Talk:The Signpost: Difference between revisions

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: pages moved. Wikipedia:Navel-gazing is just an essay, and the opinion of the essay writers is that "calling out a topic as navel-gazing should be an argument to avoid..." I tend to agree, and think that we are sometimes too hesitant to write about notable Wikipedia-related topics. It seems to me that "navel-gazing" sentiments have led some to recently add additional topics to the disambiguation page, which didn't stick because Wikipedia has no articles, or even passing mentions, of them. But, regardless, opinions based on essays are given less weight in move discussions than policy- and guideline-based opinions. In that regard, I find the opinions of Cúchullain and Amakuru compelling. Those who see no evidence of a primary topic have not presented evidence of competing topics of sufficient weight to contend. Perhaps you should first write the articles about the other Signpost-titled publications, and then revisit this. The 1944 novel doesn't seem to be a strong contender, but the short stub about it doesn't discuss the novel's popularity or cultural impact. "The" is sufficient disambiguation from the posts that hold up traffic signs (we don't actually have an article about the posts themselves). wbm1058 (talk) 05:25, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• The Signpost (Wikipedia) → The Signpost
• The Signpost → The Signpost (disambiguation)

– This is effectively the only topic named "The Signpost" with an article on Wikipedia. The Weber State University student newspaper just redirects to the university itself. And even if The Signpost (Weber State University) meets GNG, the Wikipedia newsletter is likely to be the primary topic. sst✈ 06:15, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose SSTflyer (talk · contribs) you have been asked several times by more than one editor please not to place RMs using the argument "only topic with an article on Wikipedia" - please see WP:DISAMBIGUATION and WP:CRITERIA, thank you. There seem to me to be too many journals called The Signpost to justify this. And it makes Wikipedia look a bit self-centric. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:35, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Support: In ictu oculi, in SST's defense for this particular topic, The Signpost (Weber State University) redirects to Weber State University, so ... I don't see why this move shouldn't be made. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 08:38, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge The Signpost to Signpost (disambiguation) per WP:DPAGE. When I do a Google search of the phrase "The Signpost", I get no overwhelming results toward any topic, and instead a mixture of items also pertaining to just the "signpost" search term. Thus I do not see any primary usage or primary long-term significance of that particular search term. Zzyzx11 (talk) 09:25, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, support merge. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:32, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I still support the page move recommended by SSTflyer, above, but separately I also support merge of The Signpost to Signpost (disambiguation), so as to have one disambig page for the other terms in one centralized location — they can still be under the subheading The Signpost, there at that other page. I see none of the other publications mentioned at The Signpost have any existing Wikipedia articles at this present time. — Cirt (talk) 01:59, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, essentially agree with comments by The ed17 (talk · contribs), above. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 11:04, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak oppose Eh. I'm kind of against plain titles for generic words unless there is overwhelming evidence they are the obvious and most widely-used subject the words refer to, and I'm not seeing that here. Taylor Trescott - ^{my talk} + _{my edits} 15:52, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nom and Ed. Calidum ¤ 02:33, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong oppose The Signpost (E. Arnot Robertson novel) is not a redirect. And we should not navelgaze upon Wikipedia thinking all things Wikipedia -- 70.51.46.39 (talk) 05:51, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. There are other names with Signpost. There is a reason there is a Signpost (disambiguation) page. QuackGuru (talk) 18:29, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support merge of the disambiguation page for same topic. QuackGuru (talk) 18:56, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Support merge of the separate disambiguation pages at Signpost (disambiguation) and The Signpost. No opinion on the other proposed move. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:42, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose move, because it would make Wikipedia appear to be navelgazing, and perhaps to make it appear Wikipedia is claiming that The Signpost is an original title, while I believe it is not in fact. About navel-gazing, see recent AFD on The Signpost (Wikipedia). Merging the two disambiguation pages makes sense though. --doncram 19:21, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: "The Signpost" as poetry title: An over-looked usage of the term "The Signpost" is "The Sign-post", 1917 poem by Edward Thomas (poet), who himself died in 1917 in World War I's Battle of Arras, whose writings are known for having a war theme, though usually not explicit. I just added it to The Signpost dab page. In the grand sweep of things, historically, like for all those affected by The Great War, it may well be a far more important usage of the term. I would prefer to avoid appearance of arrogance by Wikipedia about its newsletter. And I am not convinced that the Wikipedia newsletter is the most common / most significant. I rather think there is no overwhelmingly common usage, and "The Signpost" should be a disambiguation page. --doncram 19:37, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't claim for sure that this (Edward Thomas's poem) is about war; IANAP. It seems important as a poem as it is discussed in literary criticism...run Google Scholar to find some instances...one out-of-context discussion is: "This effect is carried furthest in 'The Signpost', a poem which develops into a (slightly clumsy) dialogue between two voices. Here the use of significant details is at its most explicit: ... In Thomas's finest poems, however, the method is very much less explicit. ..", from essay "Keats and Edward Thomas" by J. Burrow, in Essays in Criticism, Oxford University Press, 1957. It is compared to Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken in this blog and elsewhere. And there exist cheat notes about it, as apparently it is studied in school, I gather from enotes excerpt (which says one theme is life and death). Listen to it at Youtube, read by a Jonathan Jones. --doncram 19:56, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• And "The Signpost" is the title of a poem by composer Schubert; the poem is included and discussed in this Google book, Schubert's Winterreise: A Winter Journey in Poetry, Image, & Song by Wilhelm Müller, Franz Schubert, Louise McClelland Urban, John Harbison, Susan Youens, Katrin Talbot. I imagine it may be a title used by other poets, also, in English, or as "Der Wegweiser" in German, or French ("Le panneau"?), etc. --doncram 20:19, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• "The Signpost" is a poem by American poet Robinson Jeffers, which can be read here at poemhunter.com.
