. The opposes citing
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC need to read the sentence about "common name" vewy, vewy caefuwwy. By calling itself 'Srelitzia reginae', the flower article is itself saying that 'Bird of paradise' is not the common name. What that stuff about plurals is all about I cannot even begin to guess. There are no plural forms mentioned in the nom. --
Fullstop (
talk)
01:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
"By calling itself 'Srelitzia reginae', the flower article is itself saying that 'Bird of paradise' is not the common name." That interpretation of
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is absurd. That's like saying the fact that
Carmel-by-the-Sea redirects to
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, that "Carmel-by-the-Sea" is not the common name for the subject of that article. The fact that the article is (wrongly, IMHO, but that's a separate issue) at
Strelitzia reginae reflects nothing about the common name of that article, but everything about the current flora guidelines. Now, that doesn't mean that "Bird of paradise" has no primary topic, just that the fact that the article title is not "Bird of paradise" does not indicate anything about that question one way or the other. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
02:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
That analogy doesn't wash since there is only one Carmel-by-the-sea. No disambiguation necessary. And if there were multiple Carmels-by-the-sea, 'Carmel-by-the-sea' would be a dab, which would stand contra to what you contrived the analogy for. --
Fullstop (
talk)
04:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I misunderstood, sorry. The implication of your statement (the one I quoted above) seemed to be very general: "By calling itself 'A', the article is itself saying that 'B' is not the common name". My apologies. Thanks for explaining. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
15:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
While I'm inclined to agree with Sabine's Sunbird (that the dominant use is probably the bird), the fact that there's disagreement makes me lean towards having the dab page at
Bird of paradise. So support move.
Guettarda (
talk)
02:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Having read the discussion and thought about this a little more, I feel pretty clear that the page should not redirect to the Strelitzia. I also believe that it's pretty clear that the birds are the dominant usage. What I'm not so sure about is the relative importance of the two uses, and whether the birds are dominant enough to have the page there. So I support a move, but I'm not sure which article should replace the current redirect.
Guettarda (
talk)
04:31, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Strongly oppose Una has been asked to not attempt to enforce her desired policy of making all common names in English dab pages. She's been asked lots of things, but to no avail. Una should discuss changing the policy and desist immediately with her continued attempts to change the policy by changing as many pages as possible, piece by piece. Please don't continue to support Una's bit by bit change of policy when she already knows that the way to change the policy is to discuss the policy change, not change the policy without discussing it. --
KP Botany (
talk)
06:25, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I'm talking about exactly what I said I was talking about: your attempts to change policy without bringing the policy itself up for discussion. Whatever the validity of any single proposal of yours, it's simply your attempt to get around discussing a policy change.
BUt, thank you for continuing to bring up and post the ANI everywhere, though, so as many editors as possible understand your editing policy and what you mean by consensus and precisely why you say that whatever I say I am referring to something else. I urge all editors in this discussion to carefully review the ANI Una brought up and consider Una's editing history before continuing this discussion with her. Because, after all, dealing with what I or or another editor has to say would require a discussion. --
KP Botany (
talk)
03:31, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
KP - while I disagree with the idea that
Bird of paradise should be a dab page (as opposed to the family page) there is nothing inherently unreasonable about the proposal. Una found this mess and tried to clean it up, and the proposal is as I've said more reasonable than what is going on now (redirect to the species). I don't see anything here that is against policy, all I see is a disagreement over whether a dab page is more suitable than a article (now that Born2Cycle is no longer pushing for the status quo).
