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Talk:Bucket toilet/Archive 1

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Latest comment: 9 years ago by EvMsmile in topic Clean up needed for related page: Portable toilet
Archive 1

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Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

How did this term coined? What was the origin? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.76.32.16 (talk • contribs)

The term is also used to refer to what is used in some long range bombers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.61.15.195 (talk) 16:00, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Don't believe the name actually has anything to do with real honey. Seems obvious ironic euphemism. -96.237.78.13 (talk) 02:34, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for name change of this article

Latest comment: 9 years ago28 comments7 people in discussion

I propose that the name of this article should be changed to "bucket toilet". Honey bucket is more of a slang term. Looking at Google, there are 12 Mio hits for bucket toilet and only 4 Mio hits for honey bucket (if that counts as an argument). EvM-Susana (talk) 14:23, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree. I think honey bucket is only really used in North American slang and the idea is essentially the same in all contexts. The fact that this term is used can appear prominently on the page, but I don't see that it is the major use worldwide for the phenomena. JMWt (talk) 14:25, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
OK, will wait for a week or so to see if other reactions come in. If not, I will ask one of the admins to do the name change (I think only admins can do that, right?).EvM-Susana (talk) 14:40, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi Doc_James, could you please change the name of this article to "bucket toilet"? (or where in the Wikipedia system can I make such a request? Sorry for my ignorance. EvM-Susana (talk) 10:32, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
@Doc James: I think this was done prematurely and incorrectly. The Google hits reported appear to be for searches containing both words, not the phrases. When searching for the exact phrases, "honey bucket" produces 282,000 hits versus only 54,000 for "bucket toilet", a 5.2:1 preference for "honey bucket". More reliable data can be found in the Google n-gram chart of both terms, which shows a 5.7:1 preference for "honey bucket" as of 2008 (the latest data available). I think 5 days' discussion with comments from only two editors was insufficient and that this should have been put to a formal WP:RM. Can this move please be undone and submitted to a formal debate? Msnicki (talk) 15:20, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
what is your evidence for global usage of the term, please? 17:46, 6 October 2015 (UTC)JMWt (talk)
Please follow the link I provided to the Google n-gram chart. This is their analysis of English language sources worldwide and it shows a clear, nearly 6-to-one preference for "honey bucket". If anyone cares to argue that "bucket toilet" is the WP:COMMONNAME, I think the onus on them to provide evidence for that because right now, I don't see any. Finally, I think we should regard "honey bucket" as the status quo, meaning that it should take more than just an equally strong evidence, never mind, no evidence at all to justify this move.
Again, I think this move was premature and done based on faulty evidence and insufficient discussion. I'm requesting that this move be undone and put instead to a formal WP:RM where, among other things, it can be properly advertised to the community. Msnicki (talk) 18:01, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
OK, so if I was to prove to you that the term is never used in professional literature by the WHO, World Bank and others, would that make any difference? I only ask because you seem to be asserting a global norm with little obvious evidence of why we should believe this outwith of the Google stats. I have read a lot of sanitation articles, journal papers and professional papers and have never heard of the term "honey bucket" outside of this page. As the thing does not actually contain honey, it is clearly a euphemism. I don't really see how you can be arguing against this. JMWt (talk) 18:10, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
It's possible, perhaps even likely, that the term "bucket toilet" is the official name in, e.g., government and NGO sources. But per WP:COMMONNAME, Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it generally prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. C.f., also, WP:OFFICIALNAMES, People often assume that, where an official name exists for the subject of a Wikipedia article, that name is ipso facto the correct title for the article, and that if the article is under another title then it should be moved. In many cases this is contrary to Wikipedia practice and policy.
Please be assured that I'm not saying your argument is without merit, I'm saying you should take it to an WP:RM. The move should not have been done based on such meager discussion between only two editors and such clearly faulty evidence. The ping to a specific friendly admin requesting the favor also troubles me. This move should be undone and taken to WP:RM. If the consensus obtained there says the article should be moved, it will happen. Msnicki (talk) 18:25, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
Right, as I thought you are not actually too interested in that kind of evidence, so I'm glad I didn't waste time trying to present it here. So what you are actually asserting is that the common name for defecation-in-a-bucket is "honey bucket" - and not only in North America, but throughout the English-speaking world. Given that half a dozen of us regularly edit sanitation articles (and, as far as I know, that doesn't include you), I'm a bit perplexed at why you seem to be getting so irritated by this minor point on a page that few people view, and one which until recently had not been touched for more than 5 years. Calling for a WP:RM seems to ignore the facts that a) WP:RAP b) even if you succeed in calling for WP:RM, there are unlikely to be more than the four of us engaged in that conversation and c) we are here and prepared to discuss this issue with you anyway. That being the case:
* Would you accept the main point that the term "honey bucket" is a euphemism
* Are you aware that there are meanings of the terms "honey bucket" on google which might include band names, buckets which contain honey and other search terms?
* Can you appreciate that given the term "honey bucket" does not describe what the utensil described in this page is used for that google users may actually be looking to find a definition?
All of that being the case, can you explain why you think that the North American slang term is more acceptable than "bucket toilet"? Many of us are not from North America, and here the term "honey bucket" does not imply toilet. If the point is that it is a WP:COMMONNAME then it would be good if you would be kind enough to give some reason to think that my experience is unusual in the world beyond you simply asserting it. JMWt (talk) 18:46, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
To me this is just like saying Toilet should actually be called John because it is a common term in one part of the world. I note that not only does that slang term not have a wikipedia page of its own, it isn't even noted on Toilet.JMWt (talk) 18:53, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
If you're that convinced you're right and that you'll find a consensus for your position, I have truly no idea why you would object to a WP:RM and why, instead, you find it necessary to question my good faith with assertions that I'm not interested in the evidence and claims of "North American bias". In point of fact, I don't agree the term is slang. It's the only term I've ever heard here in the US. It's what we call it and, according to Google's n-gram analysis -- the only reliable evidence presented so far -- it's what most English speakers worldwide call it. Msnicki (talk) 19:25, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
WP:RM states: "It is not always necessary to use the requested move process in these circumstances: one option is to start an informal discussion at the article's talk page instead."
so let's have that discussion. Give some evidence of worldwide usage of the term. JMWt (talk) 19:34, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
I gave you evidence in the form of the Google n-gram analysis. You've offered none, only your personal opinion and some unhelpful refusals to respond to or even acknowledge my evidence. When I answered your questions by citing the guidelines, you responded with unhelpful charges of bias. While an WP:RM is not always needed, it is needed anytime the move is contentious, which obviously this one is. If this isn't undone soon and put to an actual WP:RM, I intend to take to a WP:Move review. It may be that we will end up moving to "bucket toilet" but it needs to be advertised to the community for a full discussion. Msnicki (talk) 19:48, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

OK well, I don't accept the move is contentious. And I absolutely believe that "honey bucket" is North American slang, as indicated by Collins Dictionary. And given that you haven't been able to supply any evidence of actual usage outside of North America, I don't think your position is credible. I'll be making exactly the same arguments in any WP:RM, which I believe will be a total waste of everyone's time. Claiming that North American usage represents worldwide useage is, in and of itself, bias. JMWt (talk) 20:00, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

The Google n-gram analysis is of all English language sources, not just North American. But even if the term is predominantly or even solely North American and even if we agreed it was slang, that is not a guidelines-based reason why it might not still be the best choice per WP:COMMONNAME. If there are more North American English language sources discussing the topic under any name than sources from other countries, that is the way it goes. We go by the number of reliable sources. But also, I think you imagine we should settle just between you and me. Setting aside that you and I probably won't agree anyway, that's not how we do things. Where there's a disagreement (the definition of contentious) over whether a move should be done, we have a guidelines-based way of resolving the matter and determining WP:CONSENSUS. It's called an WP:RM and that's what we should do. I have still not heard one single good reason why you object to an actual WP:RM discussion. I accept consensus all the time, even when it goes completely against me. It's how we settle things here and I think it works pretty well. Why is that so problematic for you? What are you afraid of? Msnicki (talk) 20:19, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
I am not afraid of anything, I just don't see that we have to jump through all the hoops on a page that nobody has cared about for 5 years. WP:RM does not state that contentious or disputed moves must follow the formal WP:RM process, it clearly states that discussion on the talkpage is an acceptable way to discuss the issue. WP:CONSENSUS is not about just the numbers of editors for and against, but also the strength of an argument. And you've not supplied any argument at all, other than a google books comparison, which I have already disputed the relevance of.
Why don't you want to talk about why you think this term has worldwide usage? Why are you so insistent that a North American slang and euphemistic term represents common usage everywhere for all English-speakers? Where did you get that idea from? Why do you think that the google books comparison is an open-and-shut case for your position? JMWt (talk) 20:36, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
I agree with all the points made by JMWt. Honey bucket is a term completely absent from the global sanitation literature, the first time I have ever seen it (and I have worked on toilet topics since 2005) was when I saw this Wikipedia article. It is clearly very much limited to the U.S.. Also, as Joe points out, why would we need to waste our time going through some formal process on a page that gets viewed on average zero to once per day ("Bucket_toilet has been viewed 9 times in the last 60 days.", see here). To base it solely on some Google stats neglects the facts which term is commonly used in literature. I am sure we can find similar examples in the medical pages where a more formal name is used, and a re-direct is made from a euphemism term to the more formal term. And anyway, what is the danger in calling the page "bucket toilet"? If someone enters "honey bucket" they get redirected anyhow. It has nothing to do with honey so why would you insist on calling it such? I suggest we stop wasting our time on whether the name change was justified or not. I'd rather continue work on improving other sanitation related pages as per the WikiProject Sanitation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation (you're very welcome to get involved there if you are interested in toilet-related articles). Why don't we rather spend our energy on improving the article now? EvM-Susana (talk) 20:42, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

User:Msnicki you are more than welcome to start a WP:RM. We do more than simply count the number of times a word is used to determine the names of our articles. Best Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:04, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

And what is the danger in calling it "honey bucket", if that really is the WP:COMMONNAME (redirect can still be done)? The argument goes both ways, except that the Msnicki's side considers the Wikipedia policies, while the other side seems to be more "who cares? the move is not contentious and the term 'bucket toilet' seems better". Msnicki's arguments might be mistaken but he has presented them and just ignoring the n-gram evidence and repeating "present some worldwide evidence" like a broken record is no use, because there's your evidence. If you want to dispute it, do, but don't pretend it's not there. And how, JMWt, can you "not accept the move is contentious"? If it were not contentious, it would not have been contested. That's pretty much the definition of contentious. You were bold, you made the move because you didn't think it was contentious; fine! But not it has turned out to be contentious, so step back and accept that. LjL (talk) 15:11, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
The simple fact is that "honey bucket" is clearly a euphemism and it is North American slang. Nowhere in the professional literature and almost nowhere outside of North America is it a commonly used term. I don't know how to prove this to you without pointing to numerous references using the term "bucket toilet", numerous newspaper articles using the term "bucket toilet", charity pages, businesses and so on. There is simply no case to answer. But I guess if you really want to discuss that, then fine let's all compare links and evidence of how the terms are used internationally. But let's not pretend that a simple use of a n-gram or google search statistics represents overwhelming evidence. It isn't a "broken record" because it is simply the truth: almost nobody outside of North America uses this term.
And as a simple point of information, I didn't make the move. JMWt (talk) 15:35, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth (though luckily, if something can be verified it can generally be called true). Your claim that your point of view is truth needs to be verified, since it is being challenged. The other party has provided evidence; you can challenge that evidence as invalid, or you can provide different evidence. But you can't just say "but my view is the truth". However, if you do point to numerous articles, businesses and so on, I do consider that evidence (do it!). Just remember the opposing party can potentially do the same. As to "honey bucket" being a euphemism or slang, I'm simply not aware of any Wikipedia policy saying those things are not appropriate as article titles, as long as they are the common name for something. So that doesn't seem like valid reasoning. LjL (talk) 15:51, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

