Talk:Good Behaviour (Keane novel)

Requested move 20 March 2018

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: consensus to retain the current title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 05:19, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

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Good Behaviour (Keane novel) → Good Behaviour (novel) – No other novels with this title. The only other contender is a compilation of three novellas in The Letty Dobesh Chronicles series by Blake Crouch, but as that doesn't have an article, then a hatnote to Blake Crouch would suffice, if it is even necessary. We do not pre-emptively disambiguate. --woodensuperman 09:06, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

• Support It does seem unnecessary here._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 09:51, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - the other contender is actually much more notable than this one, because it is the inspiration for the TV series of the same name (Good Behavior (2016 TV series)), and in media mentions is often referred to as a "novel"[1]. Even if the other contender is currently only present as a section/mention in another article, we need to more fully disambiguate. Good Behaviour (novel)/Good Behavior (novel) need to both continue to redirect to the disambiguation page. -- Netoholic @ 10:15, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

We don't preemptively disambiguate. If the other "novel" had an article, then fair enough, but it doesn't. --woodensuperman 10:37, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

People say that a lot, but that sentiment is nowhere mentioned in Wikipedia:Disambiguation. What is says is "Disambiguation in Wikipedia is the process of resolving conflicts that arise when a potential article title is ambiguous, most often because it refers to more than one subject covered by Wikipedia, either as the main topic of an article, or as a subtopic covered by an article in addition to the article's main topic." (emphasis mine). As far as I'm concerned, that we already cover those two other novels means this is not "preemptive" disambiguation, its right on time and appropriate. -- Netoholic @ 10:51, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't see that we are covering this content as a subtopic in any article. --woodensuperman 10:55, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

• Good Behavior, a compilation of three novellas in The Letty Dobesh Chronicles series by Blake Crouch
• Good Behavior, a 1985 novel (book six in the John Dortmunder series) by Donald E. Westlake

These other two novels are covered as subtopics in the linked articles. -- Netoholic @ 10:56, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

No they're not. They are mentioned in lists, that is all. That is not coverage. --woodensuperman 10:58, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Are you really saying author bibliography lists aren't coverage? -- Netoholic @ 11:01, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes. An appearance in a list is not a subtopic. A subtopic would discuss the specific novel in question in some detail. --woodensuperman 11:05, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

And you're aware that the article you're trying to move is 835 bytes and been marked a stub for 12 years, containing four sentences, barely more information than would appear in the same author bibliographies which you are claiming aren't real coverage? -- Netoholic @ 11:09, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Create stub articles for the other novels then if they're truly notable, then the issue goes away. --woodensuperman 11:11, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I stand by my statement above. Coverage is coverage, and bibliographies are an important core feature of any proper author article which absolutely count as "covered by Wikipedia" per Wikipedia:Disambiguation (Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies#Goals agrees with me, pointedly describing bibliographies as "coverage"). Your suggestion, as well as merging this poor stub article back into the author's bibliography, are potential future courses of action though. -- Netoholic @ 12:12, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

None of the novels you mention are included "as a subtopic covered by an article in addition to the article's main topic" which is the relevant part you highlighted from the guideline above. Including a novel in a list does not meet this criteria. This list is not a subtopic for a novel, but a subtopic for a bibliography. The content you are trying to disambiguate from is not on Wikipedia, so therefore we do not need to disambiguate further. --woodensuperman 12:35, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Are you really saying author bibliography lists are "not on Wikipedia"? -- Netoholic @ 12:46, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

No, and that's not the first straw man argument you've made here. You've missed the point of Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies#Goals too. There is coverage of the author's bibliography. There is no coverage of the novel itself. --woodensuperman 12:51, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Can't be a strawman if its a clarifying question, which leads me to my next one: Are you saying that bibliographies count as coverage, but the component works (novels) that make up those bibliographies are not covered when included in those bibliographies? -- Netoholic @ 12:55, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

None of the novels you mention are included "as a subtopic covered by an article in addition to the article's main topic". The relevant authors' bibliographies are included as subtopics, but just because those bibliographies happen to list the novels in question does not mean that the novels are "covered" in the sense intended by the guideline, or indeed any meaningful sense. --woodensuperman 13:00, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Would you give me a list of the minimum information about a novel which would count as "coverage" in your view? Title, author are a given... year? ISBN? Publisher? What other details meet your minimum "coverage" standard? -- Netoholic @ 13:04, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Sufficient detail for the novel to warrant its own subtopic, not just a list entry, so would need more than that. --woodensuperman 13:09, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