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk04:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Una's attempt to make most primary topic pages dabs rather than articles is her attempt to change policy. Every piecemeal move to change a primary topic to a dab page, is just one more step in changing the policy without ever bringing up a discussion about the change in policy. It will remain my opinion, as long as Una continues to neglect the policy discussion behind each individual move she makes, that she should not be making the moves. Whatever should be done with this page is beside the point as long as Una is the one searching for examples where she can safely enforce her policy change rather than discussing it. --
KP Botany (
talk)
04:30, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I think it's fair to say that Una and I have disagreed far more often than we've found ourselves agreeing, and I do think she has had difficultly comprehending or at least fully appreciating the point of
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, but in this case, at least in her explanation of support for her proposal, she argues that there is no primary topic. That point and argument should have been made in the proposal itself (as the reason for the proposal). The fact that it apparently didn't even occur to her to mention that in the proposal indicates that she still discounts that aspect of naming policy, which I believe is KP's point. Still, I think it's only fair to consider each proposal -- regardless of who makes it or why -- on the merits of the move itself. Opposing a move simply because of who made the proposal (if that is what is being suggested) is immature and contrary to the best interests of Wikipedia. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
17:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
To me it is obvious that
Bird of paradise should be a disambiguation page; to others it is equally obvious the page name should be an article about a bird family, or an article about a plant family. However, my personal preference is not a REASON to move the page and therefore does not belong in the proposal. As I stated in the proposal, the REASON for proposing this move is because there was a redirect in the way and thus moving the page complete with its edit history requires admin tools. --
Una Smith (
talk)
18:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Una, "requires admin tools" is a reason for asking for admin assistance. If that were the only reason for the request, the request should have gone into the uncontroversial moves section. What you didn't address in the proposal is why this move might be controversial, and your argument for your side of that controversy. That suggests a lack of appreciation for what is going on here, at least initially, since you did seem to figure it out when you explained your own support of this move (apparently from reading comments from others). That's okay, but it supports KP's point (if I understand that correctly) then you're still not understanding or fully appreciating the point of
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Put it this way, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but when you initially decided to make "Bird of paradise" a dab page, you did not appear to be concerned with first determining whether there was a primary topic for "Bird of paradise". --
Born2cycle (
talk)
18:39, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I'll take your word for it, but I can understand why others might not, considering your history and failure to mention this rather crucial point in your proposal. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
19:15, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Oppose. What a mess. Delist from WP:RM, centralise discussion, then eventually move the article on the birds back to bird of paradise. How can we best avoid this happening agian, I wonder?
Andrewa (
talk)
14:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Support. Seems to me there is no primary topic on this one. A google images search for "bird of paradise" shows mostly plants with a significant showing of birds. A google web search shows somewhat the same but with even more mixed results (including things like hotels and folded napkins which are probably named after one or both of the other two but which are not either one itself). As an additional comment, I think the mess of redirects, disambiguations, and links which point to some place other than intended argues for
WP:BOLD not being such a great idea for article names and related topics.
Kingdon (
talk)
20:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Support, I have always felt that if there is not a clear primary topic then havind the dab as the topic name makes it easier for users, and isn't that what it is about.
speednat (
talk)
19:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Support. No clear primary topic. As a botanist, I'm more familiar with the plant species, though I'm aware of the bird family. Ornithologists are more familiar with the bird family and probably have heard of the plant. Either way, there doesn't appear to be a primary topic. Both are important for various reasons, but not important enough to trump the other. --
Rkitko(
talk)20:41, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Support. Level of discussion indicates no consensus on primary topic, so it should become a disambiguation. (While I have a preference what I think is primary, objective opinion dictates my support.) --
billinghurst (
talk)
22:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Support. It seems fairly obvious that given the disagreement there should be a disambiguation page. I would use "Bird of paradise" to refer to both the plant or to a particular bird in that family and I think it is impossible to convincingly argue that one is categorically "primary" to another. DJLayton4 (
talk)23:23, 30 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Comments
Per its
edit history,
Bird of paradise was made a redirect in 2007 when the former article there was moved to
Birds of Paradise (the bird family). It remained a redirect until today, when I made it a disambiguation page. Born2cycle changed the dab page to a redirect to
Strelitzia reginae (one species of 3 plant genera known as "bird of paradise"). So we have here an excellent example of the kind of situation where a disambiguation page is called for. --
Una Smith (
talk)
00:13, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
It's not as confusing as you make it seem, Una. The first four in your list all represent the primary topic and refer and redirect to the same article about that topic, currently unfortunately and obscurely named
Strelitzia reginae rather than
Bird of paradise. To be fair, I just fixed one of them (plant) to redirect to the species commonly referred to as Bird of paradise rather than the genus more rarely referred to as that. The last,
Bird of paradise (bird), is an excellent title, IMHO, for the article currently at
Birds of paradise (plural), and I've made an alternative move proposal at that talk page accordingly. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
01:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
It is not confusing at all, Born2cycle. It is very simple: all these minor variants on "bird of paradise" should redirect to the disambiguation page. By the way, when I encounter "bird of flower", I think of
Heliconia. --
Una Smith (
talk)
02:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Una, a few hours ago you created a proposal at WP:RM for this move along with this rationale: "... because this is a chronic source of confusion". That's why I wrote above about the situation here that "it is not as confusing as you make it seem, Una". Now you're telling me the situation "is not confusing at all"? From a "chronic source of confusion" to "not confusing at all" in a matter of hours? Wow. I always try very hard to understand your position Una, but it's often difficult if not impossible. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
02:55, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Born2cycle, I thought you were referring to my list of similarly named pages, all redirects. See, you wrote "It's not as confusing as you make it seem, Una. The first four in your list..."
