Talk:Gideon

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 September 2020 and 11 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Black1979-PJ, EmmaLoane. Peer reviewers: Wt28, SabbathKeeper622.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:23, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Gideon

I just want to note that the mistaken phrase "Manasseh, son of Joseph with the Midianite Zipporah" first crept into the entry on Oct. 13, 2004.

Since so many other Gideon meanings were cluttering up the article, I put them in the main Gideon entry and removed the redirect. If the main entry had been Gideon (rather than Gideon (Judges)) I probably would have made a disambiguation page instead. I also removed all the people -- none of them have entries and only the former mayor could arguably have been notable, but even then most entries are concerned with full names, not just the first name. FunnyYetTasty 09:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Someone needs to update the Succession box at the bottom. OneWeirdDude 23:42, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

References

Shouldn't there be some references here? If so, I'll throw up the citations tag. Useless Fodder 03:02, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Since there are no answers, I'm putting it up. Useless Fodder 17:04, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there a reference for "He went on to make an ephod out of the gold won in battle, which eventually caused the whole of Israel again to turn away from God yet again." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.64.186.226 (talk) 00:28, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

On The Killing Of The Midianite Kings

It has become questionable to some, as to whether Gideon's killing of the two Midianite kings was within God's will. It can be proven however, that the deaths were in fact supported by refuge before the high priest of the time has died, then he may be killed at any time without the killer being guilty of murder.

The Midianite kings were clearly guilty for the deaths of Gideon's brothers at Mt. Tabor. Since the kings were not found in one of the cities of refuge, but rather fleeing Gideon's army; then it was Gideon's responsibility, by law, to avenge the deaths of his brothers.

I have removed the above section as original research. The laws pertaining to the cities of refuge applied only to Israelite citizens, and so the argument presented is not valid. If someone can find an external, independent source for the claim that the city of refuge laws applied to this case, feel free to restore the paragraph, but in the interests of npov please change "it can be proven" to "there are those who claim" with a citation for your source. Robin S 16:07, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

References

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:02, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

---

Gideon (biblical figure) → Gideon — Relisted. At this point while the !votes favor this move, the facts do not appear to support this. So unless facts are presented to support a specific primary use, this will likely close as no consensus. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC) Primary meaning is the "biblical figure". Srnec (talk) 22:50, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support: I don't see anything else on the disambiguation page that would come anywhere close to being the primary topic. –CWenger (talk) 00:35, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support and Gideon should be moved to "Gideon (disambiguation)". PatGallacher (talk) 01:45, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support. The DAB shows no possible rivals. Andrewa (talk) 07:21, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
  • ...And move the DAB to Gideon (disambiguation). Andrewa (talk) 11:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, since everyone seems intent on simply asserting primacy rather than providing evidence. There are far too many other possible uses for any one to be assumed primary. I am also concerned that the nominator placed no notice on the page most affected by this move, Talk:Gideon. I have corrected that oversight. Powers ^T 14:10, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Agree that a heads-up at Talk:Gideon is required. Good catch. Andrewa (talk) 11:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
• Comment this move is incorrectly formatted. Unless the proposer is proposing to delete the disambiguation page and have a massive hatnote, this should be a multimove request. 184.144.169.126 (talk) 13:44, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
  • I bet that's exactly what the nominator was proposing. . . 216.8.133.14 (talk) 18:14, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
  • I took it as implied that the DAB would move to Gideon (disambiguation). Andrewa (talk) 00:56, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support -- All the others are directly or indirectly named after the Biblical character, so that he is clearly the primary topic. The article will of course need a dab capnote. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:50, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Agreeing with the above. --Insert coins (talk) 08:53, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support - I don't see that any of the other Gideons are nearly as primary as the biblical one.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:55, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

I am not prepared to accept that this is the primary topic, especially not without some cursory attempt at providing evidence for the claim. Powers ^T 23:26, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough at first sight, but look closer. True, there are no wikilinks provided to page stats or Google searches, but there are arguments given and you haven't answered them. The main one is that the DAB provides no possible candidate for primary meaning other than this one.