"Sufficient detail" is just not an answer when I was looking for which specific kinds of details qualify. I realize you don't want to answer this, but unless you describe your standards, no one can ever meet them. -- Netoholic @ 13:14, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

It's not my standards we have to meet, but the community's. Just listing title, author, year, ISBN and publisher wouldn't warrant a subtopic of its own, but details regarding publication history, plot and other similar pertinent information might. --woodensuperman 13:20, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Wait, are you saying "subtopic" when what you really mean is "section" or "paragraph"? The normal use of the word just means any information about a topic related to a broader topic... so, say, a mention of an author's education history is a subtopic, but wouldn't necessarily fill a whole paragraph or section on its own. -- Netoholic @ 13:52, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm sure whichever way you use subtopic, we can agree that it does not mean a single entry in a list. --woodensuperman 13:59, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely don't agree. A subtopic is "A subject that forms part of a topic". Each novel is a subject within the bibliography, which is a subject within the author topic. -- Netoholic @ 14:05, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

No, it really isn't. It's a list entry in a bibliography. To be a (sub)topic, the subject needs to be discussed in some amount of detail. --woodensuperman 14:11, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I just don't think you're using "subtopic" in the normal sense of the word, unencumbered by the extra qualifiers you're trying to imbue it with... and "some amount of detail", I feel like we've been here before. I guess let's give others a chance to weigh in. -- Netoholic @ 14:21, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I would have to assume that the main topics and subtopics referred to in that sentence are analogous to the entries that we include on a disambiguation page. If that's the case, then MOS:DABMENTION as well as general consensus on the Disambiguation project count pretty much any mention at all of a term to be sufficient for an entry. Long ago I argued that more than a list entry on the target article should be required, as that was my interpretation of WP:DABRELATED, but it became clear that consensus was against that idea. -- Fyrael (talk) 20:22, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Also, you said "just because those bibliographies happen to list the novels" ... If a bibliography didn't list the works of the author, is there even a bibliography anymore? -- Netoholic @ 13:16, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Semantics. Adds nothing to this discussion. --woodensuperman 14:02, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Much more than "mentioned in lists, that is all", the John Dortmunder article in particular includes a lot of detail about the Good Behavior Westlake novel. There is of course the bibliographic listing, but also plot information about the Josephine Carol "J.C." Taylor character introduced in the novel (#Associates), and the novel's appearance in another work (#Trivia). -- Netoholic @ 04:15, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose it isn't the only novel, which is why Keane is in the title. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:44, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
• Support Neutral (see discussions) until a page is created for the other novel. It may even be the more important of the two, but it has no page. Because the name is included in an author's list doesn't make it "a contender" for the primary novel until it emerges into its own page, or we'd have name changes for many novels, books, paintings, etc. A red line has to be drawn, and that red line would translate, at the present time, into a red-link. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:14, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. A topic does not require a separate article to be considered notable and it certainly does not require one to be considered ambiguous. —Xezbeth (talk) 21:50, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose, a topic does not need a standalone article to be considered when titling and disambiguating articles for similarly titled topics. There is no indication in the existing article that the Keane novel is in any way more notable than any of the other novels. older ≠ wiser 11:44, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose, per above. Here is an example of a dab page with disambiguation of similar titles without an article. MB 14:01, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Extended discussion

• There is a 1941 landmark civil rights case in the states named Mitchell v. United States, but it has no article, and so the title Mitchell v. United States goes to a 1999 case instead. There are probably thousands of such titles on Wikipedia, if not tens of thousands, which have notable alternative titles of non-existing articles. Should Mitchell v. United States, as an example, be routed to a dism. page or left as is? Same concept in this RM as in Mitchell. The title logically goes to the 1999 case until an article for the 1941 case is written. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:30, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, then it sounds like we need to get to work, because Wikipedia:Disambiguation does not require that a dedicated page exist for all alternate topics in order for us to more clearly disambiguate titles, only that we have coverage. -- Netoholic @ 04:37, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

So, per policy or guideline, should (1999) be added to the existing Mitchell page now? Randy Kryn (talk) 04:41, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

If the 1941 case is covered/cited within other articles, probably. But this isn't the place to debate that. -- Netoholic @ 04:59, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Not to debate, it's just a good example as I'm trying to understand how the titling guidelines and precedents work in these types of situations. Randy Kryn (talk) 05:03, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

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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.