I closed to move review, as there hasn't been a formal requested move discussion yet. There is no problem with the move to bucket toilet, but as it was recent and has been challenged, I've restored the previous name as the de facto status quo. The next step will be a requested move; if you need any help with that, please ping me or leave me a message.--Cúchullain t/c 15:51, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Flawed statistics by google

Note: Google gives notoriously false readings when it finds many related terms or when terms are less than 1000: see https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22honey%20bucket2#q=%22honey+bucket%22&hl=en&start=990 - you only get 320 hits for "honey bucket" vs. 347 for "bucket toilet": https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22honey%20bucket2#q=%22bucket+toilet%22&hl=en&start=500 CFCF 💌 📧 15:47, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I have moved the article back on the basis that the one single argument supporting "honey bucket" was unequivocally debunked. CFCF 💌 📧 15:48, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
"Back"? The article was originally "Honey bucket", so you have re-instated the contentious move, not moved it "back". Google statistics may be flawed but have been used as such by both sides, and the debate is very much actieve; I don't exactly see how you can arrogate yourself the right to just make the move in the middle of an open discussion. LjL (talk) 15:54, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
WP:SNOW. CFCF 💌 📧 15:56, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
How rude. There are at least three editors opposed to the move, there were just a bunch of supporting editors a moment ago (before, it was basically just the two "sanitation experts"), and you call it a snowball. How rude. LjL (talk) 15:59, 9 October 2015 (UTC) P.S.: Oh, and you could at least have posted this on the actual, current discussion section. LjL (talk) 16:02, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 7 October 2015

Latest comment: 9 years ago146 comments22 people in discussion
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: Moved as requested - after several Honey Buckets of discussion a strong odor of consensus emanated from the discussion supporting the move. Mike Cline (talk) 12:14, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Honey bucket → Bucket toilet – As listed in Collins American English Dictionary, the term "honey bucket" is a slang term. It is also clearly a euphemism, in that the bucket contains faeces not honey. This matters because the page is asserting that "honey bucket" is the WP:COMMONNAME for the English-speaking world - ie outside of the USA. It is not. As I show on the talkpage, the common international term is "bucket toilet" for a bucket which is used as a toilet JMWt (talk) 16:13, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

OK, so here is some additional evidence of the use of "bucket toilet" in international English publications, including professional, newspapers, products for sale etc:

A sideline perhaps, but what ever happened to Chamber pot?
Please note that the Google Ngram tool is based on book content, which clearly will differ from news sources.
Checking oed.com one finds entries (noted as obs.) for "toilet bucket" and "toilet pail" but nothing for "bucket toilet" nor "pail toilet".
Under "honey" there are compound forms for "honeypot" and "honey bucket", but these uses are annotated as "N. Amer. slang, later freq. Mil.", so these are clearly not wp:WORLDWIDE. Unstated is that the usage is a wp:euphemism. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:54, 7 October 2015 (UTC)


As mentioned, whether or not it's the common name does matter, but whether or not it's slang or euphemism does not. We don't purposely use euphemism on Wikipedia to avoid offending, but we don't eschew them if they are the common term for something, either. It contains faeces, yes, yet even you aren't proposing to call the article "faeces bucket".
Meanwhile, let me point out a couple of things:
1) that the first Google Books hit for "honey bucket" is in fact a professional publication about sanitation (though, admittedly, concerning North America, and Alaska in particular), and not any sort of slang venue.
2) that if you limit your Google searches to "site:co.uk", you still get twice the hits for "honey bucket" as for "bucket toilet". I doubt most .co.uk sites are American.
LjL (talk) 16:59, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

There are many slang terms in use throughout the world for various types of toilet, as this essay suggests. Would anyone accept a change to "privy" (1.3 million hits on google books), "john" (24 million) or "chamber pot" (103,000)? ISTM that simple google searches are deceptive given the large numbers of 'other' uses of the terms, including for bands, twitter handles etc. The point is surely that anyone claiming that "honey bucket" is the WP:COMMONNAME for the English-speaking world now has to give evidence which is not somehow 'contaminated' by other uses on a google search. I'd also add that N American book usage is not evidence of use outside of N America JMWt (talk) 17:09, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

1) I never claimed that book usage was evidence of use outside of N America, only that it is evidence that it is used in serious enough sanitation publications (which seemed to be a concern of yours).
2) Yes, I would accept such changes, iff they were the most commonly-used names for the given thing. I do not think they are. The point is that the common name is what matters, not whether or not it's slang/euphemisms. That is what we should concentrate on. Your attempt show it's slang/euphemism is a moot point.
3) If you look at those .co.uk hits, the first page starts with a number of places that sell "honey buckets". They are not bands or anything. Of course I have not checked all the hits, but the important thing is that the most salient/prominent hits are about the toilet kind of honey bucket, even on UK sites.
LjL (talk) 17:19, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

I'd also say that slang does matter when it means something to someone in one part of the world but means nothing to other English-speakers. That's almost the nature of slang - it excludes people who do not speak like that. JMWt (talk) 17:11, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

That's not what slang means, but anyway, again, concentrate on whether or not it is international usage. That is, I agree, an important thing, but whether it is slang is not. One doesn't have to go with the other. LjL (talk) 17:19, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
"Slang consists of a lexicon of non-standard words and phrases in a given language." Non-standard North American lexicon cannot be considered to be WP:COMMONNAME by definition. JMWt (talk) 17:30, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
And you're sneaking in "North American" again. That's the very thing that must be shown, that it's North American. The mere fact that it's "non-standard" means prescriptive dictionaries won't like it and, personally, I could hardly care less. LjL (talk) 17:32, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Nope, not "sneaking in", I've already given the reference for this from Collins and LeadSongDog has given a reference from the OED. JMWt (talk) 17:34, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Look, this is pretty simple: "slang" means one thing, "North American" means a different, orthogonal one, so just don't mix synthesize/mix the two things together as if they were one and the same. LjL (talk) 17:36, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
With respect, it is one-and-the-same if the phrase is widely used in North America but it meaningless to other English-speakers in the world. JMWt (talk) 17:58, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

And relating to the point made above about limiting the google search on "site:co.uk", a significant number of results are for beekeeping supplies. JMWt (talk) 17:16, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

I give up. LjL (talk) 18:00, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
An interesting point is probably that if you search for '"honey bucket" toilet site:co.uk', then most things become Amazon and eBay listings, which are more likely to be American usage than other sites. So you may have a point there. Although it's still almsot 500 results which is about as many as for '"bucket toilet" site:co.uk' itself. LjL (talk) 17:21, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
I'd actually suggest that bucket latrine would be a better all-round choice, principally on the basis of wp:PRECISE and wp:NPOVTITLE (euphemisms and irony do imply that the cognate is not mentioned in "polite" company). As mentioned wp:COMMONNAME discussion is (as usual) pointless, particularly when resorting to Google searches: they change in response to the existence of a WP discussion. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:24, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
I don't think bucket latrine is as widely used in the media and the international professional literature, but it is certainly used. So I can live with that. JMWt (talk) 17:32, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
It is more used than "bucket toilet" on Google Books, which should at least not be affected by Wikipedia's own discussion (although I think it's a bit early for that anyway), and shouldn't suffer from the "band name" issue that "honey bucket" might have. LjL (talk) 17:34, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
And Privy is used more than both. But that's irrelevant because it has at least two different meanings in British English, and may mean absolutely nothing elsewhere. JMWt (talk) 17:59, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Neither of which appears to be true for "bucket latrine", so thank you for making no point. LjL (talk) 18:02, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
But is true for "honey bucket". There is no reason to call this page privy or honey bucket or any of the other localised slang terms. The only possible argument against a move is a worldwide common usage test, which no evidence has been supplied with respect to " honey bucket" whereas I have supplied many examples of the use of "bucket toilet" from different countries around the world.JMWt (talk) 18:16, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Support - Thanks for everyone's contributions here. I still find it amazing that an article that got around 30 views per day on average for the last few years is suddenly getting this much attention for its name! If only a) more people took an interest in the other sanitation articles, too and b) more people would spend time actually improving the article (like JMWt and I have tried to do) rather than just discussing its name... Anyway, I don't want to sound negative. I am like Joe not in favor of calling it "honey bucket" for the reasons I have outlined several times already above. As Joe has also pointed out it can easily be confused with a bucket for honey (and many of the hits on Google are most likely for that topic, i.e. bee-related, not toilet related!!). If anyone wants, I could do a survey amongst the 5000 members of the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance here on our forum and see what they say. Would that count as an argument if the vast majority voted for "bucket toilet"?? I was anyway going to ask them to improve the information about bucket toilet systems in South Africa where these toilets played a sad role during the apartheid regime. Someone suggested to rename the page to "bucket latrine". The thought has also crossed my mind and I could live with it. However, in most cases, a latrine is something that involves a hole in the ground, which is why I would still favour bucket toilet. But if we get consensus for bucket latrine, so be it. Nothing speaks against renaming it in a few years from bucket latrine to bucket toilet if needed. - Oh and JMWt is absolutely right when he says "The only possible argument against a move is a worldwide common usage test, which no evidence has been supplied with respect to " honey bucket" whereas I have supplied many examples of the use of "bucket toilet" from different countries around the world." Can those who insist that it needs to be called honey buceket please supply as many examples of Joe of the use of the term in countries other than the U.S. and Canada?EvM-Susana (talk) 21:07, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

