Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1979–1983

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Bauhaus 1979–1983. I do not see any policy based reason for deletion on the grounds of "clogging up search results". Nevertheless, I might have closed delete if there were more support for that and search results were actually clogged up. However, the suggested results has only two suggestions other than this article so the three easily fit in the box, and I don't believe that redirects are shown in the full search results (only the target page) SpinningSpark 18:45, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

1979–1983

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This is not a justified DAB page. There is no article that covers this topic. Partial title matches are best found through the search function, and this page interferes with searching. SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:12, 14 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom; not seeing sufficient value in this DAB to make it worth keeping. Gongshow talk 23:59, 14 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Well, there is one article that covers the topic "1979–1983".... Dohn joe (talk) 00:17, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No it doesn't. That article covers a barely notable obscure album with no relevance to what a general audience would expect from the title "1979–1983". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:37, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Who is going to search for it unless they want the album? Do people really type random combinations of years into Wikipedia? - Colapeninsula (talk) 09:40, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. User:SmokeyJoe? --В²C ☎ 16:15, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A search for 1979-1983 yields material in multiple articles. What clairvoyance says that anyone who enters 1979-1983 wants the obscure album previously imprecisely located at this title? Why is this clairvoyance to be considered superior to the Wikipedia search engine (which was substantially upgraded years ago). Note that this article was viewed zero times in ninety days, except for the effect the RM discussion concerning it. Note that it has no meaningful incoming links, virtually no secondary source content, and should probably be merged together with all of Bauhaus' other discography.

In short, the page should be deleted because: (1) it is not a proper DAB page; (2) there is no appropriate redirect target, the one suggested by some will mislead because the target doesn't cover the apparent topic, and the Wikipedia search engine is far superior in ranking likely wanted pages. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:54, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I really didn't plan to respond to every post here, but it has to pointed out that plenty of people visited the album page before the RM. 684 pageviews in March 2014, for example. Dohn joe (talk) 14:23, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. One legit entry doesn't require a dab page. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:55, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:34, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:34, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Disambiguations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:34, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but retarget to Bauhaus 1979–1983. The dab page is not worth keeping, but lots of references to the album (a large majority, in fact) call it 1979–1983:

It's a clearly notable topic. We shouldn't delete this from namespace. Dohn joe (talk) 03:40, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We already established that "1979–1983" is prone to be misrecognized as a reference to the time period, the redirect is more likely to mislead unsuspecting readers, and the search function will better help all readers if there is no such title, DAB or redirect. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:32, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Probably delete, definitely do not retarget - to keep the misleading redirect jamming up search results as requested by User:Dohn joe (on the basis that Bauhaus listings of Bauhaus compilations don't repeat Bauhaus Bauhaus Baushaus in front of every subtitle in the listing) would go against the RM result that this is simply clogging up search functions with a product anyone searching for would search "Bauhaus" not the impossible to remember year period. Redirects are cheap but bad redirects which jam up search aren't helpful. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:17, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep (delete is okay) this WP:Contrived dab page, but remove all partial title match entries from this page, then change it to be a redirect to the only use of this title on Wikipedia: the article currently at Bauhaus 1979–1983. Whether it's kept or deleted, the end result needs to be the redirect (anyone searching with "1979-1983" needs to be taken directly to the article about the album). The reason to keep rather than delete is to retain the history for posterity, to help keep it from being repeated. The main point is this: just say no to disambiguation that is unnecessary to resolve title conflicts. --В²C ☎ 16:11, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I see four albums on the page with names that contain that string. Have we confirmed that there is only one that is ever referred to by it? If there is more than one then I would keep this, and if there are no others, then I would delete this page, since we don't generally have the thousands of possible odd year-range page titles. bd2412 T 16:19, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
My Google Books searches show that the other albums always carry the longer titles. But why delete this page and not redirect it to the only subject actually known as "1979-1983"? Dohn joe (talk) 17:06, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Because as already answered above 07:17, 15 July 2014: a bad redirect disables wikipedia's article search box. Why ask this again at 17:06, 15 July 2014 In ictu oculi (talk) 23:59, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we're all aware that you have made up your mind here, but perhaps User:BD2412 is still open to the possibility that it might be a good idea to have the title of an album actually serve as a link to that album.... Dohn joe (talk) 14:23, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I've made up my mind and your questioned was already answered. Here and in the RM we just had. Repeat "a bad redirect disables wikipedia's article search box" - which was one of the reasons for moving the Bauhaus 1979-1983 album out of the way of search functions. In the RM, which we just had. We don't need to reopen it here. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:28, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I just don't think that it's a term people will naturally search for at all. bd2412 T 02:30, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

