Talk:The White Shadow (TV series)

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. The oppose voters made a good point, but so did DrKiernan (I note SMALLDETAILS, but also that its application is very inconsistent across various titles). The fact that this article is already at a base title may prejudice that, however. Let's all remain open to having this reversed after a few months if the TV series still shows signs of primacy. --BDD (talk) 15:36, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per nom In ictu oculi (talk) 03:40, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Support (but I generally prefer more disambig. than less, so...). Also, the time when this was the
  WP:PRIMARYTOPIC has long since passed. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 06:28, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Support the current title should point to the White Shadow disambiguation page -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 07:44, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nomination. Fortdj33 (talk) 02:37, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. Page views reveal that a wide margin of users are seeking the TV series (14,407) over the film (1723). Even factoring things that don't use "The", which we shouldn't do per
  WP:SMALLDETAILS, there's nothing else that comes close to the TV show: White Shadow (film): 9725; White Shadow (band): 36; and 730 for White Shadow (the dab page).--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:11, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]

These page view statistics are distortive and misleading: of course the TV series' current location "The White Shadow" is going to have far more page views, because even users looking for other meanings of the phrase are going to be draw to the TV series first when they type in "The White Shadow", since users are going to type in the phrase without a disambiguation clause. —Lowellian (reply) 11:42, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As kennethaw88 said below, the numbers are such that even if every reader looking for the other (potentially) ambiguous articles got there by coming to The White Shadow first, the latter would still win out by thousands of views. Only 700 hits on the dab page suggests not a large number of readers are getting confused by the setup.--Cúchullain ^t/c 04:59, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Comprehensive primary topic, as shown by Cuchullain's stats. Also none of the other topics have a serious long-term significance claim over the TV show. Jenks24 (talk) 13:36, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. The White Shadow should point to the DAB at White Shadow. It's a credible search term for any of the six items there. Andrewa (talk) 22:39, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. Eight times more likely to be viewed is "Not more primary"? If you disagree with community consensus about primary topics, then just say so. Don't pretend the motivation here is lack of a primary topic. There clearly is one. As to other uses without "The"... meh.
  WP:SMALLDETAILS. That's what hatnotes are for... --В²C ☎ 20:24, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose per the page view statistics. 14,000 vs 1,700 is more than enough to make this the primary topic. kennethaw88 • talk 22:28, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Speaking of which, I now have a random desire to watch
  Turbo. Steel1943 (talk) 21:13, 12 August 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Support. No clear primary topic, and the page view statistics cited above to oppose this move are distortive and misleading: of course the TV series' current location "The White Shadow" is going to have far more page views, because even users looking for other meanings of the phrase are going to be draw to the TV series first when they type in "The White Shadow", since users are going to type in the phrase without a disambiguation clause. —Lowellian (reply) 11:40, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Even if all page views for the film also come from viewing this page first, there are still 12,000 more just at this page. It's not even a close comparison between the two pages. kennethaw88 • talk 01:13, 16 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The vast majority arrive on WP after searching in Google, not in our search box. And Google provides enough info for them to select the correct link the first time, so only a tiny fraction searching for any other use are going to get to the TV series first because it is at the name. --В²C ☎ 01:22, 18 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. No primary topic. Page views stats showing very small numbers supports this.

  Redirect this title to

  WP:THE, the "The" can not to be expected to important in Wikipedia titling, the nuances can't be expected to be understood by readers, and "the" is a useless search term. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:49, 23 August 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Oppose I couldn't in good conscience close this as "Support" when the arguments seem flawed, despite the raw number of supports. None of the supports have explained why an 8× number of views for the TV show over any of the other "The White Shadows" justifies it not being the primary topic. Lots of people say "not primary" without convincingly rebutting the statistics. Also if "valid search term" were an acceptable argument, we'd never have primary topics. For lack of convincing arguments to change, stick with status quo.—Bagumba (talk) 08:30, 7 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. The oppose votes are based on article stats demonstrating primary topic, but the Tanzanian film gets 9,725 views as opposed to 14,407 for the TV series, which is not a convincing margin for things so similarly titled.
  talk) 18:54, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • @
    WP:SMALLDETAILS says to treat the title with The as a disambiguator, and not to lump it with the generic White Shadow. For example, the policy recommends treating Red meat and Red Meat, which only differ by the capitalization of its m, as separate topics. It follows that The should be treated distinctly here as well. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 19:38, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    • What's important is not the fine details of policy as written, but whether readers looking for one article misrecognize another due to ambiguity. Due to
      WP:SMALLDETAILS does not in fact say to treat The as a disambiguator, but is silent on articles. Grammatical articles are not spelling variations or non-standard capitalization. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:40, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply
      ]
      • Sorry, I am not following you. WP:THE says to include a leading The "[i]f the definite or indefinite article would be capitalized in running text", and clearly lists the example The Old Man and the Sea as an acceptable article title. Likewise, being a TV show, The White Shadow also has the capitalized.—Bagumba (talk) 02:52, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
        • That's correct. But
          Old Man and the Sea (if they were different) because for readers, the presence of absence of a leading grammatical article is a matter of complexity/subtlety. A leading article is effectively meaningless. "The White Shadow" is readable as "White Shadow" and vice versa. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:18, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply
          ]
          • I guess we'll agree to disagree here. Since
            WP:SMALLDETAILS was specifically written with disambiguation in mind, it makes sense to me to follow it and avoid another click for most readers that want to find the more popular The White Shadow that is a TV series. I see nothing specific in WP:THE that says to drop the when there are ambiguous cases.—Bagumba (talk) 08:08, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply
            ]
            • I'll also admit that I don't feel terribly strongly about this. It's not as if the status quo is a problem. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:56, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.