[1] --
Una Smith (
talk)
03:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Another 13 pages with "bird of paradise" titles redirect to
Strelitzia reginae, but apart from
Bird of paradise they contribute only 1 incoming link in need of disambiguation. So in all there are about 130 incoming links that would require disambiguation. That is a small number, as disambiguation jobs go. Assuming for the moment that the disambiguation page is moved to
Bird of paradise, I would recommend changing all of these redirect pages to redirect to
Bird of paradise. That would simplify future disambiguating. --
Una Smith (
talk)
03:49, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
The large number of links to Paradisaeide is due to two factors
User:Polbot created articles which refer to the Paradisaeide in the opening statement and the taxoboxes, which use the scientific name. The low number of links to Birds of Paradise is because it is flat out wrong - the P should not be capitalised for a non-species and the s should not be there for MOS reasosn - and because it was moved without anyone at
WP:BIRD noticing, which is why we have so many links to the redirect (now helpfully pointing to a plant!), they were pointing at the right place and aren't anymore. For preference I would not like the article to sit at
Paradisaeidae. Where an unambiguous common name is applied to a family it is much better to use that (
Gull,
Cockatoo,
Albatross). Only when this doesn't apply do we use the proper scientific name (
Procellariidae instead of
Shearwaters and petrels). While some birds of paradise are called other things like sicklebills they are universally known as a group as the birds of paradise, which is why
bird of paradise (family) would be better than anything else.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk04:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
(ec) I see. Well, don't be too annoyed with 4444hhhh; the ambiguity is intrinsic to the shared use of a
common name, not created by that user.
Bird of paradise (family) sounds good to me. I would avoid
Birds of paradise because, given the number of plants and animals called "bird of paradise", the plural "birds of paradise" may also accumulate incorrect links. --
Una Smith (
talk)
04:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
444hhh has a history of well intentioned sweeping changes that create a lot of work. I know it's in good faith, but I'd still sometimes like to tie him up in gaffa tape.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk05:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I'm aware of that. I raise it because this discussion brought to my attention the fact that the family page was missnamed, so that has to be fixed. Had it not been for your proposal however I would simply have moved the article back to
bird of paradise where it originally was. The best place to discuss all these problems is here, which is why I brought it up.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk05:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I think we are on the same page. If the requested move passes, then before any link disambiguating happens, it would be good to resolve the question of the page name of the bird family article. Also, I expanded
Bird of paradise (disambiguation) a little, but it could use more work, and that work can be done while we wait on the outcome of this proposal. It does not depend in any way on the outcome. Given that some but not all birds in the family are known as "bird of paradise", a more extensive dab page would help to direct readers (and more importantly editors) to the birds that are known by this name or some approximation of it. The requested move is simply to put the dab page at the ambiguous base name, which helps considerably with all future
link disambiguating. --
Una Smith (
talk)
16:16, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Beware of reading too much into the fact that some birds of paradise have the actual phrase in their common name and some do not.
