Talk:Gothic (term)

it is unclear what this article is doing. Instead of the term Gothic it appears to summarize the various items referred to as "Gothic" for some reason or other. This is extremely pointless, as we already have a disambiguation page doing this. This article should either discuss the term itself, or it should be merged back into the disambiguation page. --dab (𒁳) 16:29, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

The content is at this location as part of a compromise so that it did not interfere with links to the disambiguation page. I wasn't entirely happy with that, but was prepared to accept it (at Talk:Gothic#Change from base-name dab to primary topic). That compromise may have created some difficulties of emphasis in the article as it stands, but these could be possibly be ironed out and kept at this location. It is also possible that it could be moved back to Gothic and that page moved to Gothic (disambiguation), but that will reopen that debate. Since I created the material in this page it will not be very surprising to find out that I think it is valid and potentially useful. The link between the Gothic peoples and late medieval Gothic is largely etymologicall (if still useful to understand), but there are many examples where reliable authorities point to the connections between late medieval Gothic, architectural revival, the genre and the movement that is inspired by it (see for example: (Punter and Bryon, 2004)). The article now has a template that says: "It has been suggested that this article be split into articles entitled Goths#Etymology and Gothic (disambiguation), accessible from a disambiguation page", but I do not see anything about that suggestion here yet (for example which bits and how would that work?), so I feel I cannot comment on that proposal at this time.--SabreBD (talk) 18:54, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

• The term Gothic covers a multitude of different things, and an article examining the twists and turns of its history would be wholly encyclopedic. This article makes a start on that, and will no doubt improve. Johnbod (talk) 12:44, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

• Neutral -- This discussion was pointed out to me on my Talk -- I've replied there as well, with something similar to this: "I chose this new title as part of a "fix" to the early cut-and-paste move of the disambiguation page (WP:CPM). The article content and the disambiguation page need to be on separate pages. If there is a primary topic for "Gothic", the article on that topic should be at the base name (this should follow the WP:RM process, as I noted at the time). If there isn't, the disambiguation page should be at the base name (so currently, Wikipedia is set up so there is no primary topic). It could also be that the "term" article's content should be deleted, as Dbachmann suggests, and the links to the articles merged into the disambiguation page (although I believe there are all already there)." -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:04, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

• A review or overview of all the things that are termed Gothic, and why they are, seems very desirable to me. However, in practice, when a plain link to 'Gothic' is inserted into article text, it nearly always requires disambiguation, to get the most suitable link, as described at WP:LINK. I think the existing structure is a good compromise. William Avery (talk) 14:55, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

• I believe this article is pointless. Gothic simply means "of or related to the Goths", and as such is a short dictionary entry and not suitable for an encyclopaedic article, on top of the fact that there is a Goth article already. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:19, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Cleanup tag

As well as the merge issue (discussed above]] this article has been given a cleanup tag, which links to the manual of style. Since it does not appear that there is a clear consensus for merger, it seems appropriate to ask which WP:MOS issues this tag is directed towards so that the article can be improved.--SabreBD (talk) 00:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Split tag

Copied from edit summary by Dbachmann:

wait, so the problem must be explained anew every other month?

No, but it would be a good idea if it was actually explained in the first place. The article now has tags for a new set of proposals, but again no discussion begun here. Can we please start one that explains the points so that they can be addressed?--SabreBD (talk) 10:08, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree.--Work permit (talk) 23:04, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok, since no one is having a discussion, let me start. Somebody is proposing to pick off parts of the article having to do with the term "Gothic" and merge them into Goths#Etymology. Then send most of the article into the Gothic (disambiguation) page, which means sending the material into the dust heap. The reason, I presume, is that most of the information contained in this article is duplicated in the main articles as well, and is better gotten to through the disambig page. I think that's the proposal. Now lets have a discussion.

The section at Goths#Etymology would only be appropriate for the very first part of this article and is, naturally, dealt with in more detail there, so there would probably be no additions. Since a disambiguation page is meant to be a list of links that would mean that that part of the article would also cease to exist. If the contention is that it is better for a reader wanting to understand the term Gothic to go to Goth (disambiguation), Gothic (disambiguation) and Gothic (also a disambiguation page) and then find the relevant articles, find the information about them visit the various articles and find the relevant sections and work out how they relate to each other then I suppose that is a point a view. However, I would contend that it would be easier for them to go to this page and then if they are interested in a particular use of the term to go on to that page through the main article links. In short this page in its current form has a useful function within an encyclopedia. If it is actually believed that it does not do this then it should be taken to AfD and fully debated.--SabreBD (talk) 08:18, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Synthesis

The synthesis tag that has been placed on this article is relatively easy to deal with. Scholars often point to the evolution of this term from Germanic tribes to other uses. See for example David Punter and Glennis Byron's Gothic (Blackwell, 2004), pp. 3-4 at [1]. There is no new synbthesis being advancing here and the tag should be removed if it cannot be justified.--SabreBD (talk) 08:18, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

You did not understand the reason for the tag. The problem is that the article has sections on each meaning of the term. These sections discuss the referent, not terminology. As long as the article strictly focusses on the term itself, there would be no need for the synthesis tag. But the article after describing the evolution of the term goes on to give us an overview of Gothic architecture and the Gothic novel. These topics have their own articles and there is no need to summarize them here. As long as you stick to the evolution of the term itself, ideally citing some reference discussing this, the article will be fine, but it will also be a dictionary entry to be transwikied. The reference you link is a good reference for the evolution of the term. The point is that the article then needs to stick to the evolution of the term, as opposed to going off on a tangent discussing architecture or literature.