What about the ~650 people per month who went to the page pre-RM? Surely some of them got there via searching for the title, no? Dohn joe (talk) 13:49, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Every one of them could have arrived at the page by clicking an incoming link from another page. We have ways to test that, for example by setting up a dummy redirect and routing incoming links through it to see where visitors are coming from, but that hasn't been done here. bd2412 T 14:22, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm a big fan of dummy redirects. How would you suggest we set one up here? Dohn joe (talk) 14:53, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If we were to do that, we would need to keep this page and create a dummy redirect on it (like Bauhaus 1979–1983 (album)) leading to the proposed primary target for the term. However, if the page hits really were coming from incoming links, and those links have now been fixed, then whether we set up a dummy or not, we should see no appreciable change in the number of readers arriving at Bauhaus 1979–1983. bd2412 T 20:20, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Comment. This situation is simple. All but one of the uses that has "1979-1983" in its name is a partial title match. There is no evidence that any of those other uses are ever referenced as just "1979-1983". They don't even belong on the dab page, let alone have a claim on the title.
There is only one use of "1979-1983" as a name. Only one. That means that name/title has a unique use, by definition. So it's not ambiguous, also by definition.
Therefore, having a unique use and being an unambiguous title, 1979-1983 needs to be the title of, or a redirect to, the article about that one unique use. A recent RM resulted in choosing a different title for that article, which leaves us only with the redirect option. There is nothing to debate here about any of this.
The only question here is whether the dab page is to be deleted before it is made into a redirect, or whether it should just be edited to be a redirect. I don't see a good reason to delete. --В²C ☎ 18:18, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I went ahead and removed the partial title matches on the dab page, leaving all but one link, then changed it to a redirect. --В²C ☎ 16:41, 23 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - Properly reverted. The situation is not as nearly as simple as you would like to think. The redirect is inappropriate because the album is not the only possible target, and is not even a significant target. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:21, 23 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    - You wrote above: "There is no article that covers this topic." I presume you meant, "there is no topic to which this term refers". In other words, there is no target for this term, right? In any case, it was your justification for removing this dab page entirely. Now you're saying the album is not the only possible target? Those two positions are contradictory. --В²C ☎ 18:08, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is no article that comprehensively or summarily covers to topic of the timespan 1979-1983. There are multiple unrelated articles that may be relevant. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:46, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't know the meaning or relevance of phrases like "no article that comprehensively or summarily covers to topic" and "multiple unrelated articles that may be relevant" to the issues of deciding primary topics, disambiguation and titling on WP with respect to a given term. I think you're referring to "1979-1983" as a topic when in fact it is a term (and possible title of, or redirect to, an article about one or more topics), and that's confusing.
  We know this: There is one (and only one) article that "comprehensively or summarily covers" a topic commonly referred to as "1979-1983" in reliable sources, and that is relevant to title decision making on WP. --В²C ☎ 23:16, 24 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As a "term", it is best treated as a search query, and the search for this term shouldn't be hijacked by a bad redirect.

No one refers to the album by that term unless already in context. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:56, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No one refers to any other topic by that term in any context. --В²C ☎ 05:48, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The term is used in other contexts. That usage makes it a plausible search term, for other uses.

East Australian drought
First Thatcher ministry
Inter-Dukakis Massachusetts governorship
Other composition titles

Other contexts exist: Australians droughts, Thatcher, Edward King, etc, for which a redirect would interfere with the default search function. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:51, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Doe john makes a good point but I'll agree that this page creates more confusion than it prevents. Anthony Appleyard moved the article from this title to the Bauhaus album article and I'm curious to hear their input on this. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:48, 16 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- The article move is explained at User talk:Anthony Appleyard#1979–1983. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:57, 17 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - That move was justified by the same misguidance that filled this dab page with bogus entries - incorrectly treating partial title matches as ambiguous uses of the name. --В²C ☎ 00:00, 18 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Delete My reading of policy is that this page should be deleted. Although I can't personally see the harm in keeping it. Possibly rearranging it so the album (primary target) is at the top and the rest is below. SPACKlick (talk) 13:10, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete- I simply do not see what all of this debate is about? This certainly should not qualify for a DAB and I fail to see its true worth. There is no legit redirect page leaving only one viable option IMO which is to simply delete.--Canyouhearmenow 17:11, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Canyouhearmenow, why is Bauhaus 1979–1983 not a "legitimate" redirect target for 1979–1983, given that that topic is commonly referred to as 1979–1983 in reliable sources? I mean, 1979-1983 was the original title of that article[1], and remained so for six years. It's currently linked from the dab page, as the only one on there that is not a PTM. Now you say it's not even a legitimate redirect? Why? --В²C ☎ 17:53, 25 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.