  • Oppose move When IF there is a 5.2:1 usage of one term over another on the World Wide Web (see how I put "world-wide" in there?) then it is clearly using the best available term - per WP:COMMONNAME - it is the most likely to be sought here. If there is any concern over whether the niche market for actual buckets that hold honey, then disambiguation is available. It has lasted peacefully here for 10-1/2 years under that name without any brouhaha from "specialists in the field." Any survey of members of a specific group would fall under WP:OR and would be inherently biased. AND, the origin of a word or phrase is immaterial, and smacks of a unique bias ′in its own right. Scr★pIronIV 21:36, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
    To be fair, it's possible (and it has been argued) that that 5.2:1 ratio is spurious because "honey bucket" could be found on the web for reasons unrelated to toilets. So I'd change that "when" into "if". LjL (talk) 21:39, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
    Struck, but the percentage of beekeepers needing buckets to hold the product of their charges' discharges is infinitesimal compared to the number of people who need to relieve themselves in places which have no "facilities" to do so. Scr★pIronIV 21:46, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
    It's not just because of actual honey (although the .co.uk search does show a lot of honey buckets for sale), but if you simply search for "honey bucket" on Google you'll see that the first few hits are about toilets, but then there's a lot of bands, Facebook pages, a Terraria tool, and simply random things. This isn't true for "bucket toilet" or "bucket latrine". LjL (talk) 21:56, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
    Thank you for the clarification, although I would add that some of those Facebook pages (for waste removal services) and bands (notorious for selecting controversial names) have named themselves and their pages after the ubiquitous subject of this article. It is what it is, and what it has been for so many years. You are a kind and open minded editor, LjL, and it has been a pleasure to receive your gentle admonition. Scr★pIronIV 22:03, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
that so-called 5.2:1 figure really is not a suitable argument here. We are not talking about quantity of hits but quality, i.e. relevance. That the page has been called this for 10 years or so is also no suitable argument. There are some people here who are trying to improve things and to tell us to "leave this page along because it has been called this way for 10 years" is disheartening. To disregard the opinion of 5000 people dealing with sanitation on a daily basis is also disheartening (if I was to double check with the members of the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance). Nobody has yet reacted to the arguments that I listed above. In particular "Can those who insist that it needs to be called honey buceket please supply as many examples of Joe of the use of the term in countries other than the U.S. and Canada?" and also the compromise option of calling it bucket latrine. EvM-Susana (talk) 08:31, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

I have been thinking about this overnight: how about we keep this page and create a separate bucket toilet (or bucket latrine) page. We then just need to remove any content on this page which relates to anything outside of North America, make it clear that it is a slang term used in North America rather than the worldwide WP:COMMONNAME for the phenomena. The former page would then continue as it has been for x years with minor adjustments and the a global term with referenced usage could appear on a new page. It seem to me that this is essentially what has happened with the Privy midden, which was a historically widely used term in British English and describes something which is generally similar to the ideas on this page (albeit with some technical differences). It seems to me that Privy midden has value as a page in itself because it is clearly explaining the historical use and context of the phenomena in England and is not attempting to suggest it is a commonly used global English term. I think "honey bucket" could occupy a similar space. That, to me, would appear to be the most obvious compromise. JMWt (talk) 08:46, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

I guess that could be an option, yes. - It's actually interesting how one can be discredited as a Wikipedia editor by this statement (made above): "... without any brouhaha from "specialists in the field." Any survey of members of a specific group would fall under WP:OR and would be inherently biased." Makes it sound like "anyone who knows something about a topic is not welcome as a Wikipedia editor." Yes, I agree that the opinion of an "expert" should not automatically weigh more than the opinion of a layperson, that's at the core of Wikipedia editing, fine; but to take it to the other extreme and saying "the opinion of an "expert" is basically automatically rather worthless, biased and what not", that's taking it a bit far. EvM-Susana (talk) 09:03, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
I strongly oppose this option. We don't have several article on the exact same thing just based on the fact it has multiple names. I don't even want to get into the silly "experts" dispute but I want to point out (may or may not seem related) that nobody owns Wikipedia articles, even if they have edited them a lot. LjL (talk) 11:37, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
right, nobody "owns" wikipedia pages but professionals using these terms internationally clearly have a better idea of how the terms are used internationally than someone whose only evidence is an obviously flawed Google search statistic.
there are only two options, either "honey bucket" is a N American slang term like "John" - which I note is not even referenced on the page toilet and at best deserves a section in the globally accepted term bucket toilet - or it is a term which deserves a page it into own right as a common colloqualism in N America like privy midden. Nobody has answered the challenge to provide unambiguous international usage of "honey bucket", as I have for " bucket toilet" above - because it simply is not possible. Either rise to the challenge or stop wasting everyone's time. JMWt (talk) 12:44, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Call it my own pet peeve, but no, there aren't only those two options. The term could be North American but not slang, or slang but not North American, or both, or neither. Those are separate matters and you aren't helping anyone or anything by mixing them. By the way, if you don't want your time to be wasted, then stop discussing this and leave the article's name alone. Otherwise don't accuse others of wasting your time because that's just annoying. We are having a discussion and my strong opposition had nothing to do with international usage here (it was based on entirely other premises), and you answered that with a red herring. LjL (talk) 12:51, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
asked and answered several times with reference to a dictionary. It us slang and it is N American and it is not commonly used in the English speaking world outside N America These points have all been proven with valid references above. If you dispute this, try offering some actual evidence. There is no case to answer at the moment with no evidence offered.JMWt (talk) 12:56, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Dictionaries are not the answer to everything. I have already offered a North American sanitation publication, which would suggest that, while quite possibly North American, the term "honey bucket" may not be slang as it is used in quite formal contexts. LjL (talk) 13:32, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
That point has also been asked and answered: nobody is disputing that this term is in use in North America. Indeed, as page 9 of the reference shows, this is the local name of the system of faecal collection. I've already given wikipedia's own definition of slang, which once again is a "a lexicon of non-standard words and phrases", it does not mean that it is nowhere used in official or semi-official documents. Indeed if the system is called the Honey Bucket system in Alaska then it would be very odd if a document about Alaskan faecal collection failed to use it. Indeed there are many studies of communities around the world which use local names for types of toilet - what do you actually think you are proving here? It just shows that in Alaska they have a system they call "Honey Buckets". How it that showing anything other than localised use of a term? Are you seriously comparing this to use by international organisations and media? JMWt (talk) 13:42, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Sigh. I'm using that to suggest it's not slang, not that it's in use in North America (which seems obvious). You keep pretending that what I say is being used to show something different from what I'm (transparently) trying to show. I've repeated a number of times by now that all I'm trying to show right now is that "slang" != "local terminology" (specifically, North American). Now you seem to be claiming that if it's a local term, then it's by definition slang; that is an absurd claim IMO. You claim it's slang, yet at the same time you claim it might well be used as the official name of a system. Those two things are not compatible. The Slang article doesn't once mention the words "regional" or "local". LjL (talk) 13:55, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
The phrase "North American slang" is one, a point I've already made. It means that it is a non-standard term used in North America. It could be a non-standard term also used outside of North America, but nobody has given any evidence that this is the case. You seem to be arguing that the presence in an official document means it is not slang - well, as I have also show that isn't necessarily the case in a document describing a local system. Anyway, even if it isn't slang, it is the "official" term in use in Alaska, that doesn't mean it is an international WP:COMMONNAME. Even if it is a commonly used term in North America, that doesn't mean it is common in the rest of the English-speaking world. It isn't. JMWt (talk) 14:19, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
It is entirely plausible for it to be both slang and used in a North American document. That obviously doesn't show WP:COMMONNAME JMWt (talk) 13:48, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
That wasn't my claim now. Please stop putting words in my mouth and making assumptions about what I'm saying. Stick to what I'm actually saying. What I was saying is that a term being local doesn't equal it being slang. LjL (talk) 13:55, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
What difference does it make? I call it slang based on the dictionary, you don't. OK. So how does that help with a discussion of the title of this page? JMWt (talk) 14:21, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
I consider being sloppy with logic and terms as well as misrepresenting what others are saying as never helping a discussion. LjL (talk) 14:25, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
I really have no idea what you are talking about, but if it makes you feel better let's ignore the dictionary. So are we in agreement that it is a localised term used in North America? Do you want to argue it is commonly used outside of North America? JMWt (talk) 14:28, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
I'm not in agreement, but I'm not in disagreement either. You showed that "bucket toilet" is in professional use worldwide, I recognize that; dictionaries hint that "honey bucket" is North American, and I am prepared to accept that if no evidence to the contrary is provided. I care less about the final name of this article than you might think, and more about whether the discussion is held in a reasonable and logical way. Personally, if it were a matter of voting (which it is not), I'd vote for "bucket latrine" right now. LjL (talk) 15:33, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Cryacrem (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion.

No, Wikipedia. The term 'honey bucket' doesn't cut it. It's a bucket toilet.

As I see it, 'honey bucket' as a colorful, almost endearing but hopelessly out-of-date term. It's derogative and disparaging. A 'honey bucket' would have been used by a country or small town person without the wherewithal to construct a proper outhouse.

To really test this, keep asking a lot of people. [i]What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the term "honey bucket"?[/i] I'd bet for a significant proportion of Americans it would be a porta potty. The Honey Bucket corporation [1]is one of the major providers in a very powerful sector of the economy.

When I google "honey bucket," this nice 5 gallon bucket for beekeepers also pops up. [2]Wikipedia page does not.

A honey bucket in emergencies? Not if there's a risk of flooding or a pipe breaking seismic event. In emergencies you need a toilet with two buckets: One for PEE and one for POO. Urine separation and safe containment of feces is the system chosen by dozens of emergency agencies.

Kudos to the bright folks in the New Zealand Permaculture Guild who figured it out and helped the people of Christchurch as they waited three years for sewer service to be restored. Find them at [url=http://www.composttoilets.co.nz/]Relieve[/url] Portland, Oregon toilet activists [url=http://www.phlush.org/]PHLUSH[/url] met them online in Sept 2011, the month they posted first instructions on line. The City of Portland Department of Emergency Management adopted the system in October 2011 and now is working with many other jurisdictions to document various options for safe, longer term waterless sanitation following the predicted Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. Cryacrem (talk) 14:59, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Cryacrem (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion.

References

  1. ^ http://www.honeybucket.com/
  2. ^ http://www.agrisupply.com/product.aspx?p=90519&sid=asf10&eid=Easf10&zmam=77232640&zmas=1&zmac=1&zmap=90519&gclid=CKb4gLGRs8gCFUiGfgod-ZYKuw
When I "honey+bucket"&oq="honey+bucket" google "honey bucket", the Wikipedia page is the first thing that comes up, so I'm not sure we're using the same Google... LjL (talk) 15:09, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure this avenue is really worth going down - but anyway. If you specify only local results, the first result on Google NZ brings up a local shop review (not apparently to do with toilets), Google UK first result brings up a shop selling beekeeping supplies, Google India first brings up a link to food buckets on alibaba, Google South Africa first result is for a honey farm, Google Nigeria is an MP3 for a band, Google Australia first result is beekeeping supplies as is Google Ireland. When local results are not specified, the wikipedia page is always the first result. JMWt (talk) 15:25, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
I kind of agree this is not a great route to go down, I was just pointing out that my (pretty much default set-up) Google didn't match what Cryacrem described. Anyway, when local results are not specified, the Wikipedia page is the first result, as you say, but the second result seems a legit "portable restroom" reseller. LjL (talk) 15:33, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Right, I was agreeing with you and pointing out that Cryacrem was likely not in North America and probably specifying local results. But in my view this still supports the view that "honey bucket" is not commonly used for a type of toilet in any of the countries I attempted to search above. JMWt (talk) 15:39, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Isn't it odd: Cryacrem makes several arguments and the only issue that LjL jumps on is again the Google results!! Can we also take a look at other pieces of the argument please?? The point starts with "As I see it, 'honey bucket' as a colorful, almost endearing but hopelessly out-of-date term. It's derogative and disparaging. A 'honey bucket' would have been used by a country or small town person without the wherewithal to construct a proper outhouse. ". This is the argument that we should be discussing, not Google results, or at least not only Google results! Anyway, I am going to see if there is a WikiProject Honey out there. Perhaps participants in that WikiProject also have an opinion. Most likely if I ask them "what is a honey bucket?", they would not think of a toilet first, and may not agree that a page should be named thereafter if several other people also think that it is an outdated, limited-to-North-America kind of term... EvM-Susana (talk) 17:49, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

