Talk:Friendly Fire

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Requested move December 2013

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: Moved. Several editors mentioned WP:DIFFCAPS. It was assumed by most people in this discussion that the military concept of friendly fire was the primary topic. BDD and JHunterJ disagreed as to whether DIFFCAPS is typically applied when one of the pages in question is a DAB page, but neither editor gave any actual examples of the use of DIFFCAPS that might bear on the question. No Man's Land was cited as a precedent in favor of this move proposal. No Man's Land is very much on point. The title No Man's Land redirects to No man's land and there is a separate DAB page linked in a hatnote. If you don't like this result, you might join in discussion of User:Red Slash's recent update of DIFFCAPS. I did not rely on Red Slash's change to the policy when closing this move (since the move proposal came before the policy change) but it certainly looks like the same issue. EdJohnston (talk) 16:08, 26 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Friendly Fire → Friendly Fire (disambiguation) – I don't know if WP:DIFFCAPS is typically applied when one of the pages in question is a disambiguation page; if so, this seems unwise. While seasoned Wikipedia editors know about WP:NCCAPS and could conceivably type "Friendly Fire" seeking a dab, it's much more likely that this page is presenting an obstacle to readers seeking an obvious WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Friendly Fire should redirect to Friendly fire. BDD (talk) 18:36, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose – How could Friendly fire possibly be the primary topic for the capitalized term? Dicklyon (talk) 18:58, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, since the person intently capitalizing both words is probably searching for a specific title. Note that typing "FRIENDLY FIRE" gets you to Friendly fire. bd2412 T 19:46, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Opposition withdrawn based on the arguments below pointing out that friendly fire is a much stronger topic than any of the ambiguous terms distinguished by capitalization alone. bd2412 T 13:25, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mild support. It'd be one thing if there were a primary topic... I think BDD has a point. Often I'll type in a title and capitalize a word by force of habit that a WP title would never capitalize. I agree with the move. Red Slash 06:25, 21 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose. Note that every single entry is spelled "Friendly Fire", capitalising both words, which distinguishes it from friendly fire, the original concept. JIP | Talk 19:31, 23 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nomination and User:Red Slash - using sentence case for article titles is a Wikipedia policy. It is not a global standard, and it would be perfectly legitimate for readers to assume that "Friendly Fire" is the title of the friendly fire article.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:56, 28 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Some readers might type "Friendly Fire" when looking for "Friendly fire", but unless the majority of readers who type in "Friendly Fire" are looking for that topic, it's not the primary topic for the Title Cased version. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:23, 29 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose. I can argue this both ways, and if I were Dictator here would probably ban disambiguation by way of capitalisation and punctuation completely. But I think on balance, leave it as is. What we have shown above is that different people work in different ways, and I doubt we can ever tell how most readers work. Certainly not by polling our contributors, who are a significantly different population. I may expand this thought into an essay someday. Andrewa (talk) 05:39, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This is a good solution to a fairly atypical problem. Friendly fire is clearly the primary topic of the term; editors looking for something else will be able to find the dab page just as easily once it's moved.--Cúchullain t/c 21:27, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    How is Friendly fire clearly the primary topic for "Friendly Fire"? See also WP:DIFFCAPS. Editors looking for something else will also be able to find the dab page just as easily when it's not moved. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:20, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:DIFFCAPS would be relevant if there were an article that were the primary topic for "Friendly Fire", but there's not, nor do any of the other articles challenge the typical use of "friendly fire" as the primary topic. As such it makes more sense to direct both capitalizations to the article instead of concocting a reason to send readers to a dab page based only on the way they capitalize the word. The dab page could easily have been located at Friendly fire (disambiguation) to begin with and we'd never have had this discussion.--Cúchullain t/c 14:42, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:DIFFCAPS is typically applied when one of the pages in question is a disambiguation page, for the same reason that it would be typically applied for a single article at Friendly Fire. Consider the sequence: Friendly fire exists (topic A), and back in the past the first of the "Friendly Fire"-ambiguous articles existed (topic B). Per WP:DIFFCAPS, they would exist at Friendly fire and Friendly Fire. Then someone creates another article for a topic ambiguous with "Friendly Fire" (topic C), and we decide that neither topic A nor topic B is the primary topic for "Friendly Fire". The conclusion that "Friendly Fire" should be changed from "leading to topic B" to "leading to topic A" because topic C was created is silly. Yes, caps can be used to differentiate a title-cased dab page from a sentence-cased article. Pushing topic A into the path of the readers seeking either topic B or C requires concocting spurious reasons. