Talk:Spitter (river)

Requested move 1 July 2017

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: Created dab at Spitter — JFG ^talk 11:22, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

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Spitter (river) → Spitter – There's no other article called "Spitter" and no Dilophosaurus (Jurassic Park) to redirect Spitter to, so unnecessary disambiguation. Ribbet32 (talk) 19:30, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

• Support. Simple reversal of a long-standing redirect. Station1 (talk) 21:16, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. firstly because of housekeeping issues since that redirect "Spitter" is an article which had been blanked and pointed to the X.com game, then an IP redirected it to the river. Maybe that requires a history merge I don't know. But more importantly a spitter is just another term for Spitball = fastball with knuckleball action. Alternative names for the spitball are spitter, mud ball, shine ball, supersinker, vaseline ball.., see also Me and the Spitter 1974 autobiography by Major League Baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry. Etc. Seem to be dozens of articles mentioning "spitters" and in books likewise the main meaning is baseball, so if it redirects anywhere the obvious place would be spitball. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:23, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

  A histmerge is neither necessary nor advisable since the ancient (2007) history of Spitter has nothing to do with the current article and nothing from that short-lived unreferenced stub survives in any other article currently on WP. As for spitball, we've had a hatnote on this article for the past 4 years. Station1 (talk) 18:26, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Right, but the fact that the hatnote is there isn't visible on the autofill or drop down menu. Spitball gets 420 views a day. Spitter (river) gets 2 views a day, I guarantee both of them misdirected baseball fans who have no interest in streams in Germany, since spitter overwhelmingly means spitball in books. So why should anyone looking for spitter (baseball) have to look at an article about "a stream near Tambach-Dietharz in the Thuringian Forest in German"y? Should we make all other baseball articles only accessible by going via German streams? In ictu oculi (talk) 19:07, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

If we redirected Spitter to Spitball, we'd have to put a hatnote on Spitball pointing to the stream. The solution for the dropdown menu is simple: create a redirect Spitter (baseball), which I'll do now. Station1 (talk) 19:17, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Ho hum. :( Either way there's a hatnote. At least if Spitter goes to what Spitter means then the readers will be looking at a hatnote to the river on the right page, rather than looking at a hatnote to Spitter on the river (the wrong page). Alternatively there could be a short 3 item dab page which would be kind on mobile phone users. But a dab page is second choice to simply sending spitter to where it obviously should lead, the baseball spitter. Be honest had anyone here even heard of the stream in Germany prior to this RM? But everyone has heard the term spitter used of a spitball, even those like me who aren't baseball fans. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:39, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Using your figures and guarantee, fewer than 0.5% of readers looking for spitball wind up at Spitter (river) by mistake. Let's assume they have slow connections and it takes them 10 seconds each to click on the hatnote and connect to spitball. That's 20 seconds per day wasted. If we put an extra hatnote on Spitball, however, all 420 readers would glance at it. Let's assume that takes them each one second. That's 420 seconds, or 7 minutes, per day wasted, 21 times as much. Since, as every good Vulcan, Marxist and Disambiguator knows, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, logic dictates that Spitter should point to the stream (or, maybe, that this isn't really that important). Station1 (talk) 16:15, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

@Station1: please, simple question as above; prior to this RM what did "spitter" mean to you? Had you heard of either the stream in Germany or "spitter" for spitball? Which of the topics on Spitter (disambiguation) did the word "spitter" mean to you five days ago? In ictu oculi (talk) 10:51, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Frankly, I think the creation of Spitter (disambiguation) is absolutely ridiculous. An average of ZERO people per day clicked on Spitter last year.[1] - Station1 (talk) 21:49, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

I note that you didn't answer the question, which I have now asked twice. What did the word "spitter" mean to you five days ago? (as for how readers find and negotiate articles, drop down menus and mobile search on the wikipedia app would currently show spitball and river.) In ictu oculi (talk) 07:37, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

That's because I prefer the use of objective data over personal perceptions. Data shows almost no one thinks "spitter" is any encyclopedic topic, especially not "spitball". Station1 (talk) 19:44, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

• Support per Station1 and since this is the only article that uses the name in its title, the others are all lesser alternative names or nicknames. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:47, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

@Bermicourt: sorry but why are you raising "the only article that uses the name in its title"? What guideline on en.wp states that "the only article that uses the name in its title" is automatically WP:PRIMARYTOPIC if there is one at all?

• A topic is primary for a term with respect to usage if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term.
• A topic is primary for a term with respect to long-term significance if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term.

Where is the word "title" in the above guideline. Doesn't it say "topic" not "title"? In ictu oculi (talk) 19:15, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, because it's true: none of the other articles have the word "splitter" in their title, so aren't even worthy of disambiguation. Bermicourt (talk) 18:42, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

@Bermicourt: but that comment goes against the basic foundation of WP:TITLE and WP:DISAMBIGUATION. By that argument if there was a video game called "Hurricane" (and imagine the fighter plane etc didn't exist) then we would remove (video game) from Hurricane and move Hurricane over the redirect to Tropical cyclone because none of the other articles have the word "hurricane" in their title, so aren't even worthy of disambiguation. See the point? This is why the guidelines say "topic" not "title". We disambiguate first by content and topic and only then if needed by title. Anyway with 3 editors above misreading "topic" as "title", would suggest that no non-admin close this RM, because this isn't a vote. If it closes moving a minor stream in Germany over the massively obvious meaning of spitter in baseball (not to mention a person who spits) then the close will just be heading to Move Review or be reopened to fix it within weeks. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:49, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. Primarily a spitter is someone who spits, either as in "ptui" or as in impaling meat/etc on a roasting spit. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:02, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is not a "long standing redirect", in fact the XCOM meaning was primary until recently. Between this, and the XCom character, the baseball meaning and a roasting spit, I see no primary topic and a dab page should be created.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:14, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

  Just for the record, Spitter has redirected here since 2012. The history is now slightly confusing because someone created a Spitter (X-COM) redirect a few days ago and moved "Spitter's" old history there. I don't see anything about the X-COM character in that article, though. Station1 (talk) 08:22, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose this move; rather, move Spitter (disambiguation) to Spitter. bd2412 T 04:23, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.