wigeons,
Gadwalls and
teal are still ducks even if the word isn't in their common name,
koels are still cuckoos,
lovebirds are still parrots and
coots and moorhens are still rails. Each family page will have a complete list (unless it is immense); there is no need to point to anything other than the family page on the dab page.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk18:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I understand. The family article does serve to disambiguate the "official" common names of birds known as "bird of paradise". But are there other "bird of paradise" common names in the literature, that a reader may have in mind when coming to Wikipedia? How are those handled? --
Una Smith (
talk)
19:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
The only birds that have or had that name would be species formerly considered to be in the Paradisaeidae (the satinbirds and the split out honeyeater). These are also linked in the page
Birds of Paradise (wherever that ends up), but it would not be inappropriate to at least link to the
satinbirds. However there is no need to link to individual species in either families. Actually, the whole
Birds of Paradise page needs something of a clean up to reflect the split out of the satinbirds - they are identified as unique but apparently not placed there in a new family.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk19:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Interesting aside, the earliest mention of bird of paradise in the OED is from 1606 for the bird, whereas the plant (called a bird-of-paradise) isn't used until 1884, which supports the idea the plant was named for the birds.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk04:16, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Does anyone else see the irony in this request-for-move? Had it been for 'bird', there would have been only one oppose. But the request was for dab, and there are three opposes. --
Fullstop (
talk)
04:28, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Primary references (birds)
Looking at four different field guide bird books, they all refer to the collective of species as Birds of Paradise, and that includes the Rifle bird species. So we have one bird of paradise species, we have Y birds of paradise species. --
billinghurst (
talk)
22:44, 28 January 2009 (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. No further edits should be made to this section.
Fixing incoming links
Fixing incoming links to this dab page requires attention to detail and sometimes also some research. For example, the national bird of Papua New Guinea is not a family of birds, but one particular species. --
Una Smith (
talk)
14:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)reply
This disambiguation page is within the scope of WikiProject Disambiguation, an attempt to structure and organize all
disambiguation pages on Wikipedia. If you wish to help, you can edit the page attached to this talk page, or visit the
project page, where you can join the project or contribute to the
discussion.DisambiguationWikipedia:WikiProject DisambiguationTemplate:WikiProject DisambiguationDisambiguation articles
Bird of paradise is part of WikiProject Birds, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative and easy-to-use ornithological resource. If you would like to participate, visit the
project page, where you can join the
discussion and see a list of open tasks. Please do not
substitute this template.BirdsWikipedia:WikiProject BirdsTemplate:WikiProject Birdsbird articles
This disambiguation page is within the scope of WikiProject Plants, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
plants and
botany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PlantsWikipedia:WikiProject PlantsTemplate:WikiProject Plantsplant articles
Requested move
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
Oppose. "Bird of paradise" should redirect to "Birds of paradise". Or more likely "Birds of paradise" should be renamed "Bird of paradise" being the singular as a heading.
Snowman (
talk)
23:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Oppose. As near as I can tell, the primary topic for Bird of Paradise is the plant species botanists have named
Strelitzia reginae (which is not a common name -- in any sense -- for anything, by the way)
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7, etc. There are other uses, but clearlySrelitzia reginae is the
primary topic for Bird of Paradise. As far as actual birds of paradise, there is no clear usage for that, and, so,
Birds of paradise is an appropriate dab page for them.
Bird of paradise (disambiguation) should remain as is, pointing out the primary usage, as well as the other uses, including a link to the dab page for the actual birds of paradise. See new vote below. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
00:01, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Oppose, Snowman is right, Birds of Paradise and Birds of paradise should redirect towards Bird of paradise which should be for the family. Per MOS article titles should be single not plural.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk00:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I should note it is rather bold to extrapolate a pattern from three comments. Lets see what other people think, eh? I would suggest that the bird family is more a primary topic over three unrelated (I assume) genera or species by virtuer of taxanomic weight (family = more important than genus) and age (I assume, but am prepared to be corrected, that the birds have been known as such for much longer and may have even given the plant its name). The page never should have been moved as described below. So we'll see what other people think.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk00:23, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Hesperian, if anyone besides Una is claiming, or has ever claimed, anything other than
the plant is primary usage, I missed it. Where? If you
google for "Bird of paradise" the results, though not exclusively about the plant, are dominated by the plant in a manner that is emblematic of a genuine primary topic. I would like to see the basis for claiming any other topic is primary for this name. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