You haven't said which, if any, of them you think might be a candidate. Here's the list:

• Gideon (biblical figure), an Israelite judge, appearing in the Book of Judges
• Gideon (Book of Mormon), a figure in the Book of Mormon
• Gideons International, distributor of copies of the Bible
• "Gideon", a song by Kentucky-based band My Morning Jacket, from their album Z
• Gideon (album), a 1980 album by Kenny Rogers
• Gideon (comics), a Marvel Comics supervillain
• Gideon (film), a 1999 film starring Christopher Lambert
• Gideon (play), Paddy Chayefsky's 1961 Broadway drama
• Gideon (TV series), an early 1980s children's TV cartoon series
• Gideon of Scotland Yard, George Gideon, a fictional detective in novels, film and television created by John Creasey
• Gideon the Elder, a character in the television show Charmed
• "Gideon: Tuba Warrior", a VeggieTales episode
• Gideon's Crossing, an American television series
• Jason Gideon, a BAU profiler in the television show Criminal Minds
• Clarence Earl Gideon, a prisoner who brought Gideon v. Wainwright to the Supreme Court
• Gideon v. Wainwright, a major American court battle which required state courts to provide indigent defendants with legal counsel at taxpayer expense
• Elmo Gideon, American artist known for the Gideon Holocaust Collection
• Global Infectious Disease Epidemiology Network (GIDEON), a medical decision support tool
• Cadfan ap Iago, an old Welsh king also known as Gideon
• Gideon Gartner, entrepreneur and philanthropist
• Gideon, the Rastafarian term for Armageddon
• Gideon Mantell, an English geologist
• George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer whose birth-name was Gideon, however due to his and his mother's dislike to the name, he changed it to "George" and kept Gideon as a middle name.

It seems to me to be no contest at all. Interested in any you'd like to pick out as candidates. Failing that, I'm afraid I see no need to do Google searches etc. on all of them. There's the possibility that they'll be skewed by the activity of the Gideons or Mormons, both very active organisations with considerable resources who may be using some of them on the web. Why even bother? Andrewa (talk) 20:39, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The issue is not that there might be some other single entry that might be primary; in fact, I contend there is no primary topic. The problem is that no one has provided any evidence that this topic is significantly more likely to be sought than all other uses combined. Powers ^T 00:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Understood. My contention is that they're all so relatively unlikely that there's no contest, even adding them all up. I was hoping that you might pick one as relatively likely, to make it easier to understand why you don't agree with this. Andrewa (talk) 09:16, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

And I was hoping that you might provide some actual data indicating that the other uses are all relatively unlikely compared to this one! My contention is that the large number of other uses demands at least a cursory level of evidence that the chosen topic is primary, and I think that's a perfectly reasonable default view in the absence of data. Powers ^T 13:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Is it too difficult to plug "gideon" into Google yourself? 216.8.133.14 (talk) 18:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

And spend hours poring through the results to determine which "Gideon" each result refers to? No thanks! I see no reason why I should have to do that when I'm not the one making this proposal! Powers ^T 00:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

But that's just it... it seems such a silly idea to do this legwork when the alternatives seem all so far removed from credibility as to make this actual data superfluous. If you'd select just one of them as one you think might pose a problem, that would give us some chance of giving you a reasonable answer. Andrewa (talk) 00:53, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

But if I pick a single entry, it will be trivial to show that it is, alone, far less likely to be searched for than this article. That's not the criterion set forth at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC; in order to be the primary topic, an article needs to be "much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined" to be the topic a reader is likely to be looking for. I freely concede the first clause -- which is what you're asking me to disprove -- but the second point is a different story. With twenty-plus items on the disambiguation page, the claim that this use is more likely than all the others combined is, simply, extraordinary. Do you understand why selecting "just one of them" is not going to resolve anything here? Powers ^T 01:32, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree that it would prove nothing more, as you seem to have conceded my point anyway. Andrewa (talk) 08:44, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

If you have a close look at the list, you see that it is flawed anyway. Who on earth needs a disambiguation page to know that George Osborne was born Gideon Osborne? People who'd want to look up George Osborne would search at "Osborne", not "Gideon". Then, there is Gideons International. Fair enough, they are well known, especially thanks to the Beatles's song Rocky Raccoon. But... they are named after Gideon, the biblical figure, aren't they? So their name is a subordinate of the actual Gideon's name, not a substitute! (And when I say subordinate, it is in the litteral sense, since they purposely take him as a model to emulate). As for Gideon v. Antonio, it is a red link, and even if it became blue today, the simple fact that it is red as I write means that it is neither very notable nor much sought after. Etc. --Insert coins (talk) 08:52, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I conceded your point, yes, but only because you're ignoring the second clause, the one that says this usage has to be more likely than all of the others combined. If this is the primary topic as you claim, then that second clause must also be satisfied, yet you provide no evidence for it. Powers ^T 11:57, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I admit I've provided no data. This is subtly different to providing no evidence. I haven't even tried to gather data, because I'm not sure what data would be helpful. See below. Andrewa (talk) 19:39, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

So on what basis do you recommend this move be carried out? Your personal opinion? Powers ^T 14:55, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

