Talk:These islands

Page move suggestion

This redirect should be moved to a disambiguation page that points to both the current target as well as the book of the same title found here: Cereal_(magazine)#These_Islands

In fact, it should also point to the dispute named in the edit history of the redirect page as well. No, the naming dispute shouldn't be part of the disambiguation. That was a bad call. Huggums537 (talk) 20:59, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Actually, I think a disambiguation in combination with the redirect might work better than a page move... Huggums537 (talk) 02:51, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

OK, so I'm reading that per WP:ONEOTHER, the only thing that is needed here is a hatnote on the target page leading to the book mentioned above. It appears I finally found the simple solution... Huggums537 (talk) 03:07, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Bsherr, thanks for helping out here. I wonder if we should have a disambiguation page instead? Because, we have These Isles that points to the naming dispute, then we also have "These islands", which could either refer to the actual islands (as the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC) or the book. I guess another option could be to retarget this to point to the primary topic (the actual islands) and create a different redirect that points to the book maybe? I think targeting the actual islands is more sticking to the primary target than pointing to the book. Any helpful ideas? Huggums537 (talk) 10:55, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi Huggums537. I think the reason for all the fireworks on the hatnote is that the wrong hatnote template was used; it should have been Template:Redirect. "These islands", while a discrete term related to the subject, is nonetheless relatively an unlikely search term for someone expecting to arrive at British Isles or even at British Isles naming dispute, in comparison to the book. (I think most of those that insist otherwise are really just making a political point. Wading into the naming dispute a bit, I understand it's practically a synonym to some people, and I mean no disparagement of that view, but no one would expect to see a map labeled that way.) That said, it may be appropriate to put {{For}} at Cereal (magazine)#These Islands with a link to British Isles or British Isles naming dispute.

The alternative, I think, would be a disambiguation page. At British Isles, ""these islands" isn't even mentioned in the lede. It doesn't appear until the "Etymology" section, which is hatnoted with links to three main articles, and it is rarely preferable to redirect to a section that is linked to a main article. British Isles naming dispute or Terminology of the British Isles#British Isles might be appropriate as redirect targets, if hatnoted with {{Redirect}} for the book, but I think this is less preferable. --Bsherr (talk) 15:37, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Bsherr, thanks so much for your insightful input! Speaking as an outsider with no political perspective of my own, I honestly thought the terms were synonymous until your input caused me to do a cursory google search of the term (just for giggles to get an idea what's going on with this outside the world of Wikipedia), and I found out that the book and a song were mostly yielded from the results, so I'm inclined to agree with you about the book being a more relevant search term than I thought.

That being said, I did also find some evidence in the search results that the terms are actually being used synonymously IRL. So, we really now have 3 topics that are relevant search terms, but the song topic doesn't yet exist as an article or subsection here.

I don't want to ruffle any more feathers over at the British Isles page over this. I honestly don't care about the book, song, or whatever dispute they have about the names. I'm just looking for the best results to help readers find whatever they are looking for and you have come up with some good suggestions. So, once again, I do appreciate your help.

Your idea about using the "For" template is a pretty simple and effective one I think. That way, if readers do click on this thinking they were looking for the islands they can still find them. Is it possible to link to both the islands and the dispute using the "For" template in order to cover all bases?

Of course, this does nothing to help readers looking for the song, but maybe that's why the disambig page might come into play... Any other thoughts?

BTW, in regards to your last comment, we have to remember that British Isles naming dispute already has a redirect named These Isles. So, I don't know if that really matters or not. Huggums537 (talk) 17:40, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Is the song to which you refer "These Islands" by Danny Couch? I don't see that we have an article for the song or artist on Wikipedia, correct? From my cursory look, I don't think he or the song will meet the notability guideline, but I might be wrong. If either is notable, a stub should be created, and then we really should be considering a disambiguation page. Otherwise, I agree that Template:For should be implemented at the section about the book. Yes, that template can handle multiple links. However, I'd suggest that a link to the more specific subject, the naming dispute, renders the link to the more general subject unnecessary. That These isles redirects to the naming dispute article only reinforces this, as they would then be consistent. What do you think? --Bsherr (talk) 17:56, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Actually I see that it is These Isles and not These isles that is a redirect. That should probably be addressed too. --Bsherr (talk) 17:57, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that is the song I was talking about. Would we have to have an article about a song for a disambig page to mention a song? I could have sworn that I saw some disambig pages with "no-link" (black text) references in them...

Also, I agree with you the best solution is using the "For" template in the book subsection and pointing to the dispute is fine since readers can somewhat easily find their way to British Isles from the dispute page. I would also like to add at least one link pointing to the British Isles article in the existing hatnote of the dispute page in order to make it even easier for readers to find the general topic.

What should be done about the (These Isles/These isles) thing? Create another redirect for the redlink? Huggums537 (talk) 19:40, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

There's a guideline for red links in disambiguation pages, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Disambiguation pages#Red links, and I don't think this situation would meet it.