01:34, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Uh, I am. You know, that whole bird family. Yes, usually referred to as birds of paradise, because when referring to families you usually say "the hawks" or "the crows and magpies" or whatever, but the MOS states that singulars are used for article titles, hence bird of paradise would be the correct term for a singular unspecified member of the family.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk01:54, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
To be clear, Sabine, you're saying that you believe the family of birds commonly referred to as birds of paradise is the
primary topic for "Bird of paradise", in accordance with the criteria outlined on that page? --
Born2cycle (
talk)
02:40, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Look at the link Fullstop provided, the majority of the links to
bird of paradise are avian related. I do think that a family of forty birds should have priority over a single species? Yes, and while I'll fully admit to birdy-bias but I have also provided reasons above.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk03:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Thanks for clearing that up. For the record, I don't see any statement from you or anyone else that indicates you feel the bird family is the primary topic prior to Hesperian asserting that that was the case, and my questioning that assertion. Apparently he's better at reading between the lines than I am. At any rate, I have been convinced now that the plant/flower is not the primary topic, because there is no primary topic. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
15:35, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Are the insults really necessary? I am not disputing that the term has other uses, including the bird. The issue is whether the plant/flower is the
primary topic for the name, not whether it is the only topic (which clearly it isn't), and, in particular, whether anyone is claiming anything other than the plant/flower is the primary topic. Asserting that there is no primary topic (which may very well be the case) is a related but separate point from the assertion that Hesperian made and I'm questioning. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
02:40, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Una wants the page to be a dab, which would then include the flower on the very first line. You want it to redirect to the flower. Sure sounds like disputing other uses to me.
The fact that anyone felt dab was the better way should by itself give you cause to pause. But you continue to insist that yours is TheRightOne. Sure sounds like denial of any position but your own.
In the interests of cooperative editing and of the articles linking to "Bird of Paradise", the dab would make sense too. But no, you wanna play rules-'n-regulations-hang-reality, and then don't like it when others call you on it. Not disputing? Ooookay. If you say so. --
Fullstop (
talk)
04:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
If the rule is that one should pause "if anyone felt dab was the better way" than all articles with primary titles should be converted to dabs, because this is essentially what Una Smith is advocating: that all titles are ambiguous. So, no, that one person thought it should be a dab, if that person is attempting to change policy to, apparently, get London made a dab, doesn't work. London has a primary use that's not the least bit ambiguous. Still, not disagreeing with most of what you say, Fullstop, just pointing out there are problems with saying something should be a dab if any one person thinks the name is in dispute. It's not working. --
KP Botany (
talk)
09:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)reply
Support per Una. The issue (which the opposes seem to miss entirely) is whether 'Bird of paradise' should redirect to a flower, or be a disambig. This request-to-move would be a vastly different story if the flower article were actually named "Bird of paradise". But its not. The opposes citing
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC need to read the sentence about "common name" vewy, vewy caefuwwy. By calling itself 'Srelitzia reginae', the flower article is itself saying that 'Bird of paradise' is not the common name. What that stuff about plurals is all about I cannot even begin to guess. There are no plural forms mentioned in the nom. --
Fullstop (
talk)
01:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
"By calling itself 'Srelitzia reginae', the flower article is itself saying that 'Bird of paradise' is not the common name." That interpretation of
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is absurd. That's like saying the fact that
Carmel-by-the-Sea redirects to
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, that "Carmel-by-the-Sea" is not the common name for the subject of that article. The fact that the article is (wrongly, IMHO, but that's a separate issue) at
Strelitzia reginae reflects nothing about the common name of that article, but everything about the current flora guidelines. Now, that doesn't mean that "Bird of paradise" has no primary topic, just that the fact that the article title is not "Bird of paradise" does not indicate anything about that question one way or the other. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
02:48, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
That analogy doesn't wash since there is only one Carmel-by-the-sea. No disambiguation necessary. And if there were multiple Carmels-by-the-sea, 'Carmel-by-the-sea' would be a dab, which would stand contra to what you contrived the analogy for. --
Fullstop (
talk)
04:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I misunderstood, sorry. The implication of your statement (the one I quoted above) seemed to be very general: "By calling itself 'A', the article is itself saying that 'B' is not the common name". My apologies. Thanks for explaining. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
15:29, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
While I'm inclined to agree with Sabine's Sunbird (that the dominant use is probably the bird), the fact that there's disagreement makes me lean towards having the dab page at
Bird of paradise. So support move.
