Talk:Rudolf Wanderone

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: not moved. This discussion raised of a fictional character and a real-life person of the same occupation named after that character raised a set of complex issues. Good cases were made for and against the proposal, but there is a consensus to reject this particular proposal. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:50, 9 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Rudolf Wanderone → Minnesota Fats
• Minnesota Fats → Minnesota Fats (character)

–

Even the New York Times obit has "Minnesota Fats", not "Rudolf Wanderone", in the title. The book used as a reference in the article says "Minnesota Fats", not "Rudolf Wanderone". It's clear that "Minnesota Fats" is by far the most common name (

This move was previously discussed in 2008 with a result of "no consensus". I think

• Oppose: Oppose move of this article, but support move of fictional character: The suggestion to have this bio article be at
  WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and Minnesota Fats
  clearly should be a disambiguation page, as it long was. Reasons why nomination of move of this article is flawed or misleading:
  1. The previous RM closed with no consensus to move and the AfD closed with a clear consensus against nominator (whose idea would have also resulted in renaming this article to Minnesota Fats, by wrongly merging the fictional character into the bio). I.e., there is definitely no lack of consensus against moving this bio to the nickname title.
  2. "Minnesota Fats" means two things to innumerable people (and it has a lot to do with how much they read and how old they are). One clearly preceded and inspired the other, but neither is magically "more notable". One is better known in literary and film circles, one in sports entertainment circles, and both are equally known in pool circles. There is clearly no PRIMARYTOPIC at all in this case, any more than there is for The Hustler (
     the film
     are both notable and well-known, as is the case with both the character and Wanderone).
  3. PRIMARYTOPIC at
     WP:AT
     is not an "honor", it's a navigation aid for readers; nominator is misunderstanding what AT's purpose is.
  4. "Pop culture" does not determine PRIMARYTOPIC anyway; reliable sources that pertain to the field in question are much more important in this analysis than popular parlance, and they consistently distinguish very carefully between Wanderone, by his real name even when they also include his nickname, and the fictional character.
  5. Other parts of policy at WP:AT contradict this bio move idea in clear terms, namely at
     WP:COMMONNAME
     : "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources. Neutrality is also considered.... When there are multiple names for a subject, all of them fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others." Wanderone is more than "fairly" common in reliable sources, virtually all of which note the ambiguity of the nickname and unreliability of Wanderone's claims. (I.e. the amiguity and reliability are themselves reliably sourced!)
  6. There is also the serious problem that Wanderone consistently "gamed" the press, and convinced many people to repeat his assertion that Tevis's character was based on him, but his idea has been soundly disproved. Normally-reliable sources uncritically repeating it doesn't make the claim reliable. Wikipedia does not include in its mandate the intentional promotion of misleading claims.
  7. Obituaries are not categorically reliable sources; they are usually written by family members, and even when they are not, they are editorial in nature, and do not represent researched and agreed-upon facts, but an individual writer's opinion, and are almost universally intended to be flattering to the subject. The obit that nominator cites is clearly based in large part on information from the family.
  8. The NYT obit that nominator cites actually refers to him as Rudolf Wanderone anyway (as I've noted before), using "Minnesota Fats" only as a headline, but carefully noting that the biographical and fictional figures were distinct; headlines by their nature are incomplete, often intended to be controversial or confusing, and are not evidentiary of anything. This particular obituary is almost more about the the Wanderone/Tevis dispute over the name "Minnesota Fats" than about Wanderone himself, and thus actually supports the opposite of nominator's wishes here.
  9. The analogy to Lady Gaga, Magic Johnson and Kid Rock is a failure; those cases are sharply dissimilar to this one, as none of them borrowed/stole the name of an already independently notable fictional character. The argument nominator is making is like as asking for Kid Rock to be moved to Harry Potter over the name of the fictional character if Robert Ritchie should start using that as his professional alias instead of Kid Rock. Note that Wanderone himself professionally used more than one alias; "Minnesota Fats" was just the one he used last and longest.
  10. The idea that the fictional character isn't notable (or not notable enough to care about here) is untenable, since even other fictional characters were later based on "him" (not Wanderone), and "he" dominates the plot of the second of the pair of novels, which is independently notable as a work almost entirely unrelated to the film that borrowed its name.
  11. Wikipedia is not the only mainstream, encyclopedic site to recognize that calling Wanderone by a stage name he lifted from elsewhere is problematic. E.g. he is listed at IMDb as "Rudolf Wanderone Jr.", despite the fact that IMDb almost always otherwise defers to professional names over birth names.
  12. Finally and perhaps most importantly, reliable sources do not know Wanderone exclusively by the nickname, or even primarily. Billiards-related publications certainly do not call him that or do so only in a qualified manner (usually, again, in headlines and often in "scare quotes"), and they are obviously the most relevant reliable sources. The nominator's position, whatever its intent, would have the same sort of invalid result as arguing that gaming-related publications should be disregarded when deciding what the proper title of a video game article should be.

       — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  19:35, 23 March 2014 (UTC) Reformatted & expanded 14:15, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• And who the hell knows "Minnesota Fats" as anything other than the pool player? 99% of people probably don't even know the fictional character exists. Compare the length of the character's article, which barely gives any info. I have never heard him referred to as Wanderone, nor have I ever heard "Minnesota Fats" refer to anything else. Show me a source that refers to him as Wanderone more prominently than it calls him Fats. Just one. Guess what, it ain't out there. "Minnesota Fats" is a pool player first in pop culture, bar none. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 21:35, 23 March 2014 (UTC) Reformatted, with some additional notes 14:15, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Who? How about every single person who's ever read
  Minnesota Fats (character) and having Minnesota Fats be a disambiguation page is enough to resolve the issue.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  14:15, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• @
  WP:COMMONNAME, preferably without using a ginormous wall o' text. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 17:06, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• It's unclear to me how one can be a productive content editor of an encyclopedia, that consists of often rather long articles, about 99% of which are text, if one finds 12 simple bullet points intolerable. How can you say I've posted too much for you, while simultaneously asking me to re-explain something with more text? I have a dozen clear reasons the first half of this proposal isn't workable, you have 'I couldn't be bothered to read it'. I think I know how the closing admin will evaluate our respective posts here (see in particular
  WP:TLDR#Maintain civility, paragraphs 2 and 3).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  10:04, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Strong support Rudolf who? This is
  WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for term versus the fictional character. --BDD (talk) 16:42, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • Comment agree — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.120.175.135 (talk) 23:58, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Already addressed all of that, BDD. As the prior AfD shows, anyone familiar with the original fictional character feels just as strongly in the opposite direction; this is essentially proof positive there is no consensus on a PRIMARYTOPIC.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  10:04, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The more I think about it, the more I realize when I hear "Minnesota Fats" all I think of it a pool player; I couldn't tell you if it was a real one or not. Neutral. --BDD (talk) 16:57, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose Those who know the Hustler (the book), or the monumental film, with one of Jackie Gleason's signature performances as this character, and to a lesser degree Scorsese's The Color of Money, would likely be searching for that meaning – and reliable sources abound for that meaning, e.g., <"minnesota fats" gleason -wanderone> which already cuts off tons of other sources that happen not to mention Gleason but are nevertheless about this meaning. Being someone who has spent gobs of time in the pool world, in pool rooms, answering pool and billiards related questions, etc., my experience is that those who don't know the film are not on the opposite side, i.e. knowing the real life hustler who adopted the title but not the film. Rather, because Wanderone's fame is of an age with the film, if they don't know one, they know neither (but, those who do know, already know the one from the other).

  Instead they have a vague idea there was a legendary pool person by the name Minnesota Fats and could not tell you if he was real or a fictional character at the time they are typing that title into a search engine or here to find out. When they do so, they are trying to find out just who "Minnesota Fats" was, and as such, the perfect place for them to land is at the existing article at Minnesota Fats, which tells them both about the book, the film, the name squatter, encyclopedically informs them of the dialectic, and for good measure, has a hatnote pointing here. The existing arrangement is perfect, and the sought change appears to put far too much emphasis on the person over the character, probably resulting from some of you not realizing how huge the film [especially] is.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:52, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Or they get confused as all fuck because they're like "hey, why is this talking about some fictional character? I thought Fats was a real guy". Still, I love how you're completely dodging the
  WP:COMMONNAME of the real person? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:42, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• I'm not dodging the common names policy, you're misunderstanding its application, or more properly, why it's not germane. This is the common name of Rudolf Wanderone. It's also the common (and in fact, actual) name of something else. When a title is the common name of two things then we have to decide which is to be at that common title. That choice is not a common names issue, it's a disambiguation issue, and specifically a
  primary topic issue, though the underlying concerns address between the policies are similar: which title do we choose that serves our readers better encyclopedically; which avoids astonishment; which minimizes navigational confusion for the most people and so on. This is not a run-of-the-mill primary topic issue, however, because we rarely have such an interplay between the topics to choose between with one being the progenitor of the other and also the misleading name issue—which is why the current set up works so well—the page this title currently goes to is not a DAB page but an article and yet is serves almost perfectly in that capacity.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:11, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Support per nominator; also, generally people have more long-term significance than imaginary characters. Red Slash 01:57, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose While I agree with Red Slash that real people are generally more significant than fictional characters of the same name, this case presents evidence that the real person chose his moniker in conscious imitation of the already famous fictional character. Whether the real person subsequently rose to the same level of fame, or was simply a failed opportunist, is an open question. Under the circumstances, primary topic status is unclear, so the status quo is sensible. Xoloz (talk) 18:12, 1 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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.