No, we shouldn't be discussing that argument, because it's based on entirely his opinion and things that are irrelevant to Wikipedia. LjL (talk) 17:53, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
your view on whether this term is "slang" is also an opinion and should not be considered, then. Particularly as it disagrees with three reputable sources and you have offered nothing but bluster in response. JMWt (talk) 18:03, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Eh, sorry, I am missing your point: why is a content-related argument "irrelevant to Wikipedia"? Isn't it the same if a page is called "Montezuma's revenge" and some people who happen to come from the medical field are arguing it should be changed to Traveler's diarrhea? - Anyway, can we please hear from others on both sides of the discussion, not just from LjL? EvM-Susana (talk) 17:58, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
highly unlikely to happen as nobody seem to want to argue, as I have, with reputable references. As I said at the beginning of this discussion, there is osimply no case to answer. But equally those who do not want to be persuaded will never be persuaded unless we all enter their constantly cycling "debate" that contains no actual content to discuss.JMWt (talk) 18:09, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Sounds like you. LjL (talk) 18:16, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
take that back immediately. I am the only participant in this debate who has not only offered reputable references but has engaged with the arguments put to me. You have done neither.JMWt (talk) 18:19, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Walls of text by scatophiles sanitation-obsessed individuals and pointy-headed intellectuals "subject matter experts" refusing to acknowledge WP:COMMONNAME do not count. It isn't WP:PROFESSIONALNAME or WP:ENGINEERINGNAME or even WP:WORLDWIDENAME. It is the common name, used by the majority of the english speaking world. Just because that majority does not work for International Relief organizations does not mean it is the wrong term. It was created with the name for a reason, and it has been residing without contention under that title until last week. Time to let it go. Scr★pIronIV 18:47, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
time you offered more than just your opinion. I have offered news reports from several different countries, you have offered nothing. Either offer something to discuss or go away.JMWt (talk) 18:54, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
"honey bucket" simply is not the WP:COMMONNAME, as proven above. Refute it if you can. JMWt (talk) 18:59, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Right, well unless someone can offer a better argument than simple google analysis and unreferenced arguments with a dictionary, there is nothing else to discuss.JMWt (talk) 18:31, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

WP:NC states that titles should be recognizable, natural, precise, concise and consistent.

Let's have a discussion on those characteristics.

Recognizability:: even if "honey bucket" is used more than "bucket toilet", I have offered evidence above that a) "bucket toilet" is used in various media outside of North America and b) that "honey bucket" actually means different things in other English-speaking regions.

Naturalness:: many references which will be familiar to people who want to find out about sanitation issues worldwide will encounter the term "bucket toilet". Outside of North America, users are most likely to be looking for this phrase for definitions and explanations of the term they encounter in the media and elsewhere.

Precision: as discussed above, "honey bucket" is associate with beekeeping in many parts of the world. Therefore it is not a precise title. "Bucket toilet" cannot mean anything other than a bucket used as a toilet.

Conciseness: both "honey bucket" and "bucket toilet" use the same number of words, so there is no difference on that point.

Consistency: many other terms describing forms of toilet are available on wikipedia including pit latrine, open defecation, dry toilet etc. These terms are usually very descriptive and show no possibility for misunderstanding. Bucket toilet clearly is more consistent with those pages than "honey bucket" on this basis. Other North American terms for toilet terms, such as "John" are not used as the main name for toilet and are not even found in a section of that page. Therefore "honey bucket" is not consistent on that basis either. JMWt (talk) 19:22, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

  • Strong support for moving "bucket toilet. There are many problems with "honey bucket".
    • First honey bucket is a euphemism. The first two hits on google are for a commercial company by that name.[1]. The company provide portable toilets not bucket toilets. Than three for a band by that name. The next about it is about the euphemism. Than a bunch more about the band. Than a ref about how it is useful for carrying honey [2]. The term per google is rarely used to mean a toilet.
    • "Honey bucket" gets 289,000 hits (most of which are not for the meaning we are using). In fact if you search for ("honey bucket" toilet) you get 19,600 hits. While "bucket toilet" gets 55,200 hits but they are actually about toilets. And "toilet bucket" gets another 22,000. Bucket latrine gets another 8,000.
    • So to summarize per WP:COMMONNAME we should use "bucket toilet". Honey bucket should be a disambig with bucket toilet being one possible use. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:59, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
  • support one finds that the term bucket toilet is found in PubMed indexed articles [3], honey bucket is a euphemism...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:24, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
In an article about Alaska, where the faecal collection system is locally called "honey buckets". JMWt (talk) 16:12, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Support – The current name is a euphemism that is also highly ambiguous with the brand name of an entirely different kind of portable toilet. At least in the U.S. (which contains many of the speakers of the English language), a honey bucket is a portable restroom, not a bucket. See http://www.honeybucket.com/. That brand of portable restroom is so common in the U.S. that its name is very frequently used as the generic name for any portable restroom. The term also seems ambiguous with Honey pot, which itself has several meanings. —BarrelProof (talk) 15:35, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Yet that's at odd with the very dictionary definitions that the people insisting "honey bucket" is North American slang give. Isn't it also possible that this particular brand of portable restrooms took its name from the actual honey bucket? LjL (talk) 16:11, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
how is that at odds? why wouldn't a brand in North America use a locally appropriate slang term? I really don't understand your reasoning at all. JMWt (talk) 16:14, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
What's at odds is that this would be the primary meaning. If the brand is just using the name because people know what it means in a general context, and the brand's meaning hasn't obscured the original one (which is what the dictionaries suggest), then the original meaning is the primary and common meaning. LjL (talk) 16:20, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
So the fact that a brand in North America is using a the term "honey bucket" to mean a certain type of toilet, then that is evidence that the whole world must be using it as well? You must know this isn't a real argument. JMWt (talk) 16:24, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
No, once again you misread and/or misinterpret what I've said completely. Read again. LjL (talk) 16:25, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
You are just spinning wheels. Whatever, I can't argue with your ridiculous points any longer. JMWt (talk) 16:28, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Before today, I thought I knew exactly what a "Honey bucket" was. I've been inside of many Honey buckets. When I saw that there was a move request listed at WP:RM about it, I came over expecting to say something like "Yes, let's move this because there are other brands of portable restroom, and it's inappropriate to use one particular brand's name when there are lots of other brands." I was rather WP:SURPRISEd to find a different topic altogether – something referring to an actual bucket! This is not the sort of Honey bucket I would want to find myself inside of. —BarrelProof (talk) 17:38, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
because they're articles and books about Alaska. JMWt (talk) 16:15, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Which is quite possibly (because of the climate) the place where this sort of toilet style is most overwhelmingly used...? That matters, too. LjL (talk) 16:18, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Wrong, and irrelevant. Locally the system in Alaska is called honey buckets. That is not relevant to the rest of the world, nor is it evidence of widespread use of the term in the world. JMWt (talk) 16:20, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
If the concept of this kind of toilet isn't widespread in the rest of the world (hypothesis, might be wrong, but not "irrelevant"), then the term also can't be. Wikipedia still uses it. LjL (talk) 16:22, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
FFS. Loads of people around the world use buckets as toilets. A minority of those are in Alaska, where they call it "honey buckets". This isn't hard to understand for anyone who knows that American English is not the norm around the world. JMWt (talk) 16:26, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Yup Americans love doing stuff different than the rest of the world. They are still using Miles. They refuse to use INN terms. They come up with their own slang etc. Wikipedia is global not American. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:42, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
How about staying on topic? What Americans "love" doing is in no way relevant to this debate. LjL (talk) 20:58, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
When an American euphemism is proposed it sure is on topic. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:26, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Clarification: My support of a move is in no way dependent on whether either term can be shown to be more commonly used by international English speaking populations. It is based on a preference for a simple descriptive title with lower risk of confusion. I suggest that even if it is possible that more people refer to a Honey bucket, they will not be surprised or confused if the article is titled "Bucket toilet", while many people who would not use or recognise the term Honey bucket would find Bucket toilet an unsurprising, appropriate and familiar term, one which would quite plausibly even be used by someone previously unfamiliar with the concept. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:13, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Support move to bucket toilet per WP:NC. Also worth noting using Google results to "prove" WP:COMMONNAME can be inaccurate (especially the ordering of those results). In this case; yes, Google does return ~290,000 results for the phrase "honey bucket". However, when you exclude those results that also contain the word "toilet", you still get ~274,000 results. (Interestingly excluding results containing smoking shaves >50,000 off the number of results returned.) With simple maths, I could infer the actual number of results is much closer to 16,000 when using "honey bucket" as slang for a type of makeshift toilet. However, to back up such a claim, I'd have to check a large percentage of the results to prove it. Which, an astute editor could argue, borders on WP:OR. Little pob (talk) 19:44, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
Comment although I still support the move, I'm beginning to think there is no primary topic. Some would argue that in such instances honey bucket should become a disambiguation page, whilst others will argue to retain per stability. Little pob (talk) 09:21, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Support move - the term "Bucket toilet" is more precise, and more widely used. Even within the USA, the term "Honey bucket" can mean different things. While it may be slang for a bucket toilet in some regions of the USA, in several western states the term is a business name for a company that provides enclosed portable toilets to events and construction sites.[4] The term bucket toilet benefits from being more precise and a broader world-wide recognition. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:47, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

I have posted notices of this debate at Talk:Camping, Talk:Ice fishing and Talk:Sanitation. Msnicki (talk) 20:00, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
I have also posted a notice at Talk:Portable toilet. Msnicki (talk) 21:25, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