Guettarda (
talk)
02:52, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Having read the discussion and thought about this a little more, I feel pretty clear that the page should not redirect to the Strelitzia. I also believe that it's pretty clear that the birds are the dominant usage. What I'm not so sure about is the relative importance of the two uses, and whether the birds are dominant enough to have the page there. So I support a move, but I'm not sure which article should replace the current redirect.
Guettarda (
talk)
04:31, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Strongly oppose Una has been asked to not attempt to enforce her desired policy of making all common names in English dab pages. She's been asked lots of things, but to no avail. Una should discuss changing the policy and desist immediately with her continued attempts to change the policy by changing as many pages as possible, piece by piece. Please don't continue to support Una's bit by bit change of policy when she already knows that the way to change the policy is to discuss the policy change, not change the policy without discussing it. --
KP Botany (
talk)
06:25, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I'm talking about exactly what I said I was talking about: your attempts to change policy without bringing the policy itself up for discussion. Whatever the validity of any single proposal of yours, it's simply your attempt to get around discussing a policy change.
BUt, thank you for continuing to bring up and post the ANI everywhere, though, so as many editors as possible understand your editing policy and what you mean by consensus and precisely why you say that whatever I say I am referring to something else. I urge all editors in this discussion to carefully review the ANI Una brought up and consider Una's editing history before continuing this discussion with her. Because, after all, dealing with what I or or another editor has to say would require a discussion. --
KP Botany (
talk)
03:31, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
KP - while I disagree with the idea that
Bird of paradise should be a dab page (as opposed to the family page) there is nothing inherently unreasonable about the proposal. Una found this mess and tried to clean it up, and the proposal is as I've said more reasonable than what is going on now (redirect to the species). I don't see anything here that is against policy, all I see is a disagreement over whether a dab page is more suitable than a article (now that Born2Cycle is no longer pushing for the status quo).
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk04:21, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Una's attempt to make most primary topic pages dabs rather than articles is her attempt to change policy. Every piecemeal move to change a primary topic to a dab page, is just one more step in changing the policy without ever bringing up a discussion about the change in policy. It will remain my opinion, as long as Una continues to neglect the policy discussion behind each individual move she makes, that she should not be making the moves. Whatever should be done with this page is beside the point as long as Una is the one searching for examples where she can safely enforce her policy change rather than discussing it. --
KP Botany (
talk)
04:30, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I think it's fair to say that Una and I have disagreed far more often than we've found ourselves agreeing, and I do think she has had difficultly comprehending or at least fully appreciating the point of
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, but in this case, at least in her explanation of support for her proposal, she argues that there is no primary topic. That point and argument should have been made in the proposal itself (as the reason for the proposal). The fact that it apparently didn't even occur to her to mention that in the proposal indicates that she still discounts that aspect of naming policy, which I believe is KP's point. Still, I think it's only fair to consider each proposal -- regardless of who makes it or why -- on the merits of the move itself. Opposing a move simply because of who made the proposal (if that is what is being suggested) is immature and contrary to the best interests of Wikipedia. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
17:56, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
To me it is obvious that
Bird of paradise should be a disambiguation page; to others it is equally obvious the page name should be an article about a bird family, or an article about a plant family. However, my personal preference is not a REASON to move the page and therefore does not belong in the proposal. As I stated in the proposal, the REASON for proposing this move is because there was a redirect in the way and thus moving the page complete with its edit history requires admin tools. --
Una Smith (
talk)
18:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Una, "requires admin tools" is a reason for asking for admin assistance. If that were the only reason for the request, the request should have gone into the uncontroversial moves section. What you didn't address in the proposal is why this move might be controversial, and your argument for your side of that controversy. That suggests a lack of appreciation for what is going on here, at least initially, since you did seem to figure it out when you explained your own support of this move (apparently from reading comments from others). That's okay, but it supports KP's point (if I understand that correctly) then you're still not understanding or fully appreciating the point of
WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Put it this way, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but when you initially decided to make "Bird of paradise" a dab page, you did not appear to be concerned with first determining whether there was a primary topic for "Bird of paradise". --
Born2cycle (
talk)
18:39, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I'll take your word for it, but I can understand why others might not, considering your history and failure to mention this rather crucial point in your proposal. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
19:15, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Oppose. What a mess. Delist from WP:RM, centralise discussion, then eventually move the article on the birds back to bird of paradise. How can we best avoid this happening agian, I wonder?