We don't usually use a hatnote from a page about a subordinate topic to a page about the more general topic. The reason is the lede usually immediately includes a link to the general topic, rendering the hatnote redundant. (Indeed, we don't have a hatnote template for that.) That seems to be the case here.

Yes, I think These isles should be duplicated from These Isles. --Bsherr (talk) 22:06, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Ok, great. If you don't mind, I would like to attempt to implement the changes myself, as I need the practice. Thanks so much for your help! Huggums537 (talk) 22:55, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

I was hoping you would. Have at it! --Bsherr (talk) 22:56, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Ok, done. That was incredibly simple, and not nearly as daunting as I imagined it would be. You might double check my work to see if I did anything improperly. Thank you once again for your help and for the discussion. Happy belated NEW YEAR! Huggums537 (talk) 23:32, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Huggums537, I'm embarrassed to say you did it exactly as we discussed, and then I saw it on the page and changed my mind. I think it needed to be {{redirect}} instead. Many people are not going to encounter it from being redirected there but from already being at the article and encountering it in that section. Thus Redirect works better to explain it. Let me know what you think. --Bsherr (talk) 23:51, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

I think it's great. I was going to fix it, but saw you took care of it. Thanks. Huggums537 (talk) 02:33, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

On a related note, this brings up the issue of redundancy again, which is interesting because it also just recently came up in a discussion here.

Just as with that conversation, I'm not overly invested how the Cereal article turns out.

I would only like to point out that with our current solution, if a reader arrives at the Cereal article via the redirect by searching the term "these islands" or clicking on These Islands then new statistical data results at the top of the page displaying, "(Redirected from These Islands)".

It might not seem very redundant in our case since the section we are pointing to is so far away from the top of the page, but in normal situations, where redirects point to the actual page itself, the statistical data message and the {{redirect}} template message that reads, ""These Islands" redirects here" would both appear much closer together at the top of the page and create a redundant looking effect. Yes?

I'm not suggesting we should change anything about our solution, because the effect is far less pronounced in our case than it would be in a situation where a normal redirect points to the main article and the template would be at the top of the page under the statistical data message.

I'm merely pointing out the fact that such redundancies naturally occur within our current environment as a byproduct of "helper code" without us even doing anything to create it ourselves.

Since this is true, I think it might be ok if we look at the existing hatnote of the dispute article, which currently reads, "This article is about the disputed use of the English toponym "British Isles" [Emphasis added]

I think it will be an extremely minor change that will be very helpful to readers to make it look like this:

"This article is about the disputed use of the English toponym "British Isles"

Now, there is a link to this already in the lede, but it's mixed in with a bunch of other links and doesn't easily distinguish from the rest of them. This does since it is alone in the tophat. I know that you mentioned something about redundancy before, but as you have seen, redundancy occurs "naturally" anyway. Huggums537 (talk) 10:30, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Bsherr, since I have added the above information, I wonder if it would be beneficial to invite Bagumba and North8000 to this discussion as well since a related topic did come up in the previous conversation... Huggums537 (talk) 18:14, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Regardless of the merits, the guideline WP:RELATED is opposed to this kind of use of hatnotes. Its advice, and mine, is to rewrite the lede to make the link to the British Isles stand out. --Bsherr (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm. I'm not quite sure where you are seeing that WP:RELATED is opposed to that kind of use of hatnotes when the first sentence reads: "Disambiguation hatnotes are intended to link to separate topics that could be referred to by the same title". I realize that doesn't exactly apply in this case, but it appears that there isn't any specific guidance to apply to topics that potentially have two different titles for the same topic, and I think it would make more sense in this case that since we have two titles that could match the same topic, it would be a closer match to the above referenced portion of the guideline and to follow that guidance.

My proposal certainly doesn't link to a specific aspect of a general topic, so that part doesn't apply at all, and the topics become more than just simply related when a significant amount of population view the titles as being synonymous.

I think the argument that the "These Islands" title is more relevant to the book for redirect purposes is just fine, but in the case of my proposal this is moot since the book has nothing to do with the fact that there are a significant amount of people who view the titles as being synonymous enough to justify the acknowledgement of the existence of said two titles...

Does that make any sense? BTW, I do like your suggestion to rewrite the lede and make the link stand out. I'm just offering up some food for thought here... Huggums537 (talk) 19:42, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

I might be confused. I was talking about the hatnote at British Isles naming dispute. Are you talking about the hatnote at Cereal (magazine)#These Islands? --Bsherr (talk) 18:38, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

No, we're "on the same page" in that regard. Lol. I was speaking about the same page you were at least. Anyway, it seems there isn't much interest in discussing the subject from anyone else, so I'm just as happy to drop it... Huggums537 (talk) 22:15, 17 January 2019 (UTC)