Talk:Gas Light

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: revert the page to the stable title,

• Support, per nom, and per the opening image on the page. The single-name should of course still redirect here. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:53, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• This RM was started two days after the long-term title was changed without an RM discussion, so for the purposes of the RM the name should be reverted to Gas Light, and if no consensus is reached the long-term name would still apply. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:47, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. The play currently has the title and is known generally as Gaslight, as shown by French's acting edition and the fact that all three movie adaptations use that spelling. I don't regard the stylistic decision to put "Gaslight" on two lines as necessarily indicative of the desired spelling, although I recognize that the play was sometimes called Gas Light in its early days, and apparently is occasionally even called that today, per WFinch's link. However, even if the original title were determinative, early spellings have it as one word as well as two. For example, it is spelled Gaslight in the London Times on Nov. 28, 1938 (quoted above); in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on Aug. 20, 1939 ("John Wildberg has arranged with Fred Ellis and Hope Lawder to present Patrick Hamilton's thriller "Gaslight," for the first time in America at the Spa Theatre, Saratoga, opening there on Tuesday evening."); in the Sydney Morning Herald on Dec. 18, 1939 (review of the Sydney production, spelled "Gaslight" throughout); in the Irish Times on Mar. 12, 1940 (review of a production at the Gaiety Theatre, presumably the one in Dublin, spelled "Gaslight" throughout); and in the New York Times on Dec. 5, 1941 (review of Angel Street; "Formerly known as "Gaslight" and "5 Chelsea Lane," the play opened under the former title in London two years ago."). John M Baker (talk) 01:56, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• The play named Gas Light opened in England in 1938, moved to America under the name Angel Street, and then a few years later opened again in America. Then, in 2007, nearly 70 years after it had been written, presented, and acted as Gas Light, it again opened in London and, for the first time, used the by-then better known one-word title. But the original and long-standing name of the play in an encyclopedia, Gas Light, should probably not be changed just because the better-known film adaptations used the single-word and not the original title. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:04, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• By no means did it take until 2007 for the play to be called Gaslight. For example, the 1939 Sydney production clearly was advertised and reviewed with a one-word title. In any case, since we are writing in 2018 and not 1938, shouldn't we use the name by which it is currently known? John M Baker (talk) 15:01, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• The nomination includes a link to the 2017 production of Gas Light. The play is not currently known as two words, the films are. Conflating the two doesn't seem encyclopedic. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:38, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• While a rename discussion is still ongoing, why have you begun edit-warring to rename it across a number of articles already? Is a block needed here? Andy Dingley (talk) 08:27, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• No war is in progress, all is peaceful. I changed back a few links because of
  WP:RMUM, and a couple of others because the author did not write a play named Gaslight, his play was named Gas Light. A block is certainly needed. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:35, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Oppose per the rename request to Gaslight which has been open here for a year and a half. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:18, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• That non-RM discussion uses the better-known film titles as a reason to change the original name of the play. As mentioned in the nomination, just last year, 2017, a production used the original name. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:41, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Here's the most recent professional production, albeit touring – first link and second link, same show. In this day and age, when Google clearly shows a popular title just by typing in a name, and when an encyclopedia of yesterday shows otherwise an original longstanding title popular back in the past, does one label an article of how it was back then, or how it is now? The ownership group and licence/license holders suggest otherwise. I'm not voting, but fair is fair. Best, --Discographer (talk) 18:20, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• The guidance at
  WP:NAME seems relevant: "Sometimes, the subject of an article will undergo a change of name. When this occurs, we give extra weight to reliable sources written after the name change is announced. If the reliable sources written after the change is announced routinely use the new name, Wikipedia should follow suit and change relevant titles to match. If, on the other hand, reliable sources written after the name change is announced continue to use the established name, Wikipedia should continue to do so as well, as described above in "Use commonly recognizable names"." John M Baker (talk) 21:28, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• The play was produced by Whittier College in 2017 as Gas Light. The plays name and sources, given this performance and even with the London performance in 2017 using one word, are not consistent with the one-word titling, and the page should retain the original name. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:25, 6 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Support for procedural reasons (i.e. per
  WP:RMUM). This page was controversially moved a few days ago without discussion. The onus should be on those favouring "Gaslight" to make a case for this new title. —  AjaxSmack  02:12, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• I would like to point out that this was originally seen as a noncontroversial change. There appeared to be no evidence supporting the two-word title, and a suggestion that a name change was appropriate had been made on the talk page for over a year, with no sign of opposition. Under the circumstances,
  WP:RMUM appeared to indicate that a name change without further discussion was appropriate. John M Baker (talk) 15:04, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply
  ]

Exactly, to both comments. Upon reading the discussion it seems to me that it was a misunderstanding. It was maybe done too quickly on all sides, because I think the initial editors felt the title Gas Light was a mistake and that there was no controversy in moving it. There was even surprise that the spelling mistake could have lasted for so long. The key point where it should have been moved back to Gas Light was when

WP:RMUM kicked in, not before. WFinch opened a good faith RM quite a few hours later, although it seems like maybe it would have been talked out in a day or two to address the WP:RUM issue (as well as the WP:RMUM issue). Or an administrator could have been asked for the roll back. This would have negated the need for this RM, although I'm unsure if the opposing editors would have then opened one or just let it be. That's just a quick analysis of the initial move discussion, from a couple points of view. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:58, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply

]

• Move back to
  WP:NATURAL. If the play is known as both Gas Light and Gaslight, "Gas Light" should be preferred as the article title because it does not require any artificial parenthetical disambiguation; there is no other article using that title, while there are several using "Gaslight". Station1 (talk) 06:09, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Move back to Gas Light per above. -- Netoholic @ 20:44, 7 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]