Andrewa (
talk)
14:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Support. Seems to me there is no primary topic on this one. A google images search for "bird of paradise" shows mostly plants with a significant showing of birds. A google web search shows somewhat the same but with even more mixed results (including things like hotels and folded napkins which are probably named after one or both of the other two but which are not either one itself). As an additional comment, I think the mess of redirects, disambiguations, and links which point to some place other than intended argues for
WP:BOLD not being such a great idea for article names and related topics.
Kingdon (
talk)
20:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Support, I have always felt that if there is not a clear primary topic then havind the dab as the topic name makes it easier for users, and isn't that what it is about.
speednat (
talk)
19:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Support. No clear primary topic. As a botanist, I'm more familiar with the plant species, though I'm aware of the bird family. Ornithologists are more familiar with the bird family and probably have heard of the plant. Either way, there doesn't appear to be a primary topic. Both are important for various reasons, but not important enough to trump the other. --
Rkitko(
talk)20:41, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Support. Level of discussion indicates no consensus on primary topic, so it should become a disambiguation. (While I have a preference what I think is primary, objective opinion dictates my support.) --
billinghurst (
talk)
22:23, 28 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Support. It seems fairly obvious that given the disagreement there should be a disambiguation page. I would use "Bird of paradise" to refer to both the plant or to a particular bird in that family and I think it is impossible to convincingly argue that one is categorically "primary" to another. DJLayton4 (
talk)23:23, 30 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Comments
Per its
edit history,
Bird of paradise was made a redirect in 2007 when the former article there was moved to
Birds of Paradise (the bird family). It remained a redirect until today, when I made it a disambiguation page. Born2cycle changed the dab page to a redirect to
Strelitzia reginae (one species of 3 plant genera known as "bird of paradise"). So we have here an excellent example of the kind of situation where a disambiguation page is called for. --
Una Smith (
talk)
00:13, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
It's not as confusing as you make it seem, Una. The first four in your list all represent the primary topic and refer and redirect to the same article about that topic, currently unfortunately and obscurely named
Strelitzia reginae rather than
Bird of paradise. To be fair, I just fixed one of them (plant) to redirect to the species commonly referred to as Bird of paradise rather than the genus more rarely referred to as that. The last,
Bird of paradise (bird), is an excellent title, IMHO, for the article currently at
Birds of paradise (plural), and I've made an alternative move proposal at that talk page accordingly. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
01:46, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
It is not confusing at all, Born2cycle. It is very simple: all these minor variants on "bird of paradise" should redirect to the disambiguation page. By the way, when I encounter "bird of flower", I think of
Heliconia. --
Una Smith (
talk)
02:26, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Una, a few hours ago you created a proposal at WP:RM for this move along with this rationale: "... because this is a chronic source of confusion". That's why I wrote above about the situation here that "it is not as confusing as you make it seem, Una". Now you're telling me the situation "is not confusing at all"? From a "chronic source of confusion" to "not confusing at all" in a matter of hours? Wow. I always try very hard to understand your position Una, but it's often difficult if not impossible. --
Born2cycle (
talk)
02:55, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Born2cycle, I thought you were referring to my list of similarly named pages, all redirects. See, you wrote "It's not as confusing as you make it seem, Una. The first four in your list..."