  • Notice of WP:Canvassing. It's appropriate to post neutral invitations to neutral audiences to join a debate. I've posted several, I've tried to make them conform, I've notified you and I hope you will agree I've behaved fairly. What's not appropriate is posting invitations that favor a particular point of view, e.g., with biased language or by presenting only one side of the debate, or which are selectively addressed to an audience expected to hold the same opinion as you. Here are some posts that I believe crossed the line. [5] by Doc James, [6] by EvM-Susana and off-wiki [7] by someone using the handle, muench, at the same off-wiki forum mentioned above in EvM-Susana's support !vote. Msnicki (talk) 23:08, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Funny how in that forum post you linked, everyone seemingly favoring "honey bucket" was assumed to be North American ("It seems that the two sides of people arguing are: North American Wikipedia editors who are not actually dealing with sanitation issues and who want it to stay as "honey bucket". For the record, I am European (although for that matter, I don't think I have explicitly stated I favor the term "honey bucket - what I favor is a fair debate). Anyway, yeah, that forum canvassing is not cool. I'll also reply to one point raised on that forum, by User:EvM-Susana I assume, which went: "That's one aspect of unprofessionalism that our sector is grappling with (also because anyone thinks they can have an opinion about this, maybe because anyone is a toilet user)." - well, on Wikipedia, the words that get used to identify things are not dictated by "expert", but (as stated numerous times now) by their common name, and it won't help your stance to demean the non-"expert"'s "opinion" on common terminology. LjL (talk) 23:21, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
The post at WT:MED was "Discussion regarding if we should use "honey bucket" or "bucket toilet" here Talk:Honey_bucket#Requested move 7 October 2015" under the heading "American euphemism versus international technical term" which is a summary of the opening of this RfC.
Agree the post off wiki was not appropriate. Thanks for notifying a few more projects. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:47, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
Well, the issue I see with that is that part of this very debate is whether "honey bucket" is just an American euphemism as opposed to a possibly valid and possibly international technical term. So presenting it as something already determined is IMHO a bit deceitful. But anyway. LjL (talk) 11:49, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
That's pretty disingenuous, Doc. I think you knew exactly what you were doing, I think you knew it was wrong and it would impress me more if you were able to admit your mistakes. That opening summary was the argument offered as the reason for the request by the editor making it. It doesn't get more partisan than that. You had already announced your position, !voing "strong support" for the move, and you made that post, without announcing it here, because it was a group you thought might be friendly. There's no reason to think those at WikiProject Medicine have any special familiarity or interest in 5-gallon buckets used as toilets, much less, what they're called. But you do know they're comfortable with and may prefer technical terms over more common names. Msnicki (talk) 15:40, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
Toilets are a key part of public health. I will make notices more bland in the future. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:42, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. WP:COMMONNAME asks that we use the most common name for a topic and suggests considering search results. The most reliable statistics of frequency across all English-languages sources are Google's n-gram statistics showing a 5.7:1 preference for "honey bucket". These the only numbers likely to based on actual counts in contrast to the estimated numbers of results returned by searches.
But several objections have been raised, arguing that honey bucket is only a North American term, that it's slang or a euphemism, that it's not the official name used by governments and NGOs, and that many of those references to honey buckets could be references to buckets of actual honey. So I decided to do some research to help me gain insight. Here are the results of various searches I performed earlier today.
Type of search Honey bucket Bucket toilet Ratio
1 Web 292,000 56,100 5.2
2 News 282 142 2.0
3 Books 3,860 1,310 2.9
4 Scholar 329 414 0.8
5 Wikipedia 199 27 7.4
6 site:gov 777 89 8.7
7 site:edu 1,020 251 4.1
8 site:org 5,860 2,720 2.2
9 site:uk 1,130 739 1.5
10 site:ac.uk 7 57 0.1
11 site:ca 1,940 394 4.9
12 site:nz 425 341 1.2
13 site:au 1,170 1,290 0.9
14 + bees 25,200 7,850 3.2
15 + beekeeping 6,610 811 8.2
16 + africa 69,400 22,000 3.2
17 + europe 101,000 69,800 1.4
18 + alaska 11,800 11,400 1.0
19 + cabin 34,200 4,690 7.3
20 + camping 25,600 11,400 2.2
21 + "ice fishing" 1,410 883 1.6
22 + plumbing 64,700 56,000 1.2
23 + toilet 20,700 56,100 0.4
24 + health 62,200 20,400 3.0
25 + medical 158,000 13,500 11.7
26 pubmed 0 13 0.0
27 - song 272,000 53,700 5.1
28 - bees 280,000 55,500 5.0
29 - beekeeping 288,000 56,100 5.1
30 + rental 16,700 19,600 0.9
31 - rental 279,000 51,100 5.45
32 + waste 18,800 17,200 1.1
I just added searches 27 through 32. I will discuss them separately in a new comment. Msnicki (talk) 16:35, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Here are my take-aways.
  1. There's a consistent preference for honey bucket over bucket toilet across 21 out of 26 searches, including news and .gov, .edu, .org, .ca, .uk and .nz sites. In 2 of the remaining searches (+alaska, site:au), it was basically a tie.
  2. Claims, even if true, that honey bucket is slang have never been much than than WP:IDONTLIKEIT arguments because there's nothing in the guidelines that says that matters. Per WP:COMMONNAME, Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it generally prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. Also, per WP:OFFICIALNAMES, People often assume that, where an official name exists for the subject of a Wikipedia article, that name is ipso facto the correct title for the article, and that if the article is under another title then it should be moved. In many cases this is contrary to Wikipedia practice and policy. But what these searches show is that honey bucket is preferred even on .gov, .edu, .org sites. The claim that honey bucket is slang that serious sources would not use is clearly false. Serious sources do use the term and they use it more often than bucket toilet.
  3. The honey bucket +bees and +beekeeping searches suggest it's possible some number of references to honey buckets could be references to buckets of actual honey. If you do those searches, they do turn up some buckets for holding actual honey. But the 25,200 hits for +bees is only 8.6% of the 292,000 web hits for honey bucket, nowhere near enough to make it lose against the 56,100 hits for bucket toilet. But also, note that bucket toilet +bees searches also turns up a surprising number of hits suggesting that even sources talking about bees do also sometimes talk about portable toilets, in which case they probably use whatever they consider the commmon name for this thing. Based on this evidence, the claim that lots of hits for honey bucket could be talking about buckets of actual honey is almost certainly false. I think we can be pretty sure the number of such cases is relatively small, perhaps 9% or less, too small to swing the results.
  4. Only 3 searches (+toilet, site:ac.uk and pubmed) turned up a preference for bucket toilet. I think the +toilet search is explained by people using the honey bucket instead of toilet. And the site:ac.uk and pubmed searches together only accounted for 70 sources compared, e.g., to thousands in books. When British academicians and medical professionals write scholarly articles or for their colleagues, they prefer technical terms. On the other hand, the +medical search suggests that when they're not writing for journals, there's a good chance even doctors and patients overwhelmingly call these things honey buckets.
  5. This is not just a North American term. It's a term that is used by English-speakers all over the world. At worst, it runs about even in Australia. Everywhere else, it wins. That said, it looks to me like North Americans talk about these things in English more often than other people. This was my concern with the Namibian source offered by the Nom. According to our article on Namibia, only 3% of the people there speak English, so my guess is that at least 97% and maybe the whole 100% of all the people in that country don't ever refer to the things in English anyway. They probably use a local language and I'll bet they have their own euphemisms in those languages. And with only 3% speaking English, you'd have to expect that most might have limited vocabularies. So if you were writing for that audience, you would probably prefer a descriptive over an idiomatic term your readers might or might not know.
The status quo for years has been honey bucket. To move to bucket toilet requires evidence and guidelines-based arguments that more than outweigh staying with the status quo. I don't believe that burden has been met. To the contrary, I believe the clear weight of the evidence is that the WP:COMMONNAME for these things is what it's been for years, honey bucket. If new evidence or better arguments can be found, I would be willing to reconsider my !vote. Msnicki (talk) 23:58, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
The problem with a simple search by phrase is that the term "Honey bucket" can refer to other things. For instance, other than the link to Wikipedia, the entire first page of web results point to the company (providing portable toilets, which are a slightly different thing). On the second page, there are more links to the company, a couple to a band using that name, then three references to the article subject. Page three has two references to the subject, and all the rest are again references to the company again, or a song by a band. Page four continues that ratio - three on the article subject, the rest are various other topics using the term. This pretty much confirms that a straight comparison of search results are meaningless. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:24, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
That's why he didn't do a "straight comparison of search results", but a reasoned comparison of a number of different searches including those with added terms to disambiguate between sanitary use of the terms and other uses. LjL (talk) 00:35, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Except the handful of additional search terms thrown in as "reasoned comparison" didn't even turn up in the first several pages (I finally found a link related to beekeeping in the fifth page of results). If you look at the actual search results, you find that the "reasoned comparison" failed to acknowledge that the majority of the search results are comprised of the portable toilet company that operates under the name "Honey Bucket", and music results using the name either as a song title or as a band name. Basically, it's a big wall of text that superficially looks impressive until you actually look at the search results themselves. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 00:46, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
I think you need to do more than argue there could be a problem with my numbers, I think you need to show there is a problem and that it's significant enough to swing the numbers all the way to supporting bucket toilet as the more common name. I appreciate that you don't like my evidence but the problem is, you don't have any of your own and I think your handwaving arguments are suspect. The first pages of results are the most highly ranked, not necessarily representative of the rest of the sources. It's possible that a band or a commercial company might rank highly on the first page of results but a lot less likely to be appear in the results buried more deeply on page 20 or 50 or 100 of the 292,000 results on the web. And they'd be still less likely to appear in books or on news, .edu, .org and .gov sites. Fundamentally, no one can really know what the actual usage ratio is. But this evidence overwhelmingly suggests that honey bucket really is the more common name for this thing than bucket toilet. To dispute that, you need to do more than just deny my evidence, you need evidence of your own, which you don't have. Msnicki (talk) 01:12, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It is interesting to try to understand what is the WP:COMMONNAME for this special-purpose bucket, and the above analysis may be helpful for that, but we must also consider WP:DAB / WP:PRIMARYTOPIC as well as WP:COMMONNAME. Even if we conclude that "honey bucket" is the most common English name for a bucket that is used as a toilet, it seems like an ambiguous term. If the first few pages of search results for the term are dominated by references to things different from this topic, that seems like a potential problem. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:15, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Yes there are problems with this analysis because most of the links for honey bucket are not about bucket toilet. Thus the problem with using the term. I have provided the proper evidence above Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:23, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Very little of this addresses the question of how the term is used outside of North America. Indeed, if one considers that a) there is a brand of mobile toilets in North America called "honey buckets" b) that in Alaska there is an actual faecal collection and transport system called "honey buckets" c) that google.com disproportionally ranks US government sites above the equivalent sites in almost any other jurisdiction d) that google.com disproportionally ranks US media sites above equivalent English-language media sites from countries where large numbers of people actually use bucket toilets (for example India and parts of Africa) and e) that google.com has a whole heap of books from the Library of Congress and US academic sources but many fewer published in other jurisdictions - then this is a whole pile of nothing. Utterly useless. JMWt (talk) 12:53, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Furthermore the comment above about the use in Australia is entirely bogus. Search for "honey bucket" on google.com.au and specify that the pages should be from Australia, and only one result in the first two pages of results is unambiguously about toilets, the rest are about beekeeping or bands. So to claim that this somehow shows that in Australia that "bucket toilet" is somehow used the same amount as "honey bucket" and then to infer from that that Australians use the term "honey bucket" to mean toilet is really silly. Similar for the results from google.co.in - only one out of the first several pages of local results are about toilets, never mind the toilets discussed on this page. Again, you must know that this analysis is entirely wrong. JMWt (talk) 13:04, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Here is a decidedly Australian website] that uses the term "honey bucket" in parentheses to actually explain what this "Port-A-Pottie" is. Is that bogus for you? LjL (talk) 13:13, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
It appears on the second page of the results from google.com.au - what do you think this proves? Even using your own system of faulty google analysis, this suggests that more Australians use the term to refer to a bucket used in beekeeping than for a type of toilet. JMWt (talk) 13:16, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Oh my God the second page! No really, are you listening to yourself? First Google results don't matter and only direct links to international usage matter, then I give a direct link to Australian usage that shows someone in Australia is using the term "honey bucket" to make the idea clearer to others and suddenly all that matters is that it's not in Google's first page. Ridiculous. LjL (talk) 13:21, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Australia has a very useful source to search newspaper archives called Trove. "honey bucket" has been used in Australian media a 77 times in the last 200 years, mostly to refer to beekeeping, but also occasionally to refer to toilets. "bucket toilet" is used more than 300 times.
So at best, "bucket toilet" is used very occasionally in Australia, as it is also in the UK. Isn't that the point of this whole discussion? Some guy in Australia is using the term to sell wilderness supplies, probably to people who are influenced by the N American usage. This doesn't show international common usage of the term "honey bucket" as a toilet, it doesn't even show common usage in Australia. It certainly is not as strong evidence as I supplied right at the top of this discussion. JMWt (talk) 13:29, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
You supplied single international websites just as I supplied a single Australian website to show usage in Australia. I don't really need to show that it's the prevailing term in Australia: the goalpost thus far was to show it wasn't just used in the United States. You admit that it isn't, not only via the site I linked, but also by means of the search you made yourself. North America is a very big part of the English-speaking world, so you certainly can't suggest to discount it. If it's the WP:COMMONNAME in America, and it's still pretty common in the rest of the English-speaking world, then your continuing claims about "North American slang" are shown to be bogus. And it would be about time. LjL (talk) 13:34, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Australia is a tiny proportion of English-speakers. So that makes no odds anyway. There are easily as many English-speakers in India + Pakistan + Nigeria as in the USA, so even if all English-speakers in the USA used the term (which you've provided absolutely no evidence of), then it still wouldn't be enough to show WP:COMMONNAME, particularly as many more people in those countries use buckets as toilets than the scant number of users in the USA. Claiming that North America is a "very big part of the English-speaking world" is not only wrong, it shows your total bias on this topic. JMWt (talk) 13:43, 12 October 2015 (UTC)