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:39, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm perfectly aware of how disambiguation works. What's silly is the idea that a very common, very well known topic like friendly fire can't be the primary topic of "Friendly Fire" because it happens to be titled "Friendly fire" by Wikipedia convention. I didn't look too closely but Friendly fire appears to be much more popular than any other ambiguous article, probably more than all of them combined. The spirit of DIFFCAPS is to avoid sending readers to disambiguation pages when other remedies are available; in this case it's being invoked to send readers to a disambiguation page despite other remedies being available. Again, the dab page easily could have been titled Friendly fire (disambiguation); if it were, I suspect folks would be content to let Friendly Fire redirect to the main article rather than the dab page.--Cúchullain t/c 19:02, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Friendly fire could be the primary topic of "Friendly Fire", even though it happens to be titled "Friendly fire" by Wikipedia (and the rest of the English-speaking world) convention. It would simply need to be the primary topic for the title "Friendly Fire" on Wikipedia to be the primary topic -- it's not automatically awarded that just because it happens to be titled something similar. The spirit of WP:DIFFCAPS is to help reader navigation; in this case, by avoiding sending readers to Friendly fire, then to Friendly Fire (disambiguation), and then to the sought article, when readers who bother to type the capital F in "Fire" are not "much more likely" to be seeking it than any of the "Friendly Fire" topics, nor "more likely" to be seeking it than all the "Friendly Fire" topics combined. So it's not the primary topic of "Friendly Fire", and we put a dab there instead. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:47, 7 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    If the majority of users typing in "Friendly Fire" are looking for friendly fire, as seems to be the case, then more readers are served by directing that form to that article. "Friendly fire" is easily the most popular article listed on that dab page and I don't see any evidence otherwise.--Cúchullain t/c 15:22, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    How do you gauge that the majority of users typing in "Friendly Fire" are looking for friendly fire? I don't see any evidence that that's the case. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:14, 9 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support My memory was immediate drawn to the case of no man's land and No Man's Land (disambiguation) from a couple years back. Like this case, it's a military concept with no shortage or works named after it. It's also a case were the lowercase concept takes precedence over the uppercase terms/dab page. The view stats for Friendly Fire (TV series)[1] vis-a-vis Friendly fire[2] is the only factor that gives me any pause. Friendly Fire (TV series) certainly pulls in the traffic to a comparable level to Friendly fire and the argument could be made that it should be the topic lead to Friendly Fire. Baring that, the suggested move is best.--Labattblueboy (talk) 19:52, 19 January 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.

Requested move 22 August 2019

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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. Support relies on DIFFCAPS and similar examples. Opposition ignores or dismisses existing policy and conventions, without having consensus to do so. (non-admin closure) В²C ☎ 18:50, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]


Friendly Fire (disambiguation) → Friendly Fire – Page was moved based on a supposed edit to WP:DIFFCAPS that no longer exists. Friendly fire is never spelled with a capitalized 2nd word and people who search for Friendly Fire are likely to be looking for one of the shows called that. In fact, none of the items on the page are lowercase, so there is no need for a disambiguation. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 22:51, 22 August 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. Steel1943 (talk) 22:08, 11 September 2019 (UTC)--Relisting. A1Cafel (talk) 02:58, 29 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: Actually, one of the items on the page uses lowercase; it is the one listed at the very top of the page – i.e., friendly fire. Perhaps the key question is whether Friendly fire is the primary thing someone would probably be looking for information about if they look for "Friendly Fire" (with the second word capitalized). I don't personally know the answer to that question. At first reading, I can't really understand some of what is in the comments for the prior RM. I notice that No Man's Land (disambiguation) is not at No Man's Land. Note that there is a very closely related RM open at Talk:Total war (disambiguation). —BarrelProof (talk) 03:09, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom and Red Meat/Bird Box etc. No Man's Land should probably also have no primary topic. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:10, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Red Meat is a contrary example. In that case, the uppercase term leads to the same place as the lowercase term (a dab page using lowercase). Bird Box seems more similar. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:35, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • It doesn't matter if the upper case leads to a lower case DAB ending in "(disambiguation)" or the plain term in the upper case, readers still end up on the same place. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:54, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll have to oppose this. I see no value (for readers or editors) in having two exact titles which differ in a single capitalization leading to two different articles. --Gonnym (talk) 10:21, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree with you here, but the community has ostensibly decided that differing capitalization alone is enough to distinguish topics from each other per WP:DIFFCAPS. There has been an extensive discussion regarding this exact issue and it's clear that the community believes this page should be moved. Eventhorizon51 (talk) 13:34, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the belief that it is clear that the community believes this page should be moved. The outcome of the previous RM (which has stood for more than 5 years) is an indication that this may not be the case. However, this is not an expression of opposition to the proposal. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:31, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
