Talk:Microbiota decussata

Comments

Microbiota:

The community of microscopic organisms living in a specific environment, such as the human gut or soil.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.158.75.249 (talk • contribs) 14:58, 30 March 2006‎ (UTC)

Requested move 28 April 2014

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. 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: page moved. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:32, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

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Microbiota → Microbiota decussata – The plant genus is not the primary topic. Most of the incoming links to Microbiota intend microbiota (microbiology). Move would free up Microbiota for use as a dab page (or possible new title for Microbiota (microbiology). While articles on monotypic genera are usually at the genus name title rather than binomial, in the case of ambiguity, the binomial name serves as a natural disambiguation Plantdrew (talk) 02:33, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Strong move clearly it is microbiology, not this plant. -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 03:45, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose/question: So you intend to move the content currently at Microbiota to Microbiota decussata, presumably so you can then redirect Microbiota to Microbiome, just as Microbiota (microbiology) currently redirects to Microbiome), is that about right? It's a dubious decision to remove an article from a given namespace to replace it with a redirect to an article that already has a namespace, especially when it means breaking with conventions on how we handle article names in accordance with taxonomy; this article is as much about the genus Microbiota as it is the species Microbiota decussata, even if in practical terms they are one in the same. Now that's not a huge sacrifice and we can make it if there's a good reason and at first I thought your argument clearly had legs, but when I double-checked the what links here, special page for Microbiota, I found that you were mistaken; the majority of the articles and pages linking here are clearly intended to connect to the subject of the plant. So indeed, the provided argument at this point is arguing against the redirect. So you'll have to come up with some reason as to why moving this article out of its namespace -- for a redirect to an article that already has its own locale and other redirects -- that is supported by some sourcing that proves the primacy of the other (microflora-based) use of the word in some definitive way -- or, alternately, some form of traffic data (Wikipedia search data, Google analytics or something) that proves that most people searching or linking to microbiota will be looking first and foremost for microflora, and not for the plant. That is to say, something more substantial than your intuition that this is the case. And for the record, I too would have assumed that most people using this term would be looking for microflora, but we may both be mistaken in that regard, and Wikipedia procedure requires us to have some evidence on the matter, especially when there is some evidence to the contrary. Also worth noting that if we do proceed with a move, all of those pages that link to the coniferous plant will need to be redirected to its new namespace. Snow (talk) 04:53, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

You need to look at incoming links in Article-space, [here]. Links from User pages and Wikipedia pages aren't really relevant (this proposed move itself has created several more incoming links from Wikipedia space). There are 26 Article-space incoming links. 1 is the dab page (which would link to the article on plant no matter what happens with the move). 3 are redirects (which can be sent to the right target regardless of outcome). That leaves 22. 9 of them intend the plant (including one link via redirect). 13 incoming links intend the microbiology term. Plantdrew (talk) 18:02, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, of course you are correct that, for the most part, only article space linking is relevant. However, I count 12 for the plant and 10 for microbiotics as a concept. And we're not talking about a case of articles being considered for the namespace, we're talking about removing an article for a redirect. That particular type of move really requires some considerable evidence that there is procedural advantage to having that redirect. That is to say, that the number of times people will accidentally link to the article on the plant while intending to link to an article on microbes is so overwhelming that we should break with the convention of using the simplest and most common-use term available as the namespace location for any given article (in this case the one on the plant). I just don't see that evidence at present. Though I will grant it's a minor point probably not worth agonizing over, I think it's narrowly advised against, though the G-hits argument by the IP bellow makes me less certain. I'd like to reiterate also that I hope that if this move does gain support, that someone does due diligence in relinking all of those articles, including the ones in user and project spaces. Otherwise the effort to make this change for the sake of keeping things linking appropriately will have automatically and instantly yielded a net disadvantaged in that very vein. Snow (talk) 19:21, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

• Microbiota should link to the microbiology topic. All the first page of G-hits are about microbiology. Interestingly however, about 50% of the top image hits are about the plant (I assume, since they are pictures of some plant). Compromise could be to make microbiota into a disambiguation page. 94.196.232.45 (talk) 10:28, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

We have that already: Microbiota (disambiguation). And we certainly won't be running an article out of a namespace to give it to a redirect to a disambig! :) Snow (talk) 11:49, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

• Support As per the Google hit survey (which I've checked), the primary topic of "macrobiota" outside Wikipedia is microbiology. @Snow Rise: note that WP:FLORA says "if the name of a monotypic taxon is shared with another topic, it is usually more appropriate to use a binomial as a natural disambiguation", so this move isn't breaking conventions on how monotypic taxa are handled, but seems a textbook case of how to do it. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:47, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Correct, but that guideline assumes that we are moving the article to the less simple namespace to make room for another article, not a redirect to an article that already has another (more appropriate) namespace, as is the case here. Snow (talk) 20:06, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