No, on the basis that there is a rough consensus that the biblical figure is the primary meaning, and that there is no obvious way of providing meaningful data to measure this either way. You have made one attempt (below)) to provide such data, after a great deal of prompting, and the result was ludicrous, and you yourself admit that it is not credible. Andrewa (talk) 06:43, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

• I have never seen so many people refuse to provide evidence for a move request. Let me do your work for you, then. Gideon (biblical figure) received 18,779 views in December. Gideon v. Wainwright was viewed 36,723 times in the same span. And since court cases are often referred to by just the plaintiff's name, it's likely that a significant number of people looking for "Gideon" are looking for this court case. Do note that I am in no way claiming that the court case might be the primary topic for "Gideon" -- only that the biblical figure is not primary either. Powers ^T 12:02, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
  • And on Google, the top ten results are, in order: Gideons International homepage; this article; the disambiguation page; the Global Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology Network (GIDEON); daily Bible study on the Gideon of the Bible; a profile of Gideon; the home page of some guy who calls himself Gideon; the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Gideon; IMDb entry for the movie; and the Global Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology Network again. So only 4 of the top 10 results on Google are about the biblical figure. The figure is by no means obviously the dominant meaning. Powers ^T 12:08, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
  • This to me highlights the difficulty of finding relevant data. Your figures do suggest that this obscure court case is the primary usage. They are very far short of being at all helpful. Andrewa (talk) 19:39, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

From WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: "An exception may be appropriate when recentism and educational value are taken into account, especially if one of these topics is a vital article. In such a case, consensus may determine that the article should be treated as the primary topic regardless of whether it is the article most sought by users."

I believe that since (a) the original (i.e., first, that is, primary) meaning of Gideon is this guy from the Bible, and (b) all other usages trade in some way on that and are thus derivative, and (c) most of the links on the dab page are to topics of recent vintage, especially compared to this Biblical guy, and (d) the origin of the name and the story of a major (not minor) figure from the Bible are of superior educational value overall than either a modern religious organisation or an important American court case of limited interest outside of the USA. I could add more points, but I think the reason most voters support the move is because they see this. Srnec (talk) 04:22, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

All other uses do not "trade in some way on that". Unless you're suggesting that anyone with the surname Gideon is necessarily named after the biblical figure. =) Powers ^T 13:26, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I am saying that the surname is derived from the Biblical Gideon in a way that the surname Porter is not derived from the beer porter. Thus, the beer cannot claim primary topic status because all other uses are derivative: they're not. There were porters and Porters before there was porter beer. None of the other Gideons would be a Gideon without this Gideon of Biblical fame. —Srnec (talk) 17:22, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

A better example would be Porter (carrier), not Porter (beer), because that meaning is the origin of the surname. But note that Porter (carrier) is not the primary topic, and neither should Gideon (biblical figure) automatically be so. Powers ^T 03:48, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure the surname doesn't come from this? Srnec (talk) 04:46, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

No, but either way the point stands. We don't determine primary topic based on etymology. Powers ^T 16:15, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

And yet that's not quite what I'm saying we should do, is it? That really only deals with my point (b) above, not (a), (c) and (d), nor with them all taken together, as they are meant to be. I'd prefer you deal with the issues of recentism, educational value and "vital article" status that are mentioned at the guideline I cited. Srnec (talk) 04:52, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't think recentism is at issue here; that admonition is meant to protect against a topic from popular culture being seen as primary due to modern media coverage. (If anything, the opposite problem applies; it almost seems like you're saying Gideon should be the primary topic due to antiquity!) Educational value is hard to judge; given, however, that this article has no sources, and addresses a mythological figure who is only a minor figure in the Bible and not one who is central to either the Christian or Jewish narrative, it doesn't seem like the educational value is very high. "Vital article" status is irrelevant since none of the topics on the disambiguation page is a vital article AFAIK. Powers ^T 13:43, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘

Agree that the article has no sources but can't see the relevance to this discussion. Many articles on Biblical characters are in this unfortunate position. I will add some sources when I get around to it, but they won't add a lot to the article, the facts being so widely known and so easily sourced.

Disagree that Gideon is a mythological figure who is only a minor figure in the Bible and not one who is central to either the Christian or Jewish narrative. After Adam and Eve, Noah, Joseph, Moses, and then Joshua, chronologically he'd be the next prominent person in the OT in many people's minds if they come from the Christian tradition (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob of course being more prominent in the Jewish or Hebrew tradition - probably better to say Hebrew at this stage of the story). That's pretty prominent IMO.

