Talk:Hustler Magazine v. Falwell

FA-Class U.S. Supreme Court articles

From Category:FA-Class U.S. Supreme Court articles:

1. Afroyim v. Rusk
2. Ex parte Crow Dog
3. Menominee Tribe v. United States
4. Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
5. United States v. Lara
6. United States v. Wong Kim Ark
7. Washington v. Texas

These might be good models for a quality improvement project for this article. — Cirt (talk) 22:34, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 8 February 2015

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: moved. Clear support for moving the article to the commonname title. Concerns were raised that this violated MOS:LEGAL#Article titles, but it was also argued that it may not, given the Bluebook notes cited by bd2412. Number 57 15:02, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

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Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell → Hustler Magazine v. Falwell – Location of this page should be at name Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, without the "inc" in the title. This is as per both WP:COMMONNAME and per authoritative source Oyez Project of the Chicago-Kent College of Law here http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1987/1987_86_1278 which uses this simple title. — Cirt (talk) 12:37, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

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• Support move back to Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, per both WP:COMMONNAME and per authoritative source Oyez Project of the Chicago-Kent College of Law here http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1987/1987_86_1278 which uses this simple title. Confused as to why it was moved in the first place after being at this prior title for years. Not sure why there was zero discussion before the move. — Cirt (talk) 12:37, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
• @Good Olfactory: (the editor who moved it to the current title) postdlf (talk) 15:01, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
• This was one of a series of pages moved to match its Bluebook title, per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Legal#Article titles. I can see how exceptions might be made for a title that was very well known under a very different form, but I am not seeing that situation here. bd2412 T 15:27, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Yes, it is more well known under its prior form before being moved, as Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, without the "inc" in the title. See also here at William & Mary Law Review. — Cirt (talk) 15:33, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
    • Support. On further review, the Bluebook states that "business firm designations" (terms like Inc., Ltd., and Co.) can be omitted "if the name of the business could not possibly be mistaken for the name of some other entity, such as a natural person". Bluebook, 19th Ed., p. 93. The previous page gives as an example "Miami Herald v. Sercus"; I don't think anyone is more likely to mistake "Hustler Magazine" as a personal name than "Miami Herald"; therefore, the Bluebook would allow omission of "Inc." in this case. bd2412 T 16:23, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
      • Thank you, and agree with your rationale. — Cirt (talk) 16:30, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
        • Makes sense to me. postdlf (talk) 23:36, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Supreme Court of the United States uses title on its header pages: Hustler Magazine v. Falwell

• Note: See also more succinct version, Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, chosen by the Supreme Court of the United States, as the title on each of its page headers at the top of the page in its published opinion in the case. This should be the title of this wiki article. Thank you, — Cirt (talk) 15:49, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
• Comment: per BD2412 above, the Bluebook doesn't seem to follow its own ambiguous prescription in Rule 10.2.1(h) (p. 93), so our default preference for brevity should probably win out. (And all I've learned about Rule 10.2.1(h) in law school is that whichever way I do it, some ostensibly knowledgeable person will tell me I'm wrong.) OTOH, if we were following ALWD (5th ed., which is now basically just a recapitulation of Bluebook), there would be no ambiguity since ALWD Rule 12.2(e)(1) (p. 65) is written much more clearly, and allows removing the "Inc." only if it is preceded by another corporate identifier such as "Co." In any case, naming issues are why God made redirects. -- Visviva (talk) 17:06, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support - I'm sorry for sounding harsh, but what an idiotic move to begin with. I'm usually in favor of specificity, but a redirect at most should have been created for the alternate name, not this. --Scalhotrod (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 01:38, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support A very sensible move. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:25, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
• Comment FYI user:Good Olfactory has also moved Microsoft v. Internal Revenue Service. Ottawahitech (talk) 01:52, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

  I consider this a separate question. bd2412 T 02:05, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

• @BD2412: does this mean that a separate move has to be initiated for each of the hundreds of similar moves performed by I user:Good Olfactory around the same time? Ottawahitech (talk) 02:07, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

• @Ottawahitech:, no, it merely means that titles for which the argument is the same should be grouped together. If there are a dozen titles for which it can be argued that the Bluebook would exclude the corporate identifier, then by all means initiate a collective move discussion for each. If there are dozens for which the Bluebook would clearly require this, but you believe we should not be using the Bluebook as a guide, group those together as well. bd2412 T 14:46, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