In the discussion I linked above, I was just about the only person who was against letting article and disambiguation pages have the same title but different capitalizations. Everyone else agreed that capitalization is enough to distinguish the pages so it seems that consensus is quite clear on this issue. The case may have been different 5 years ago, but we have to remember that consensus can change. Eventhorizon51 (talk) 01:47, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
In the discussion 5 years ago, which proposed moving from the longstanding Friendly Fire, there were 4 support !votes and 4 oppose !votes with one person "withdrawing" opposition. There was no consensus for that move, even back then, imo. Station1 (talk) 07:42, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed but it looks like this is being moved back. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:27, 8 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Gonnym: Not without precedent, see e.g. Extremely large telescope (a type of telescope) and Extremely Large Telescope (a telescope with that name). --mfb (talk) 22:34, 29 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
And Duck sauce/Duck Sauce. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:41, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. As a redirect, Friendly Fire is getting only about 2 hits per day, out of 429 for friendly fire,[3] with no incoming mainspace wikilinks, so it's not really needed as a redirect, and considering most readers bothering to capitalize that second F probably want a proper noun, we should get those 2 people straight to the dab page. Station1 (talk) 07:45, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Note that the links were fixed a few days ago see [4] when all but 1 wasn't for the general concept. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:54, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I see no indication that readers are getting confused by the current setup. Readers can find the dab page at Friendly fire.--Cúchullain t/c 14:13, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The argument isn't that the current setup is confusing them. I agree that it's not confusing. The question is, why have it at this name in violation of WP:DIFFCAPS and WP:CONCISE?ZXCVBNM (TALK) 17:34, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think the better question is, what purpose is that guideline recommendation serving? If it's not easing navigation, it may be time to remove it.--Cúchullain t/c 17:44, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
See also WP:NATURAL. On Wikipedia, parenthetical disambiguation is not the preferred mode of disambiguation, only the standard when nothing else is feasible. DIFFCAPS has come to a vote before, and remained.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 19:19, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Easing of navigation for those intentionally capitalizing that 2nd "F". Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:27, 8 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support this move 2601:541:4500:1760:CDE5:FFA6:95D9:B057 (talk) 18:23, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose – differentiating by caps alone should be the exception, not the rule. Even Red Meat got fixed to go to a disambig page. Dicklyon (talk) 13:49, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Changed my mind. Support per my comment in the previous RM above. Dicklyon (talk) 03:12, 29 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Except differentiating by caps alone is the rule. If you have an issue with the policy as a whole, bring it up at the policy talk page. Eventhorizon51 (talk) 00:55, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not really; differentiating by caps alone is not encouraged or intended to be applied casually. It is handled on a case-by-case basis with consideration of the individual circumstances, and sometimes it is determined that differentiating by caps is too confusing (e.g., see Talk:Eighth Grade (film)). —BarrelProof (talk) 00:13, 5 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • That was a case where there was only 1 other article and unlike Eighth Grade I doubt many people would capitalize "Friendly Fire". Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:08, 5 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • I didn't say the circumstances were the same. I only said that differentiating by caps alone is not encouraged or intended to be applied casually, which would seem to be implied if we say that "differentiating by caps alone is the rule". —BarrelProof (talk) 19:26, 5 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • WP:DIFFCAPS does seem to encourage it, that doesn't mean it should always be done but as others have said I see no reason to believe that the general concept is primary for those typing a capital 2nd "F". @Dicklyon: Red Meat was fixed in that it doesn't have a primary topic which is the same here. As you pointed out in the previous RM, how can the general concept by primary for the upper case? Crouch, Swale (talk) 13:41, 7 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Some readers might type "Friendly Fire" when looking for "Friendly fire", but unless the majority of readers who type in "Friendly Fire" are looking