Your comment that it doesn't seem like the educational value is very high is ludicrous IMO. Whether you like it or not, this is a very important topic in Western culture. Again, I agree it needs better sources than the one reference now provided, but that's a different issue. Andrewa (talk) 13:59, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Relisting

From the relisting rationale:

At this point while the !votes favor this move, the facts do not appear to support this. So unless facts are presented to support a specific primary use, this will likely close as no consensus. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

If you are assessing the current consensus as an uninvolved admin (which I'm not of course) I'd have to disagree on both counts... we have a rough consensus to move, and the facts do support the move. And we have one POV editor who doesn't acknowledge these facts. Andrewa (talk) 13:35, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean by "POV editor"? We all have a point of view, do we not? Powers ^T 22:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

You're right, it's a stupid and uncalled for comment and I withdraw it with apology.

You have previously expressed strong negative opinions concerning the value of Christianity. I was assuming that these were the basis for your opposition here. But I should assume good faith, shouldn't I?

As a scripture teacher in primary school, I see a great deal of value in knowledge of characters such as Gideon. But that is also POV and COI, and I should not allow it to influence my judgement here, and I'm trying hard not to. On the other hand, I'm in a common Wikipedian dilemma in that this is also an area of my expertise, and I think it's valid to question comments such as the one you made above about the relevance of Gideon in the narrative. He's not a minor figure at all, and nobody with detailed knowledge of the narrative would suggest that he was.

So I ask to withdraw what was in glorious hindsight a personal attack, see User:Andrewa/creed paragraph 9. The rest of the post stands however. Andrewa (talk) 18:22, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

At the risk of being rather awkward, I do not believe this approach is ok. While I agree it is often desirable to produce evidence in determining primary topic, I am not aware of any absolute requirement to do so, sometimes people are entitled to use a degree of common sense and experience of the wide word. This could be abuse of terminology, "no facts" and "no consensus" are not synonymous. PatGallacher (talk) 18:29, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

My own rationale is that looking at the list I had only heard of 3 of them before, some of them look very obscure. George Osbourne doesn't really count, that leaves this person and the bible distributors, I judge the latter to be primary. It would be US-centric (see WP:BIAS) to treat Gideon v Wainwright as on par with internationally significant figures. The biblical judge looks like to me as, after Samson, the best known Israelite judge from the Book of Judges. In Cromwell (film) Cromwell says "And was Gideon not outnumbered when he fought the Amalekites?" and the film makers expected it to be understood who he meant. The Hebrew Bible may not be as well known as it once was but it is still an important globally known document. PatGallacher (talk) 18:44, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

See, for example, a recent move request at Talk:Fergie (singer) where the supporters of the move request produced various statistics, but the opponents argued from common sense and experience of the wide world, and the latter won. PatGallacher (talk) 19:13, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Let's face it, there are far more important issues. This one seemed straightforward to me. I still can't see what benefit there is in putting a DAB at the undisambiguated name when there's a clear primary meaning, and all other entries in the DAB are either subsidiary derived meanings of it, or are quite obscure, or both. Andrewa (talk) 10:33, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

There are flaws in the logic of hits for the different pages and I will just point out one. Let's think about people who search for flight on the internet. Are these people looking for the history of flight or the biology of it, or are they looking for cheap flights for the summer? I think that Wainwright is just as familiar a name as Gideon and I think that anyone familiar with that case would search "gideon vs wainwright" or, failing to remember the Wainwright part, "gideon vs" unless they were looking for the man himself. Is the Gideon of that case the important factor or is it the fact that he was given unprecedented access to legal counsil? I would not be surprised if the page Gideon Vs Wainwright also got a lot more hits than the page Wainwright but I would have to insist that wainwright is the primary topic there rather than Gideon Vs Wainwright. I seem to recall a few girls called Sunshine too. I don't know if I could just understand if I searched "sunshine" and got some girl that was in court or something because she was popular at the time. Note that the link to the legal case as I provided it above did not redirect to the apprpriate page. This is perhaps how important that page is considered by all those people clicking on it, rather than the number of clicks they gave it. ~ R.T.G 17:06, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Interesting discussion at Talk:Welland, Ontario#Requested move, a very similar discussion in fact, but there I seem to be on the other side so far. Andrewa (talk) 18:27, 13 February 2011 (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. No further edits should be made to this section.

Gideons International

Seems like the connection between the Biblical Gideon and the Bible-distributing group should be mentioned in this article. Surely it's among the most notable things about him. Nareek (talk) 02:21, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Strong's Concordance

As it stood, this article gave etymologies where Gideon and Jerubbaal based on likely mistaken identification from the notorious Strong's Concordance. I've added notes on later scholarship's disagreements with Strong, and I've stuck that in its own section so as not to clutter up the lead with arguments about etymology.Alephb (talk) 05:34, 16 January 2017 (UTC)