Talk:Dingo ate my baby

Most suitable way to reach secondary topic

Consensus was reached at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 June 14 that this and Dingoes Ate My Baby should redirect to Death of Azaria Chamberlain, and at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dingoes ate my baby (disambiguation) that a disambiguation page is unnecessary. However, there's another topic (Dingoes Ate My Baby (band), formerly without "band") and editors are removing the disambiguation hatnote from the target page and also its mention in the article's Media and cultural impact section. This has been discussed at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive155#Death of Azaria Chamberlain, Talk:Death of Azaria Chamberlain#Redirect and Talk:Death of Azaria Chamberlain#Hatnote, and the result was the RFD where consensus was reached on the target, but not on the hatnote (although some editors suggested redirecting to the other topic instead).

I've changed this to a soft redirect with a hatnote allowing both topics to be reached, which seems to meet requirements. It's non-standard (although other soft redirects to article space exist), but probably the best result for people looking for Dingoes Ate My Baby (band) at least while it's being discussed, as editors are removing the hatnote in the Death of Azaria Chamberlain article unless there is consensus to put it there and not here, and for people looking for the article about the incident without using this title don't see the hatnote (those accessing it via this title also don't see it, but that's unimportant). Is there a better way that this can be done? Peter James (talk) 22:49, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

What you have created is a poorly formatted disambiguation page that calls itself a redirect. You can call it what you like, but what it is, is a disambiguation page, one with zero explanation of its primary topic. So, based on consensus, keep it as a simple redirect. As far as the article on the band, the topic is so marginal and insignificant (even within the Buffy universe), that I don't think we miss anything by not having a hatnote. Ego White Tray (talk) 13:15, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

My sole concern here is with the further victimisation/offence caused to the family of the dead child by having a reference to an item of what might be termed "black humour" as an apparent sub-title to the article itself. I think the first and most important rule to apply here is just how offensive it might be to the living individuals who were involved in the subject of the article.

I don't care by what means it is achieved. I'll leave that to you clever people to work out. I just know that compassion and human decency has to have a place in the decision, and that the Wikipedia policy on biography allows for this.

Amandajm (talk) 14:12, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

"Marginal and insignificant" isn't relevant; I've replied to that at Talk:Death of Azaria Chamberlain#Hatnote. It meets the requirements for a redirect (if the only or primary topic for the title) or a disambiguation link (if ambiguous and not primary). Peter James (talk) 18:37, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

It would be great if we could find some notable person had published somewhere noticing how unfunny, cruel, and really horrible this joke is. So although I agree with you that this joke is disgusting and not funny, until now, we only have that as the opinions of two non-notable Wikipedians. Chrisrus (talk) 22:38, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 19 May 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved to dingo ate my baby. (non-admin closure) Sceptre (talk) 03:29, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

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A dingo ate my baby → A dingo ate my baby! – To better reflect article content and sources. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:11, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

• Move to dingo ate my baby - I find a lot of sources referencing this phrase have a lot of variation, often substituting "The" for "A". Likewise, its quite mixed whether the phrase is used with the exclamation or not. Same goes for whether dingo is plural or singular. This page to me is very much like a WP:CONCEPTDAB also, and those references are all over the place in presentation. I think we benefit from leaving this as concise as possible. -- Netoholic @ 08:40, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

• You're suggesting that the phrase was not used by Chamberlain-Creighton as an exclamation? I'm slightly surprised by that. Nobody would ever normally say something as ungrammatical and awkward as "dingo ate my baby", even with a wiki-forced capital D. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:56, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

• Not sure. There is ample citation that the phrase she actually spoke was more like "dingo's -got- my baby"[1][2][3] or some other frantic phrase. Likely misreporting and sensationalism made variants of the current line take hold in popular culture (case in point this article which uses "ate" in the headline but "got" in the main body. Nonetheless, I see this article as more about the "[A/The] dingo ate my baby" phrase and its pop culture references. For that we don't need the exclamation point. -- Netoholic @ 09:45, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, fair points. I had seen those citations, thanks. I'm not denying this is a slightly problematic example of an article name choice, as the press coverage and media hype has far overtaken the original unrecorded spoken instance. But I guess there are other similar "catchphrase" type articles. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:54, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

• Yep, for example the article root hog or die has similar issues of many variations of presentation (placement of commas) which was recently discussed. -- Netoholic @ 12:26, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Ah right, sated Suidae, not hungry Canidae. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:57, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

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