  • Comment: If we put half this much effort into improving the article, it would get a lot better. It's funny that we've got such a lengthy and vociferous argument going on about the name of such a low-quality stub. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:49, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment: I think we should come to a conclusion on this reasonably soon as we're going round and round in circles here. What is the process? If I look at the posts about we have three people who strongly oppose the move: Msnicki, User:LjL, User:ScrapIronIV. On the other side, we have 12 people supporting the move if I counted correctly (plus people who commented on the forum here but as this is called "canvassing" on Wikipedia it therefore doesn't count). I totally agree with BarrelProof that we should much rather spend our time on improving the article rather than on discussing its title (having said that, I feel little motivation to improve an article that has an - in my view - inappropriate title). With regards to the allegation above of "it won't help your stance to demean the non-"expert"'s "opinion" on common terminology" - for me it feels exactly the opposite. Time and time again in the posts made by the three opponents of the move, my opinion (and that of User:JMWt has been regularly "put down" by those opposing the move saying that because I am an "expert" my opinion cannot possibly be valid but but must be biased etc. Anyway, I really don't feel like wasting my time discussing this further with the few 3 people who strongly oppose the move. Therefore, what is the way forward? Do we wait another week or two and see how it looks then? Do we need to collect the opinions of more people?EvM-Susana (talk) 07:26, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Article title discussions are usually kept open for at least a week – sometimes two or more (if the question is "relisted" for further discussion). The conclusion is ordinarily declared by an "uninvolved administrator". WP:There is no deadline. —BarrelProof (talk) 09:10, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Don't forget that !votes have to be weighted. For example, with no edits to the article itself, my initial support above would carry less weight than those who have edited the article, such as BarrelProof and Msnicki. And had I not put a policy reason, it could be discounted all together by whomever is the closer. Little pob (talk) 09:21, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
I think if you actually read my statements you'll find that I've not only not explicitly "strongly opposed" the move, but I've actually said so quite recently. What I've mostly been concerned with has been illogical arguments and some foul play. The only preference I've at some point stated was for "bucket latrine", in fact. I'd prefer not being misrepresented. --LjL (talk) 11:31, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, Little pob, what does !votes mean as opposed to votes? I've seen a few people use the term "!votes" and am not sure what the exclamation mark is for. EvM-Susana (talk) 11:50, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
This thing is not about "votes" for and against a position, but the strength of an argument. Those who keep making the same argument are not addressing the fundamental underlying issue in that they've not yet shown international common usage of the term "honey bucket". JMWt (talk) 12:39, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
EvM-Susana; JMWt's post summarises it nicely. Just to add, "!VOTE" is shorthand for, and read as, "not vote". (You can read more at the Polling is not a substitute for discussion essay, specifically the WP:!VOTE section.) Little pob (talk) 12:59, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Comment Another thought that crossed my mind. As far as I can see, the 3 opponents of the move have consistently pushed the Google Stats argument but have mostly ignored any other argument (such as the fact that "honey bucket" is also the name of a chemical toilet company in the US (a point raised by (User:BarrelProof) or that "WP:NC states that titles should be recognizable, natural, precise, concise and consistent." - a point made by User:JMWt. Personally, I don't think some sort of Google stats analysis should be the "be all and end all" argument here. But if we were to look at Google stats, I would like to point out two things: Firstly, you should group together hits for "bucket toilet" and "bucket latrine" as they are interchangeable terms (and I would be OK with renaming the page to bucket latrine instead of bucket toilet if needed). You could even include in the analysis the term "bucket system" as e.g. in South Africa this term is used a lot as well. - Secondly, when you are looking at different countries, it seems to me that you keep focussing on countries where English is spoken as the first language (i.e. USA, Canada, Australia, NZ, UK, South Africa (where it's only first language of a fraction of the population). Are you also including all the other countries and if not, why not? At least India, Pakistan, Nigeria, but also Europe, African countries like Kenya, Ghana and so forth, also Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia etc. There are plenty of countries where people don't speak English as their first language but where it is either official government language nevertheless or where globlisation has meant that people read and write a lot in English - so are people in those countries more likely to write about "honey buckets" or about "bucket toilets/latrines"?. Wikipedia is meant for a global audience not only for those who speak English as their first language. EvM-Susana (talk) 11:50, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

I said:
Isn't it also possible that this particular brand of portable restrooms took its name from the actual honey bucket? LjL (talk) 16:11, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
and later:
If the brand is just using the name because people know what it means in a general context, and the brand's meaning hasn't obscured the original one (which is what the dictionaries suggest), then the original meaning is the primary and common meaning. LjL (talk) 16:20, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
So that argument has not been ignored and to me you seem to be selectively ignoring things that are being said at least as much as "we" (your collective we, including me as "opponent" to this move, although you still don't seem to have read my strong objection about that representation). I'm really starting to doubt your good faith. --LjL (talk) 12:20, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Let's just accept that the portable toilet company took their name from the commonly used phrase "honey bucket". If that's true, where does it get us? First, at best it is a commonly enough phrase to have brand awareness in the North American market. That in-and-of-itself would not be evidence that the phrase is WP:COMMONNAME. Second, even if that was the case, it could be a situation where the phrase is now defunct in North America such that few people actually know the phrase "honey bucket" beyond the name of the brand. Third, the argument made above shows that point is irrelevant anyway - given that users reaching this page may well be thinking the page is about the brand of mobile toilets and not about the thing that the page says it is about. As best this is an argument for having "honey bucket" as a disamb page listing all the the possible meanings it could have. Forcing the page to mean something that you've not actually been able to prove it means to the majority of people who look for it is not a credible position. JMWt (talk) 12:30, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Why are you murking waters by replying here (where I am in fact just showing that EvM-Susana said things that weren't true) instead of in the place I took those quotes from? You appear not to have read the second one in any case. --LjL (talk) 12:32, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
All of these points have been made and addressed before. You simply want to continue making the same argument over and over again with no additional referenced evidence that your position should be considered to be credible.JMWt (talk) 12:36, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Second of all, you assert that the "the brand's meaning hasn't obscured the original one" when clearly for some readers it has, and without any actual evidence that this is the case. Even if the meaning has not been obscured in North America, it is not proven that this phrase a) was ever used throughout the English-speaking world or b) that this is anything more than an archane term like "privy".
Third of all, all of these points have been address multiple times above before. JMWt (talk) 12:34, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for heeding my request to reply in the appropriate part of the thread. --LjL (talk) 12:36, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
All of these points have been addressed before. JMWt (talk) 12:37, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Then please do not re-address them here (in the wrong place) where I am making a different point (that my statements are being misreported). Again thank you. --LjL (talk) 12:55, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

I am not going to involve myself further in this discussion, particularly when you state that "I'm really starting to doubt your good faith." (LjL). - I will from here on just sit back and see what the "uninvolved administrator" eventually decides. When/if the page is re-named to either bucket toilet or bucket latrine, then I would volunteer to invest more time into its content. A starting point would be (if someone has the time) to make sure that the references which were listed by JMWt on 7 Oct. are included in the appropriate places:

Another aspect would be to explain the issue of terminology, and e.g. mention the use of the term "honey bucket" for mobile chemical toilets in the U.S., and that a large company uses this name (something that hasn't been mentioned in the article yet) EvMsmile (talk) 13:29, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

  • Support From what I see, honey here is an euphemism for urine, but for many people that would be misleading and I myself initially thought of an actual honey when first clicking on honey bucket. In American English Dictionary, "honey bucket" is indeed a slang term and Oxford Dictionary gives "toilet bucket" as a non-slang alternative. Per WP:PRECISION, article "titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article". Brandmeistertalk 17:19, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment. Let me reiterate that I think the Google n-gram statistics are likely the most reliable and precise measures of usage across all English language sources. They're most likely based on actual counts and they clearly indicate that honey bucket is favored nearly 6-to-1. But valid concerns have been raised pointing out that those numbers might not be relevant if lots of references to honey buckets are in fact references to something other than 5-gallon buckets used as toilets. So I've been trying to use the less precise search result numbers to test whether the various concerns that have been raised could swing the numbers enough to invalidate a conclusion that honey bucket is the common name. I was already very sure any possible confusion with buckets of honey could not swing the results and I've added two additional searches (-bees and -beekeeping) that also appear to support that conclusion.
Two new concerns have been raised arguing that maybe a lot of these references are to the song or to the rental company of that name. But if that was a valid concern for the web as a whole, we should have seen very different trends in books, news and .gov, .edu and .org site but we didn't. But I decided to look deeper and added new searches (+song, -song, +rental, -rental) that also suggest that while some number of references to honey buckets on the web could be to the song or the company, it's completely unlikely it could be enough to swing the results. There is basically zero evidence to support a claim that bucket toilet is more common name for these things than honey bucket nor even any evidence that the data we have could be so completely in error as to make that possible. Msnicki (talk) 17:13, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Unfortunately, even if "honey bucket" is the most common name for a bucket used as a toilet, it probably does not have WP:PRIMARYTOPIC status for the term, and would therefore need disambiguation. That could lead us to a title like Honey bucket (bucket toilet), which seems awkward and redundant. The alternative of "Bucket toilet" is obviously much better than that. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:11, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Except for all the evidence I, you, and others have provided showing that "bucket toilet" is more commonly used for this type of toilet than other terms of course :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:31, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Strong support for move, as uninvolved editor. Look at that list of searches and you'll see that Google Scholar is one of the places where bucket toilet wins out. That's because, in academic articles, people look for neutral, accurate terms for things. Look at the book searches side by side, and compare the quality and tone of the results, and you'll see that "honey bucket" is much more likely to appear in novels and biographies (note the beekeeping books on the first page of results!) than in straightforward non-fiction books. WP:COMMONNAME is being thrown around a lot here, but if you read the policy, you'll see that:
    • it is called "Use commonly recognizable names", not "use the common name". When I first saw this article (as someone over the age of 40, who is well-read and has lived on three continents and has worked as a volunteer in developing countries), I had no idea what it might be about, and thought it might be a variant of honeypot. If it had been called "bucket toilet" I would have been in no doubt whatever. That is what a "commonly recognizable name" is.
    • it says "the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources." (emphasis mine) Compare these two lists of articles: Honey bucket and Bucket toilet. The "Bucket toilet" list is full of articles about preventable disease and rural sanitation, and patents. The "Honey bucket" list mostly refers to it in anecdotes. --Slashme (talk) 20:27, 12 October 2015 (UTC); edited 07:25, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I have posted notices of this debate at WP:RSN and WP talk:Article titles. Msnicki (talk) 20:05, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