for that topic, it's not the primary topic for the Title Cased version. The previous closer oddly bemoaned the lack of "any actual examples of the use of DIFFCAPS that might bear on the question", but examples of how the policy applies here aren't necessary to apply it here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:49, 5 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Crouch, Swale's finding that almost all [[Friendly Fire]] wikilinks were mistargeted is strong evidence that Friendly fire is not the primary topic. I think this move will also, on average, be a benefit to the (~2 per day) users who search for "Friendly Fire", though we have little data to guide us on that front. Colin M (talk) 22:35, 5 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    And [[Friendly Fire]] wikilinks will probably be incorrect in that they either are intended for one of the specific (proper noun) topics (like the TV series) or are indeed intended for the general concept but are incorrectly capitalized meaning they need to be changed to [[friendly fire]]. While some readers will indeed search for the generic concept with the 2nd capital I'd expect that more will be looking for a specific one and having Friendly fire on the 1st line of the DAB is more than sufficient. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:17, 6 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I just fixed another, Friendly Fire (2017 TV series). Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:54, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose because DAB pages missing the "(disambiguation)" are way too misrecognizable, resulting in readers not wanting the disambiguation page getting the disambiguation page. Until WP:MALPLACED is formally repudiated, the rationale for this situation is in support of the better product. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:03, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The purpose of a title is only to distinguish from other pages, not to convoy extra information, similar to Mercury, Lincoln, Washington etc. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:01, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • That’s a perverse idea, where did you get it? The purpose of a title is to tell what the page is. This is a disambiguation page. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:09, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • WP:DABNAME "The title of a disambiguation page is the ambiguous term itself, provided there is no primary topic for that term." and the choice of the capital "F" per "The spelling that reflects the majority of items on the page is preferred to less common alternatives.". Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:10, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • Yeah. A silly rule made up so long ago, and that serves to worsen the encyclopedia. The net effect of the proposal is to confuse more people. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:34, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'd note that there's a band at Friendly Fires which I have added a hatnote from. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:18, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom and the established guideline, WP:SMALLDETAILS. Anyone capitalising "Fire" in a search will surely be looking for something on the dab page. PC78 (talk) 16:58, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. DiffCaps is intended for obvious cases, such as MAVEN vs Maven, where readers familiar with the subjects will immediately know which is which based on the caps. Rendering titles in sentence case is a Wikipedia quirk, which we shouldn't and can't expect readers to be familiar with when we ask them to WP:RECONIZE a title. If I showed a person in the street a sign saying "Friendly Fire" and asked them to define what it meant, I doubt they'd say it means a 2006 film by Sean Lennon and Michele Civetta. They'd say it means an army accidentally hitting its own people. DIFFCAPS suggests that differentiating By capitalization is possible, but it certainly doesn't mandate it. And the 2014 move was part of a long trend to deprecate sentence case vs title case distinctions, which we shouldn't start reversing now.  — Amakuru (talk) 06:08, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    But this isn't making something else primary (which is what DIFFCAPS mainly focuses on) but rather having no primary topic for this case which seems logical for those bothering to capitalize the 2nd "F". Similar to the outcomes of Bird Box and Red Meat don't go to either a proper noun or the generic concept and so should Friendly Fire. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:22, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Except why would you be capitalizing "Friendly Fire" when showing it to Average Joe on the street, unless you wanted to deliberately trick them and prove a point? It's true that most people don't know there's a movie called that, but most people also don't type it in uppercase when searching for it, either.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 19:42, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The average Joe in the street does not differentiate between terms based on how they are capitalised. That's a Wikipedia-centric thing, and readers can't be expected to know about it. Many publications use title case for all titles (the clue's in the name)...  — Amakuru (talk) 15:04, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Some readers and sources may use the upper case but as JHunterJ said unless there in the majority its not primary for the upper case. Crouch, Swale (talk) 09:02, 27 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - someone who uses a capital F will probably look for one of the many uses with F, and if not they still have the first link on the disambiguation page to get to friendly fire. --mfb (talk) 22:34, 29 September 2019 (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.
Retrieved from "https://mdwiki.org/wiki/Talk:Friendly_Fire"