[1] --
Una Smith (
talk)
03:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Another 13 pages with "bird of paradise" titles redirect to
Strelitzia reginae, but apart from
Bird of paradise they contribute only 1 incoming link in need of disambiguation. So in all there are about 130 incoming links that would require disambiguation. That is a small number, as disambiguation jobs go. Assuming for the moment that the disambiguation page is moved to
Bird of paradise, I would recommend changing all of these redirect pages to redirect to
Bird of paradise. That would simplify future disambiguating. --
Una Smith (
talk)
03:49, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
The large number of links to Paradisaeide is due to two factors
User:Polbot created articles which refer to the Paradisaeide in the opening statement and the taxoboxes, which use the scientific name. The low number of links to Birds of Paradise is because it is flat out wrong - the P should not be capitalised for a non-species and the s should not be there for MOS reasosn - and because it was moved without anyone at
WP:BIRD noticing, which is why we have so many links to the redirect (now helpfully pointing to a plant!), they were pointing at the right place and aren't anymore. For preference I would not like the article to sit at
Paradisaeidae. Where an unambiguous common name is applied to a family it is much better to use that (
Gull,
Cockatoo,
Albatross). Only when this doesn't apply do we use the proper scientific name (
Procellariidae instead of
Shearwaters and petrels). While some birds of paradise are called other things like sicklebills they are universally known as a group as the birds of paradise, which is why
bird of paradise (family) would be better than anything else.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk04:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
(ec) I see. Well, don't be too annoyed with 4444hhhh; the ambiguity is intrinsic to the shared use of a
common name, not created by that user.
Bird of paradise (family) sounds good to me. I would avoid
Birds of paradise because, given the number of plants and animals called "bird of paradise", the plural "birds of paradise" may also accumulate incorrect links. --
Una Smith (
talk)
04:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
444hhh has a history of well intentioned sweeping changes that create a lot of work. I know it's in good faith, but I'd still sometimes like to tie him up in gaffa tape.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk05:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I'm aware of that. I raise it because this discussion brought to my attention the fact that the family page was missnamed, so that has to be fixed. Had it not been for your proposal however I would simply have moved the article back to
bird of paradise where it originally was. The best place to discuss all these problems is here, which is why I brought it up.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk05:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I think we are on the same page. If the requested move passes, then before any link disambiguating happens, it would be good to resolve the question of the page name of the bird family article. Also, I expanded
Bird of paradise (disambiguation) a little, but it could use more work, and that work can be done while we wait on the outcome of this proposal. It does not depend in any way on the outcome. Given that some but not all birds in the family are known as "bird of paradise", a more extensive dab page would help to direct readers (and more importantly editors) to the birds that are known by this name or some approximation of it. The requested move is simply to put the dab page at the ambiguous base name, which helps considerably with all future
link disambiguating. --
Una Smith (
talk)
16:16, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Beware of reading too much into the fact that some birds of paradise have the actual phrase in their common name and some do not.
wigeons,
Gadwalls and
teal are still ducks even if the word isn't in their common name,
koels are still cuckoos,
lovebirds are still parrots and
coots and moorhens are still rails. Each family page will have a complete list (unless it is immense); there is no need to point to anything other than the family page on the dab page.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk18:47, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
I understand. The family article does serve to disambiguate the "official" common names of birds known as "bird of paradise". But are there other "bird of paradise" common names in the literature, that a reader may have in mind when coming to Wikipedia? How are those handled? --
Una Smith (
talk)
19:14, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
The only birds that have or had that name would be species formerly considered to be in the Paradisaeidae (the satinbirds and the split out honeyeater). These are also linked in the page
Birds of Paradise (wherever that ends up), but it would not be inappropriate to at least link to the
satinbirds. However there is no need to link to individual species in either families. Actually, the whole
Birds of Paradise page needs something of a clean up to reflect the split out of the satinbirds - they are identified as unique but apparently not placed there in a new family.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk19:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Interesting aside, the earliest mention of bird of paradise in the OED is from 1606 for the bird, whereas the plant (called a bird-of-paradise) isn't used until 1884, which supports the idea the plant was named for the birds.
Sabine's Sunbirdtalk04:16, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Does anyone else see the irony in this request-for-move? Had it been for 'bird', there would have been only one oppose. But the request was for dab, and there are three opposes. --
Fullstop (
talk)
04:28, 27 January 2009 (UTC)reply
Primary references (birds)
Looking at four different field guide bird books, they all refer to the collective of species as Birds of Paradise, and that includes the Rifle bird species. So we have one bird of paradise species, we have Y birds of paradise species. --
billinghurst (
talk)
22:44, 28 January 2009 (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. No further edits should be made to this section.
Fixing incoming links
Fixing incoming links to this dab page requires attention to detail and sometimes also some research. For example, the national bird of Papua New Guinea is not a family of birds, but one particular species. --
Una Smith (
talk)
14:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)reply