• There's a "List of Signpost Poems", determined to be "signpost poems" by their authors. Some but not all use the term signpost or imagery of a signpost, I gather. --doncram 20:31, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Update: There being no objections, I've merged the two disambiguation pages to Signpost (disambiguation). As for this location of this particular article page, there does not seem to be consensus to move this page from its present location title of The Signpost (Wikipedia), at this time. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 21:17, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - I very nearly closed this as "moved" just now. I think maybe I could have done, because the oppose votes are almost all along the lines of "we don't want to be navel gazing", and I know of no policy or guideline that makes that a valid argument. If the topic is notable (and recent AfD result suggests it is), then we should treat it the same way as any other article. I won't close it though, because I'm not an admin, and it might be seen as contentious. I would encourage whoever closes this to think carefully whether the "navel gazing" comments are valid. As I'm not closing, I will therefore add in my !vote; as I can see this *is* the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC per comments made above. The only other contenders are somewhat obscure university publications, which have less coverage in independent sources than our own "The Signpost" does. I also think it's sufficiently differentiated from all other contenders at Signpost (disambiguation) by WP:SMALLDETAILS and WP:THE and that sort of thing. All in all, I see no reason not to make this move. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 11:36, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. I've cleaned up the dab page per MOS:DAB and found that many of the entries aren't discussed anywhere on Wikipedia. We only cover three topics called "The Signpost": this, The Signpost (Robertson novel), and The Signpost (Weber State University), which has no article, but is mentioned (though not sourced) at the school's page. By the page views, the Wikipedia article dominates: since its creation less than a month ago, it's been viewed 4,572 times, meaning it's received 98.4% of all views for these topics in the last 30 days. The redirect/former dab page The Signpost has been viewed 359 times in that amount of time, meaning that even if every one of the readers looking for the novel (15 views) or the student paper (57 views) got there through the link The Signpost, the vast majority of traffic still intended the Wikipedia Signpost (or other uses we don't actually cover, which is a moot point). Trying to cut down on Wikipedia navel-gazing is laudable, but in this case there just aren't many ambiguous topics, and this one is clearly much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined.---Cúchullain ^t/c 17:14, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • That does not take into account the fact that those large amount of views come from the fact that it was on the main page in DYK. The other non-DYK days, the page views don't appear to be fantastic or anything, certainly less than what you are describing. Nohomersryan (talk) 20:14, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the stats for every day, the Wikipedia Signpost virtually always has many times the hits of the other "The Signposts".--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:18, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. There is no evidence of a primary topic here from my pov. The hits aren't whopping excluding the main page spike, and the term is used for things like Signpost (company) too. I believe that this discussion and other links are even inflating the non DYK view days a bit, so I imagine the views aren't even as good as they seem now. Nohomersryan (talk) 20:14, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. No primary topic except a signpost. A definite article is not sufficient disambiguation. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:11, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  The definite article is frequently used on Wikipedia as a perfectly valid disambiguator, per WP:SMALLDETAILS. The question is always whether the title in question would plausibly be typed into the search box when looking for a particular page. In the case of a user looking for the signpost article, I think it highly implausible that a user would type "The Signpost" or "the signpost". For other examples of this, see The Office (does not redirect to Office), and The Independent (does not redirect to Independent). Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 15:30, 7 April 2016 (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.