  • Comment - If we decide to rename the page to bucket toilet, then I would suggest to set up a disambiguation page for honey bucket which could then include:
    • Honey bucket - a type of simple toilet, also called bucket toilet
    • Honey bucket - a bucket to store honey in, see beekeeping
    • Honey bucket - a song, a band or whatever (if there are existing Wikipedia pages for those)
    • Honey bucket - mobile chemical toilet cubicle (portable restroom)
    • Anything else?

In that case, we would not need a hatnote for the article on bucket toilet, as far as I can see. EvMsmile (talk) 12:31, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

It seems it's also the name for some sort of glass or titanium apparatus used for smoking cannabis extracts (dabs?) on bongs, water pipes etc. Little pob (talk) 13:09, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
Yes agree. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:50, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
As far as I know, there's not currently an entry for Honey Bucket (band), but there is one for Honey Bucket (song) (currently, its notability could be challenged; but I think there's adequate sources turned up here to improve that article). Based on the Google results, I've been thinking of working on an article for the company[8] as there appears to be more than enough third-party coverage to establish notability. I just need to find the time to dig through the available sources to put the article together. If anyone wants to work on articles, I also came across several references to Captain Benjamin Luke Comeau, whose prisoner of war drawing are contained in the book "Honey Bucket Charlie" - many of links I found for this are low quality or just shopping links; but I came across a couple good ones, so I suspect enough could be identified to create an article about the book. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:05, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
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.

Off topic

Latest comment: 9 years ago17 comments6 people in discussion
This talk page is about "toilets". Collapsing off topic discussion.

Conflict of interest

It is a voluntary network of individuals and organisations working in sanitation. Of a very similar status to The Wiki Project Med Foundation Are you saying that User:Doc_James should not edit wikipedia pages on medicine? Don't be ridiculous. JMWt (talk) 14:11, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
The fact that it's an organization funded by a government body certainly makes it less surprising that you'd champion using terminology approved by "official" bodies instead of just common names, and disdain the concept of "anyone having an opinion" (I've quote this above) on your forum. LjL (talk) 14:31, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Right, yeah, because professionals discussing things they actually know about on a voluntary bulletin board obviously means there is a conflict and that they're biased. You are just weird. JMWt (talk) 14:34, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Voluntary funded by a government? LjL (talk) 14:36, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
This just shows your ignorance. You might want to look more closely at SuSanA before you make further stupid comments about it, the discussion forum and those who edit relevant wikipedia pages. JMWt (talk) 14:42, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Wow. You may want to look at WP:NPA before saying things like "This just shows your ignorance". LjL (talk) 14:46, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Right, because claiming someone is a meatpuppet is absolutely fine. The SuSanA website is more than the discussion forum, and the funding from GIZ was for it becoming a shared resource for professionals and nothing about editing wikipedia pages. Nobody from the SuSanA forum has ever been funded for editing wikipedia pages. By implying anything otherwise, you are just showing your ignorance. JMWt (talk) 14:50, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Nobody, least of all I, has "implied" the reason for government funding was "editing Wikipedia articles" (that would, in fact, be pretty absurd). Since you insist with this "ignorance" leitmotif (I don't have to know anything about this organization except the facts presented, by the way), I now feel like I have to report this incident. LjL (talk) 15:02, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Not a problem, you've just proved my point. JMWt (talk) 15:03, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
as per WP:PAY this is not a financial relationship, and the other categories of COI do not apply. So you are commenting about potential COI of another user without actually knowing what you are talking about. JMWt (talk) 15:07, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

See canvassing by EvM-Susana, now User:EvMsmile, on an outside members only forum [10], for example TOPIC: Honey bucket?? Shouldn't it be called bucket toilet or bucket latrine? An argument on Wikipedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bebbebopp (talk • contribs) 15:25, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

WP:CANVASSING is not the same as an allegation of editing with a WP:COI. Given that nobody is being WP:PAY, then you've got more of a job than just saying professionals are discussing edits on a professional bulletin board. JMWt (talk) 15:32, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
So when people run out of arguments, they resort to attacking people for conflict of interest - nice! This discussion about conflict of interest should go - if anything - on my talk page, not here. If you look at my talk page you can see that the same question has been raised in the past and has been resolved, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:EvMsmile#questions_about_members_of_your_organisation . I see no need to warm up these old stories. Just one thing: You said "probably shouldn't be editing articles that your organization Sustainable Sanitation Alliance has an interest in". Have you ever looked at the WikiProject Sanitation that I started with Doc_James?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation . We have tagged about 370 pages so far: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation/Popular_pages So you are saying because I am part of a loose network of 5600 people neither me nor any of the other 5600 members (growing each day) would be allowed to edit any of those 370 pages? What a joke!! That's like saying anyone who's a doctor (and belongs to some medical information exchange network) must not edit any pages that have something to do with health. By the way, I have removed the information about me on my user page because if it's just behing held against me then what's the point in saying anything about oneself. - The whole thing is such a joke. All this just because I proposed to rename honey bucket to bucket toilet - something that many other people (see above) agreed with me on! - It's the kind of thing that makes one wonder "why even bother with editing on Wikipedia in the first place". EvMsmile (talk) 16:22, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
  • User:JMWt, please read WP:COI. You do not have to be paid. "Conflict of interest is not about actual bias. It is about a person's roles and relationships, and the tendency to bias that we assume exists when roles conflict.[3] That someone has a conflict of interest is a description of a situation. It is not a judgment about that person's state of mind or integrity." Bebbebopp (talk) 17:34, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
OK, but we should be encouraging people who have specialized expertise to help edit Wikipedia, and I personally see nothing sinister about someone with expertise and interest in public health and sanitation taking an interest in articles related to that general subject area. We're talking about using a bucket as a toilet here, folks, and we're devoting way more energy to its two-word title and the personal behavior of a few editors than to the overall poor quality of the article. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:20, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment: User:Bebbebopp is an account that was created today, and so far has commented here and on WP:COIN, but somehow feels qualified to make judgements about Wikipedia policy as it relates to User:EvMsmile's motives? That's really fishy. I'm very strongly against CoI editing and work hard to stop it wherever I see it, but I don't see how EvM's affiliation is remotely relevant to the name of this article. If you trying to make the point that she shouldn't be editing Sustainable Sanitation Alliance, I'd take a CoI allegation more seriously, but an expert who is deeply involved in an academic topic has no reason not to edit articles about that topic. That's not what the CoI policy is about. --Slashme (talk) 20:57, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Disposal of the contents of the bucket

Latest comment: 9 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

I added a mention of the informal disposal of plastic bags of human waste into the article – i.e., the phenomenon sometimes called "flying toilets", which I believe applies to the disposal of plastic bags that have been used to collect waste in a bucket toilet as well as simply defecating directly into a plastic bag without using a bucket and then discarding it. Then a couple of other editors basically removed all discussion of the methods of disposal of the contents of the bucket from the article. I'm not sure that was a good idea. I think it is important to provide some information about the disposal of the contents of bucket toilets in the article – either by describing it directly or by providing information about where it is described elsewhere on Wikipedia. I also think we should not avoid describing the full range of possibilities for such disposal – e.g., by mentioning how the contents of the buckets may be collected for proper composting or processed by a municipal waste disposal service without also mentioning the possibility of unsanitary informal disposal along roadsides or nearby dumping grounds that have no isolation from surface water supplies. Our description of the phenomenon of bucket toilets should not be "sanitized". —BarrelProof (talk) 01:12, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you that some information needs to be provided about disposal and reuse (with hyperlinks to other existing Wikipedia pages) - I have done that now. I have also tried to improve the part on applications by creating three sub-headings which could be fleshed out over time. Flying toilets are a bit different though, they are not connected to a bucket system, but really just one defecation event in one (small) plastic bag. See for more information flying toilets. EvMsmile (talk) 12:17, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
Seems to me this is one of those "when is a bucket not a bucket", and "when is defecating in a bag and then throwing it away not a "flying toilet" discussion. I think that's probably outwith of the parameters of this discussion - in the sense that clearly faeces in buckets could be disposed in various ways: including via a sanitary truck, into an open sewer, into a latrine and so on. I think the health issues are twofold: first that an open bucket does not offer much protection to the user, and the potential for tipping over. Second poor disposal practices. As far as I can tell, those assessing the risk consider buckets to be pretty high-risk faecal collection systems however the faeces is subsequently disposed of. JMWt (talk) 13:29, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
I agree with your comments about health aspects and have added information accordingly. Please check. EvMsmile (talk) 20:30, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
Comment: AFAIK, the "flying toilet" issue applies whenever there is a bag of human waste that has been disposed of indiscriminately, not just when the filling of the bag has been conducted in the absence of a bucket. Bucket toilets are frequently lined with a bag (as depicted in the photo), which leads rather directly to the need to discard bags of human waste. After a bag of waste has been discarded indiscriminately, it is probably fairly difficult to tell whether a bucket was involved when the bag was filled. One of the editors here has twice modified the article to say that the indiscriminate disposal of "flying toilet" bags of human waste is only an issue when bucket toilets are not used for filling the bags. I think that is incorrect. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:30, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
@BarrelProof: - I am grateful for your willingness to engage with the substance of this page, that certainly makes a refreshing change. I think the distinction that EvMsmile is making is that a bag from a bucket filled with faeces (and likely urine) is unlikely to be thrown around, and certainly I'd say that the popular image of a flying toilet is that of a single deposit of faeces in a plastic bag hanging from a tree, on a street corner etc. I think the complication we have on the page is that we've allowed that the buckets may be lined with a bag. I am not sure how often that happens in practice, or what actually happens to the bags. One commercial company (and probably others) which is being increasingly used in disaster areas uses a biodegradable bag inside a form of "bucket" which is then collected for safe disposal, and is marketed as an alternative to widespread flying toilets, see this news report. I think one would need to be able to point to good references to assert that bucket toilets were a major source of flying toilets - I suspect they're probably not for reasons of quantity and access to plastic liners, but I'm prepared to be wrong if references are supplied showing this. JMWt (talk) 07:27, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
I was going to write the same as JMWt. :-) Great how we're now making progress in improving the content of the page. I think it's OK to point people towards flying toilets (I have put it now back under "see also") but let's not confuse the two concepts. My understanding was, like JMWt pointed out, that the definition of flying toilet is actually to use a bag and nothing else - otherwise it's not called a flying toilet. If you have read descriptions where flying toilets are connected with the use of buckets, please bring those references to our attention (the ones I've read, mostly from Kenya - see reference list in flying toilet - use flying toilet in the way JMWt described it. If there is more to it, then let's update the article on flying toilets. - Also, I have tried to make it clearer now in the article that bucket toilets are also used without plastic bags (see my edits). I don't have numbers but from stories I've read, I would think that it's probably the norm in countries like India, Ghana, South Africa that IF people have to resort to bucket toilets, there are not that likely to use a plastic bag with it. Finding a plastic bag that is sturdy and wide enough to cover the diameter of a large bucket is not easy when you don't go shopping often in malls... If the people were to use a plastic bag, it's unlikely that it would be discarded each time that the bucket is emptied. Again if someone has additional references that could be cited for this, please do bring them forward.EvMsmile (talk) 12:26, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Honey bucket

