Talk:Correspondences (Babbitt)

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I've just noticed this edit, which reverted my earlier page move (to Correspondences (Babbitt)). The editor's rationale is: It makes no sense for Correspondences to be a redirect to Correspondences (Babbitt).

Well, who could disagree with that? But wouldn't it make a lot more sense to make Correspondences a redirect to the disambiguation page Correspondence, and restore this article to Correspondences (Babbitt). I mean, 99.99999% of people who search for "correspondences" (whether intentionally or by fat-finger syndrome) are surely looking for something other than this piece of music. No? I mean, this piece does not yet even rate a mention on that disambiguation page. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:47, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

I've taken the initiative and executed the above plan. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:01, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

I think that as long as there is exactly one entity with the name "Correspondences" and a Wikipedia article, that article should be at Correspondences. This seems to be the case at present. When I checked for reasons not to revert the original move (of the article on Correspondences from the namespace Correspondences to the namespace Correspondences (Babbitt)), I did not realize there was a disambiguation page for correspondence; I think I checked for articles called "Correspondence", though (there aren't any). In any case, a hatnote linking to that disambiguation page is certainly appropriate. Archelon (talk) 01:29, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Apparently now only an administrator can move this article back where it was. Unless someone argues, I will eventually request this formally. Archelon (talk) 01:39, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

To clarify: I think we should follow the general principles that

• If there is a (unique) primary article with a particular name, it should be located in the corresponding namespace (with a disambiguation hatnote if there are other articles with the same name).
• If there are multiple articles with a particular name and none of them is primary, then there should be a disambiguation page in the corresponding namespace.
• Redirects should be created in the namespaces that correspond to alternative possible names for existing articles, when those namespaces are not preferably occupied by something else.
• When those namespaces are preferably occupied by something else, then a hatnote should be used.

All of the above is I think consistent with policy described somewhere, and mostly agreed upon. I further think, and there is some disagreement about this, that we should

• Not create redirects for potential typographical errors in names or potential names of possible articles.

But even if we do create redirects for typographical errors, they certainly should not take precedence over articles whose most appropriate names are what could also be a typographical error for something else. This also seems unlikely a priori to be controversial. And, if in fact we follow all the rules enumerated above which I am under the impression are generally agreed upon, then the article on Babbitt's Correspondences should be located in the namespace Correspondences—at least until someone writes an article about something else called (exactly) "Correspondences". Please consider whether this seems correct upon reflection. Archelon (talk) 22:39, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

An example of an article and namespace consistent with the above is Vector Analysis. If there were not a famous book called (precisely) Vector Analysis, with its own Wikipedia article, then it would be reasonable for the namespace to be occupied by a redirect to vector calculus ("vector calculus" is an alternative, slightly more popular/modern, name for vector analysis). The namespace vector analysis could hold a redirect to either; but since vector calculus is clearly the primary topic that could be called by that name (and in fact the uncapitalized "vector analysis" is not a possible name for the article on the book), it should hold a redirect to vector calculus. And indeed it does. Archelon (talk) 22:56, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure why we're talking about typographical errors here. Unless one was searching for correspondence and inadvertently added a final s, and stumbled on this article (in your preferred world, that is). I take the rest of your argument in good part, but I come back to what I said in 2015:

• 99.99999% of people who search for "correspondences" (whether intentionally or by fat-finger syndrome) are surely looking for something other than this piece of music.

That means to apply the policies you've outlined, and to do so in an inflexible way, would be to do a most definite disservice to almost all our readers.

Let me give you another example. In 2011 I created the article Elegy for Brahms, a work by Hubert Parry. I figured that, because this is the only work of this name, it would need no disambiguation. But in 2014 another editor disagreed and moved it to Elegy for Brahms (Parry), with the edit summary "To make it clear who the composer was". Now, there's no way anyone would ever find this article by accident while searching for anything else, but, while I didn't object to the move, I would have had good grounds to do so.

The Correspondences issue is very, very different. Imagine if someone wrote a piece of music called Congratulations, or Taxation, or United States of America. There's no way these could survive as titles of pieces of music without some form of disambiguation. No way. Same with Correspondences. Works that are notable enough for a WP page, but on virtually nobody's list of favourite compositions, can do with something that indicates to the casual browser that they are indeed pieces of music and not something entirely different. If Babbitt had called it Symphony XYZ, there'd be less of a case, because the word "symphony" already tells readers it's a piece of music. But Correspondences by itself would have readers' minds racing off in all sorts of misleading directions. Only the disambig tag tells them it's a title. It could be a book, a play, an opera, a musical or whatever. Anybody to whom Babbitt is not known would not twig that it's music, but they'd still know that it's a title of something and not some metaphysical or intellectual concept. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:31, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with your analysis of your examples. But precisely as in the case of your Elegy for Brahms article (which I have now moved back to where we seem to agree it belongs), there is no occasion for disambiguation here. Disambiguation, in my view, takes precedence over an article only when there are multiple candidates for the exact title of the article. When there are other article subjects with merely similar names, a hatnote at most is considered appropriate. We seem to disagree about this, and I don't understand why; I thought the 'typographical error argument' was the most|only plausible defense of the current configuration (to be explicit: "Correspondences" would have to be considered a typographical error for "correspondence" in order for it to be considered appropriate for correspondences to be a redirect to correspondence). (I hope it doesn't have to do with the number of people on whose list of favorite compositions you suppose Correspondences is.) Certainly it is intriguing how intuitions about these sorts of things can differ! But each of us has thus far failed to convince the other (I'm still completely sure my view is the correct one). So maybe I'm failing to understand what you're trying to say.

Because I am having difficulty imagining a perspective from which it seems like "a very definite disservice" to anyone—let alone "almost all our readers"—to have this article in its semantically correct namespace. The worst that can happen to a hypothetical typer of "correspondences" who wants to see the disambiguation page correspondence is having to click once (on the link in the hatnote which I have granted should be there). There is no circumstance other than this one in which the Correspondences article will be seen unexpectedly. If this hypothetical typer is your "casual browser", then surely the article itself will be sufficient to inform such a person that Correspondences is a piece of music; if on the other hand the casual browser doesn't care to scroll (casually) past the hatnote to see that information, then the disambiguation page for correspondence will be displayed just as easily (by clicking on the link in that hatnote, rather than scrolling past it). (Perhaps there is an ergonomic argument that scrolling is easier than clicking in some use cases, but I would venture to suggest that the reverse is true on many systems I have used.) Archelon (talk) 22:36, 19 April 2016 (UTC)