I have now removed all off topic material, along with the tag you objected to. The article does now discuss "Gothic (term)" exclusively. The question is whether it is a valid encyclopedia article, or more of a typical dictionary entry. --dab (𒁳) 11:37, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

How is this different then Romanticism?--Work permit (talk) 17:22, 8 March 2010 (UTC) Or for that matter, Baroque, Classicism, Expressionism. Is it because these terms are identified with a single movement across a variety of fields, while Gothic is not?--Work permit (talk) 00:59, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

You are right, I did not understand the reasons for the tag, since they had not been explained. The recent change is a major one, so really needs a consensus to be reached here before it is carried out. It also had the effect of removing all of the sources: even if such a change was carried out with consensus, it would be reasonable to ensure that the article was correctly sourced.--SabreBD (talk) 11:04, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I have explained this back in December.

So I need a "consensus" to fix WP:CFORK/WP:SYNTH, but you do not need any consensus to remove cleanup templates pointing out that an article suffers from these problems? There must be other things you did not understand. I tagged the article for cleanup. You removed the tags unilaterally, without doing anything to fix the problem. Instead of just restoring the templates you blanked, I actually did it and fixed the problem. Then you start waving your head saying that oh, you now see the problem, but that I did not have "consensus" to fix it. May I point out that WP:SYNTH and WP:CFORK are Wikipedia policy and a respected Wikipedia guideline, respectively, and that they have very solid consensus indeed. The fact of the matter is that you do not have any consensus to go about creating articles in blatant violation of these guidelines. I have sympathy for your desire to explain the term "Gothic", but you need to do it properly. I have tried to be reasonable. It now appears that this has been a waste of time, you do not wish to adhere to Wikipedia policy, apparently you just wish to play games of wikilawyering and "I didn't hear that". I have no patience for that. --dab (𒁳) 13:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The issue is that there is not consensus or policy on whether these policies are applicable in this case. I am very interesting in achieving consensus and resolving any issues. The MOS tags were removed because, despite a request, after a period of time they had not been explained on the talk page so that the problems could be resolved and because they did not seem appropriate. I have specifically not removed the new tags because they are under discussion and so that should be resolved here before they are removed. I have gone out of my way to adhere to the policy of good faith and I am simply going to disregard the accusation of wikilawyering as I do not feel this route will not get us any further. I am still interested in trying to find a consensus or compromise and will always remain so. However, it is hard to discuss how that might be done as even after making changes to this article you indicate that you would still like to delete it. You have returned to the changes made, but I do not wish to engage in an edit war over this so I suggest that we look for a form of dispute resolution, specifically mediation if its general terms are acceptable. If it is perhaps you could indicate so and I will file a request.--SabreBD (talk) 15:55, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

look, you have written about the history of the Goths in an article called "Gothic (term)". This is a very obvious case of going off on a tanget that is not the article topic. If you want to discuss the history of the Goths, you are very welcome to do that at history of the Goths. This article needs to be strictly limited to discussing the actual term Gothic. There is no room for debate on this, and I cannot be bothered to go through the phrasing of Wikipedia policy with you in any detail just because you decide to play WP:IDHT.

this is not a content dispute. It is a dispute, apparently, related to how to distribute content among a number of articles. You are expected to present references that discuss the term Gothic and summarize their gist accurately. The source you cite above, pages 3-5 of Punter & Byron 2004, are an excellent reference and I wouldn't dream of disputing its fitness to be cited here. But you cannot go beyond what your sources contain. Punter & Byron give "a brief history of the terms 'Goth' and 'Gothic'". This article should do the same. I really don't see where there is any room for dispute on that.

I do not "wish to delete this article". If you can show that you are capable of writing this article, you are welcome to do it. So far, it has not been shown that there is a standalone article in this. Goths#Etymology gives a far better account of the word's etymology, and the disambiguation of the word's polysemy is duly given at wikt:Gothic#Adjective. It would be a good investment of your time go go and improve the coverage at wiktionary by adding examples and usage notes. It is not clear, so far, what this article is supposed to add to any of this, but if you can manage to make it add something, I will be the last person to try and "delete" this information. --dab (𒁳) 11:53, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Getting to the point is very much what I would like to do, I would very much like to engage with the issues raised in your posts. I am prepared to accept that your argument may have merit, and I am sure you are acting in good faith for what you see as the best for the project, but it is very difficult to progress if every comment seems to be accusing me of bad faith. I have made an explicit suggestion of how we might get around this above and I would be grateful if you could respond to it directly. Are you declining the offer of going to mediation?--SabreBD (talk) 14:44, 11 March 2010 (UTC)