• Strong support. "Microbiota" should link to the microbiology term. Coreyemotela (talk) 12:52, 3 May 2014 (UTC).
• Support per Plantdrew and Peter coxhead; this is precisely the kind of case envisioned by the "if the name of a monotypic taxon is shared with another topic" rule at WP:NCFLORA.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:13, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not meaning to come across as unnecessarily contrarion here, but this policy has been repeatedly misrepresented here. Here is the relevant section in full:

"However, if the name of a monotypic taxon is shared with another topic, it is usually more appropriate to use a binomial as a natural disambiguation rather than creating an article with a parenthetical disambiguating term for the taxon. E.g., Alberta magna is a more natural search term than Alberta (plant genus)."

The policy is meant to set a standard for creating articles titled "Taxon [Plant name]" rather than "[Plant name] (disambiguation)". The section only advises what type of name should be given to an article that has a plant name in the event that it is deemed not to be the primary topic that deserves a given namespace; it says absolutely nothing to suggest that plants can never be considered the main topic at a given namespace. In other words, it tells us, in this case that if we move Microbiota, the plant, from this article namespace, we should move it to Microbiota decussata and not Microbiota (plant species). However it does not tell use that we should make that move to begin with, nor that Microbiota is an inappropriate place for the plant simply because there is another subject that shares the name. People are conflating two separate guidelines into an amalgam that isn't found anywhere in that policy page, nor anywhere else. Please see Wheat as an example of flora which have retained the simple namespace despite the fact that other subjects share the same name. We are still talking about booting an article out of a namespace for the purpose of giving it to a redirect and the redirect still belongs to an article which has not been established as more primary than the one found here, not through sourcing and not through wikilinking. I advise all contributors to re-read WP:NCFLORA carefully, because it does not in any way say what it is being purported to say here. This is not a major article and I'm not going to lose any sleep over the matter if this move proceeds, but I still have to note that if it does proceed and the arguments that have been made so far, it's doing so in the context of poor application of policy. Snow talk 12:47, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. The microbiological term is highly esoteric. The primary meaning is the (very interesting) plant genus. The guidelines clearly allow for this case, and the current situation complies well with them. Andrewa (talk) 07:42, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

I see no problem with things the way they are. The plant page does have a link at the top directing people to the disambiguation page, which in turn will lead to the microbe page. Anyone looking for the microbial page but accidentally finding the plant page will immediately see the photos, think "Wow! That's interesting. And why on Earth would the Soviets do something as loony as keeping a plant species secret for political reasons?" and realize that this is not what s/he was looking for, then click on the link to the disambiguation page.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 11:42, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

That's basically the gist of my thoughts as well. Situations like these are exactly why we have those mechanisms in the first place. It wouldn't hurt to add a common clarifier template reading This article is about the coniferous plant, for discussion of microbiota as a term for microbial life, see Microbiome. Again, not to sound like a broken record, but it's rather non-standard practice to move and article out of a namespace just to give it to a redirect, when we already have abundant mechanisms for redirecting the reader to the appropriate article that exist specifically for this scenario. In any event, I'll add that message to the top of the article now; even if the move does proceed, it can't hurt to have it there in the interregnum period. Snow (talk) 19:59, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Done. For the sake of completeness, I've left a link to the disambiguation page, even though at present only the plant and the microbiology term are listed there. Snow (talk) 20:15, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

It is not nonstandard practice, it is the application of primary topic. Many articles are moved and a redirect is pointed to a different article when the primary topic is determined to be a subject at a different article name because the most common name is not the name at the redirect. Primary topic and common name are different policies. It does not mean that because no article occupies a given name that any article can take it. This is why we have {{redirect}} which says "X redirects here. For other uses, see X (disambiguation)" -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 07:51, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, perhaps many in terms of sheer numbers, but not so many relative to the number of cases of convergent terminology. In my experience at least, handing an article space to a redirect is typically avoided if an article has a strong common name claim to that space. And you are quite right to point out the distinction between primary topic and common name, but I think that both the general common name guideline and the specific provisions of WP:FLORA state that the common name should be used unless there is a conflict with another article for that space, which there is not in this case. Snow talk 09:11, 8 May 2014 (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.

Requested move 27 January 2015

See also Talk:Microbiota (disambiguation). Kevo Strevin (talk) 20:47, 12 March 2015 (UTC).