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The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. 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.
Comment: "Southwest Museum of the American Indian" seems to be the name the Autry National Center itself uses. It's what appears over the entrance in the image at the top of
this page, for instance.
Deor (
talk)
13:32, 3 October 2011 (UTC)reply
I was just pointing out that the current title of the article reflects the current name of the museum. Apparently, its name was just "Southwest Museum" before it was absorbed into the Autry National Center, but now it's "Southwest Museum of the American Indian", as stated in the last sentence of the first paragraph
here. Whichever title is decided on, the text of the article should probably make this clearer.
Deor (
talk)
18:55, 3 October 2011 (UTC)reply
Oppose. So far it appears that Deor has a good point. In any case, there is more to WP:COMMONNAME than is suggested above, including reference there to the five questions further up the page at WP:TITLE. One of those deals with precision, on which "Southwest Museum" fails as a title: other Southwest Museums include those of photography; of engineering, communications and computation; and of clocks and watches. If the one concerned with the American Indian is the most famous, or the most represented on the web, or the most politically supportable, those attributes are of little use to enquirers who have encountered "Southwest Museum" somewhere and want more information. They are not helped by the impression that there is only one that bears the name, simply because some people speak of it all the time and therefore shorten the name: people who in all likelihood neither know nor care about any other referents of the term they use among themselves so successfully. "Southwest Museum of the American Indian" appears to meet the requirements of all five questions pretty well. NoeticaTea?06:31, 4 October 2011 (UTC)reply
Nope, that's not right. For starters, you can't really count the other Southwest Museums because they don't have articles on this Wikipedia. The only other Wikipedia article with "Southwest Museum" in this title is the light rail station that serves this museum. And how can you say it meets all the requirments of the title when it fails WP:COMMONNAME by having four extra words it doesn't need? Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈15:05, 4 October 2011 (UTC)reply
On the contrary, yep. There is no reason to exclude evidence from the wide world when investigating usage in the wide world. We often need to do that, to settle whether a term is naturally received as generic or uniquely identifying. It would be pretty incestuous only to use the evidence of current Wikipedia articles. And circular. What's more, current titles of other articles do have the components southwestern and museum, but they have other components also, as the present article should continue to have:
Locals might abbreviate either of these to "Southwest Museum"; but their doing so would not be something for Wikipedia to act on – in a pretence of uniqueness, and a subversion of authentic generality. So with
Southwest Museum of the American Indian.
The article
Southwest Museum (Los Angeles Metro station) is well named, since its meaning is immediately clear and it is based plainly on the only official name relevant to the topic. Do we say that it has "too many words", and therefore fails WP:COMMONNAME? Of course we don't, even if some would argue that "Southwest Museum Station" or "Southwest Museum Metro Station" is sufficient – and that's what they call it.
Finally, you write: "... how can you say it meets all the requirments of the title when it fails WP:COMMONNAME by having four extra words it doesn't need?" That is plain
question-begging, and gives additional evidence of a tendency to circular reasoning, nothing more. The very issue here is whether those four words are needed.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Museums, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
museums 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.MuseumsWikipedia:WikiProject MuseumsTemplate:WikiProject MuseumsMuseums articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject California, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the
U.S. state of California 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.CaliforniaWikipedia:WikiProject CaliforniaTemplate:WikiProject CaliforniaCalifornia articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject National Register of Historic Places, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of U.S.
historic sites listed on the
National Register of Historic Places 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.National Register of Historic PlacesWikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic PlacesTemplate:WikiProject National Register of Historic PlacesNational Register of Historic Places articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Native Americans,
Indigenous peoples in Canada, and related
indigenous peoples of North America 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.Indigenous peoples of North AmericaWikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North AmericaTemplate:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North AmericaIndigenous peoples of North America articles
The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. 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.
Comment: "Southwest Museum of the American Indian" seems to be the name the Autry National Center itself uses. It's what appears over the entrance in the image at the top of
this page, for instance.
Deor (
talk)
13:32, 3 October 2011 (UTC)reply
I was just pointing out that the current title of the article reflects the current name of the museum. Apparently, its name was just "Southwest Museum" before it was absorbed into the Autry National Center, but now it's "Southwest Museum of the American Indian", as stated in the last sentence of the first paragraph
here. Whichever title is decided on, the text of the article should probably make this clearer.
Deor (
talk)
18:55, 3 October 2011 (UTC)reply
Oppose. So far it appears that Deor has a good point. In any case, there is more to WP:COMMONNAME than is suggested above, including reference there to the five questions further up the page at WP:TITLE. One of those deals with precision, on which "Southwest Museum" fails as a title: other Southwest Museums include those of photography; of engineering, communications and computation; and of clocks and watches. If the one concerned with the American Indian is the most famous, or the most represented on the web, or the most politically supportable, those attributes are of little use to enquirers who have encountered "Southwest Museum" somewhere and want more information. They are not helped by the impression that there is only one that bears the name, simply because some people speak of it all the time and therefore shorten the name: people who in all likelihood neither know nor care about any other referents of the term they use among themselves so successfully. "Southwest Museum of the American Indian" appears to meet the requirements of all five questions pretty well. NoeticaTea?06:31, 4 October 2011 (UTC)reply
Nope, that's not right. For starters, you can't really count the other Southwest Museums because they don't have articles on this Wikipedia. The only other Wikipedia article with "Southwest Museum" in this title is the light rail station that serves this museum. And how can you say it meets all the requirments of the title when it fails WP:COMMONNAME by having four extra words it doesn't need? Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈15:05, 4 October 2011 (UTC)reply
On the contrary, yep. There is no reason to exclude evidence from the wide world when investigating usage in the wide world. We often need to do that, to settle whether a term is naturally received as generic or uniquely identifying. It would be pretty incestuous only to use the evidence of current Wikipedia articles. And circular. What's more, current titles of other articles do have the components southwestern and museum, but they have other components also, as the present article should continue to have:
Locals might abbreviate either of these to "Southwest Museum"; but their doing so would not be something for Wikipedia to act on – in a pretence of uniqueness, and a subversion of authentic generality. So with
Southwest Museum of the American Indian.
The article
Southwest Museum (Los Angeles Metro station) is well named, since its meaning is immediately clear and it is based plainly on the only official name relevant to the topic. Do we say that it has "too many words", and therefore fails WP:COMMONNAME? Of course we don't, even if some would argue that "Southwest Museum Station" or "Southwest Museum Metro Station" is sufficient – and that's what they call it.
Finally, you write: "... how can you say it meets all the requirments of the title when it fails WP:COMMONNAME by having four extra words it doesn't need?" That is plain
question-begging, and gives additional evidence of a tendency to circular reasoning, nothing more. The very issue here is whether those four words are needed.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. 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.