• Support - that's what the Supreme Court called it, so I think it does not need the Inc. It's not like there were unincorporated businesses or private people called Hustler Magazine in lawsuits against someone named Falwell. Wikimandia (talk) 05:09, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
• Weak oppose (and underhanded support) MOS:LEGAL#Article titles overrules WP:COMMONNAME per WP:MOSAT. WP:COMMONNAME simply has no more relevance outside this MOS. (I wont go into WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISION, which depends on how you interpret "general principles for titling".) The argument that "the business could not possibly be mistaken for the name of some other entity" is unavailing; if people can mistake Microsoft the company for Microsoft Windows the product of the company (or better yet Microsoft the nonexistent product of the company), then they can more easily mistake Hustler Magazine the company with Hustler Magazine the magazine. (A magazine is more of an "entity" than the social construct that is a company, and the additional "such as" only gives but one example.) This MOS is poorly developed and reflective of a myopic loyalty to an archaic pedagogy and will only hurt Wikipedia, but until that MOS is removed we should hurt Wikipedia in an orderly and timely fashion. Apparently, legal folks make for horrible writers, which is only made worse by their penchant for political processes such as voting for obscure MOS discussions. I'm hoping this makes people aware of how ugly this naming style can be. If this is a opening salvo towards removing MOS:LEGAL#Article titles, then I support it. Int21h (talk) 05:50, 13 February 2015 (UTC) Int21h (talk) 06:36, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Doesn't that suppose that the title including "Inc." is correct under MOS:LEGAL#Article titles? I have argued that it is not. bd2412 T 14:42, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
    • I think that question turns on whether or not the Microsoft article title should include "Corp." (and of course whether or not the MOS still stands as consensus.) If the Microsoft article should include the "Corp." because of the MOS then this article should include the "Inc.". All in all, this is part of a larger question of consensus that in my opinion is nowhere near sufficiently developed for a MOS. I maintain that there is no consensus that supports the MOS, therefore the MOS is invalid, therefore WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRECISION and WP:CONCISE all support the simpler form without the "Inc.". I also think that a resulting decision here to not include the "Inc." proves just that: the MOS has no consensus. Also, ignoring the Microsoft discussion here just avoids participation in the consensus building process (and should be ignored when considering what the consensus is). I say all this because I sense that editors are trying to disconnect this discussion from the larger debate, and therefore avoid having the result of this (in the event that "Inc." is removed) adversely effect both the MOS and Microsoft decisions on what the consensus is. Which, in some weird way, means that the resulting decision is somehow dependent on the resulting decision? (Is there a term for this?) Int21h (talk) 01:43, 14 February 2015 (UTC) Int21h (talk) 02:00, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

In both cases, this and the Microsoft one, the titles were changed to ADD business designations such as Inc. or Corp. The policy that user:Good Olfactory cites, Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Legal#Article_titles does not support or advocate this kind of change, it simply allows for the use of abbreviated terms, Inc. instead of Incorporated. Again, a redirect would have sufficed in this instance where the business designation was purposely added. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎Scalhotrod (talk • contribs)

You're wrong in the general but right in this case. That MOS section expressly references the Bluebook, which does have rules on when or when not to omit corporate designations, not merely on when or how to abbreviate. As BD2412 notes above, this particular article is a good example of when Inc. could have been omitted, also according to Bluebook rules. postdlf (talk) 18:31, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough, I commented from the position that WP has its own policy that may or may not be based on other works such as Bluebook. I did not take Bluebook rules to be the overriding standard. The addition of "normally" in the description, "Bluebook format, normally", seems to indicate that the use of Bluebook is a guideline or suggestion when creating articles. We seem to be discussing "fixes" to problems that no seems to agree actually exist. --Scalhotrod (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 19:28, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, if we're going to make that argument all of the MOS is actually "just" a guideline, not just the recommendation of Bluebook format. I think it depends on the particular article whether it's worth going out of our way to move it rather than just create a redirect (I am glad GO did this move, for example), but I do think the general rule is a good one that we include the corporate designation when it's confusing without it or otherwise not clear what kind of entity the party is. When I start a SCOTUS article, I always just use the short title they give it (in both their term list and in the header of the opinion itself). postdlf (talk) 20:02, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not disagreeing with you, I was just explaining the basis for my analysis. And I agree that the Feist v. Rural Telephone move was a good one. In that case the specificity made a lot of sense as does having the redirect it created for the benefit of the average Reader. I've tried to make similar moves to more specific titles in the past only to run into opposition citing Disam policy and others. --Scalhotrod (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 20:16, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

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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.

Opinion Image

I find it a little confusing that the file of the response tot he Court appears at the top of the article. I think it would make more sense later in the article. It appears as if it were the decision of the court, it couldn’t be more not that. Robert Beck (talk) 21:45, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I don’t see why that image should be in the article at all, there’s no context for it and to display the full letter of some random person who criticized the decision seems completely WP:UNDUE to me. postdlf (talk) 02:19, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I've removed the image from the article completely; I've also listed it for deletion at Commons as it is not the work of a government employee just because it's included in a government collection, so I see no reason it would be public domain. postdlf (talk) 20:41, 3 May 2019 (UTC)