Latest comment: 9 years ago11 comments6 people in discussion

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Honey bucket's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named ":1":

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 12:36, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand what needs to be done here? Can one of the more experienced Wikipedians please explain?EvMsmile (talk) 20:40, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
I think it was trying to fix a problem caused by this edit. That introduced a cross-reference to a citation named as ":1", and there was no corresponding citation in the article, so it was trying to guess what the citation might have been intended to refer to. The cross-reference was later removed, so that problem is resolved. However, I notice that some recent edits seem to exhibit a lack of awareness of how to make multiple references to the same citation. The way this is done is to name the citation somewhere, e.g., using <ref name=Josephine>{{cite web| ...}}</ref>, and then later refer to it by following the name of the citation with a slash character, as in <ref name=Josephine/>, without following the cross-reference with a duplicate copy of the citation material. Some people like to put quote marks around the name label, but that is unnecessary (unless the label contains a space). Studying the markup in some article will help explain this further if it is not clear. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:54, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

To make the article source easier to read, I've moved all the citations into the reflist, leaving references to the citations in the text. --Slashme (talk) 07:57, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

While it's usually not a big deal in small articles, some editors find the conversion to wp:LDR to be a toxic practice, so please ask before doing that elsewhere.LeadSongDog come howl! 16:46, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
I've never seen it done like that, I find it pretty unhelpful for writing and a headache for editing. JMWt (talk) 16:55, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
Propose return to the standard type of reflist as in the section on HELP:MULTIREF because the current system of WP:LDR requires editing both the section where the ref is to be added and the reference section at the bottom of the page, adding to potential for breaking the page. Also just seems to be additionally complicated for little gain in reading the page. JMWt (talk) 07:42, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I didn't realise that anyone found it unhelpful! Please note, you don't have to stick to this format: the two systems coexist, so you can add new refs into the body text and they'll still work.
When I heard of the feature being added, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread, because:
  • I find it really hard to follow the flow of the text if it's continually interrupted by long citation templates.
  • It's easier to find duplicated references this way, for example the World Bank reference that appeared twice in this article.
  • In the previous system, if you want to find the reference text, you need to find where it's first referred to in the article, whereas this way, you know they're all down at the bottom, mirroring how the article looks.
  • It's more familiar to people who write academic articles: you'd have your library of references, which you refer to in your text.
So (and this is a serious question, not rhetorical), what do you dislike about LDR? The points you raised are:
  • Need to edit in two places to add a ref
No, you can add refs as normal; they'll still work.
  • More complicated
Not really: you still have the ref text with a named tag in one place, and everwhere it's re-used, it just has the tag - the only difference is that every tag needs a name.
  • More potential for breakage
Actually, I think it's less: previously, if the text where the citation was got removed, other ref tags would break, and you'd have to check previous revisions to fish it out again.
However, if the main editors of this page seriously dislike the change, I don't mind if you change it back, in fact, if there's a consensus to change it back, let me know and I'll even do the work as penance. My alternative proposal, though: leave it as it is, and add new references as normal.

--Slashme (talk) 08:00, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks for taking the time to engage and explain. As I said above, I have not used it before, and I don't think any of the other Wikiproject Sanitation pages are using this format. As to your points:
  • I don't understand your first point. And I don't know if this is relevant if someone is using the visualeditor. Maybe you can tell me.
  • I don't think it is any easier to find duplicate references. I agree that the page needed work to correct errors, but in my view this change just makes extra work to anyone wanting to add refs and keep the same style of citation.
  • Most of us who work on WProject Sanitation are not academics and we're trying to encourage more to engage. If the system looks complicated, this is offputting.
  • I didn't know that 'normal' refs work, but doesn't this anyway work against WP:CITESTYLE - in the sense of keeping to a consistent citation style? Why would we want a page with more than one citation style?
  • We are trying to encourage citations to have a name across the WP Sanitation pages we edit, so I don't think this makes any difference. One of the things we do to improve sanitation pages is to improve the references.
  • Well, sorry, I've edited a lot of sanitation pages and the only time I've had trouble trying to get it to display correctly it when I attempted to use the style you've introduced. So I think it is more complicated.
As an overall point, we've been trying hard to introduce new editors to a citation style which is easy to use with visualeditor. I don't see that what you've done here makes this easier, in fact it seems to be impossible to do with visualeditor. Please correct me if I am wrong on this. JMWt (talk) 08:14, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I see your point now: I just tried to edit the page in VisualEditor, and the citations in the reflist template really don't work in VE. I never realised this because I've always used the source editor whenever I'm working with citations. I've changed it back. --Slashme (talk) 11:02, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree with JMWt and find that other referencing style very confusing. Thanks for changing it back Slashme. Why would anyone not use visual editor, it is so comfortable. :-) I guess it depends on what you're used to. EvMsmile (talk) 21:36, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

C-class; mid-importance

Latest comment: 9 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

Based on the the quality and importance criteria for WikiProject Sanitation, I've reclassified this article:

  • It easily passes C-class: "The article is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains much irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant problems or require substantial cleanup." I'd say it's clearly above start-class, for example it's way beyond "The article has a usable amount of good content but is weak in many areas. Quality of the prose may be distinctly unencyclopedic, and MoS compliance non-existent."
  • I would argue that the topic is certainly not low-importance in the context of sanitation. For reference, the definition is "Article may only be included to cover a specific part of a more important article, or may be only loosely connected to sanitation. Subject may be specific to one country or part of one country, such as licensing requirements or organizations. This category includes most of the following: scientific concepts, medical conditions, lesser used technologies." It much more closely fits the mid-importance criteria: "Subject is notable within its particular specialty. This category includes most sanitation technologies, scientific concepts, medical conditions related to sanitation."

Feel free to change the classification if you disagree. --Slashme (talk) 07:19, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Whilst I generally agree, I think this page is far lower quality than many and/or most of the other pages which the WikiProject Sanitation is working on. It is a bit better than it was, so yes the quality has been improved, but there is still a lot more that needs to be worked on. On importance, I've always thought that this was entirely subjective. But both are fluid ideas and do not really affect the priorities WP Sanitation puts on particular pages - we often spend a lot of time improving "low importance", "low quality" pages. JMWt (talk) 07:33, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
I reckon it's OK, thanks Slashme. If the same number of people as are currently busy with this article (and its name) will continue to help improve the content (would would be great), then we will fast progress even to B-class. :-) Importance "mid" is OK by me, I guess bucket toilets generate quite a bit of attention - even though they are generally being phased out, or perhaps they have a resurgence for emergency settings in the form of the two-bucket system (see examples from New Zealand and Oregon; yet to add more info on Oregon).EvMsmile (talk) 12:20, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
Looks good for C-class to me, Importance is more subjective, and I am not involved in the Wikiproject, so am not familiar with their criteria, but mid-importance does not seem inappropriate considering the prevalence of use in some parts of the world. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 21:02, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Change hatnote and set up disambiguation page for honey bucket

Latest comment: 9 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion

I think we can now change the hatnote to make it much shorter (do we even still need it at all?) - now that the page is called "bucket toilet". Also I am copying here something from above which I think we should now do (I copy it because it is in that "protected" area above and it says there "do not edit it":

If we decide to rename the page to bucket toilet, then I would suggest to set up a disambiguation page for honey bucket which could then include:

  • Honey bucket - a type of simple toilet, also called bucket toilet
  • Honey bucket - a bucket to store honey in, see beekeeping
  • Honey bucket - a song, a band or whatever (if there are existing Wikipedia pages for those)
  • Honey bucket - mobile chemical toilet cubicle (portable restroom)
  • Anything else?

In that case, we would not need a hatnote for the article on bucket toilet, as far as I can see. EvMsmile (talk) 12:31, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

It seems it's also the name for some sort of glass or titanium apparatus used for smoking cannabis extracts (dabs?) on bongs, water pipes etc. Little pob (talk) 13:09, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
Yes agree. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:50, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
As far as I know, there's not currently an entry for Honey Bucket (band), but there is one for Honey Bucket (song) (currently, its notability could be challenged; but I think there's adequate sources turned up here to improve that article). Based on the Google results, I've been thinking of working on an article for the company[11] as there appears to be more than enough third-party coverage to establish notability. I just need to find the time to dig through the available sources to put the article together. If anyone wants to work on articles, I also came across several references to Captain Benjamin Luke Comeau, whose prisoner of war drawing are contained in the book "Honey Bucket Charlie" - many of links I found for this are low quality or just shopping links; but I came across a couple good ones, so I suspect enough could be identified to create an article about the book. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:05, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
OK, so let's get that new disambiguation page for honey bucket going. I've never done that before. Is it as simple as creating a new article that is called "honey bucket" and then to list with bullet points the different meanings (with links)? Or do I have to somehow specify that it's a disambiguation page when I set up the page? EvMsmile (talk) 11:37, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
MOS:DAB and WP:DAB apply. LjL (talk) 15:21, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
OK, have done it now: disambiguation page for honey bucket. Feel free to improve. EvMsmile (talk) 14:22, 26 October 2015 (UTC)


Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Now that we have resolved the bucket toilet issue (more work is still needed on the page), is anyone interested in getting stuck into the article on portable toilet which needs more work as it's currently only describing chemical toilets? See my comment here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Portable_toilet#Move_content_from_.22portable_toilet.22_page_to_chemical_toilet_and_re-work_portable_toilet_page EvMsmile (talk) 00:54, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

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