Talk:How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare

Comments

This article title is way too long. I'm cutting it. Melchoir 03:10, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

• Why? It is the full title, and there are other article titles are of similar length. Shorter redirects can be made, but there's no reason to shorten the title. That is only necessary when the software prevents the full title, which this does not. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-15 03:10

See Category:Children's books. It screws it up. Melchoir 03:24, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Furthermore, judging from the capitalization on the book cover itself, "robbed a grave, made a new friend who might not have really been there at all, and while he was at it committed a terrible sin which everyone was doing even though he didn't know it" is a subtitle. Melchoir 03:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I think he simply made everything smaller in order to fit the title on the cover, and to make it more humorous. How is the category screwed up? — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-15 03:29

In both Safari and Firefox, it forces the third column to expand and squeezes out the first two columns. Firefox is slightly better about it, but the text width of the third column is still more than three times larger than the width of either of the first two.

Now, if you Google the phrase "How Hedley Hopkins", you get some 300 articles, fully half of which don't include the word "robbed", yet all but four include "dare". I can only conclude that "How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare" is the natural breaking place for the title.

Would you be willing to compromise to "How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare..."? Melchoir 03:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC) edit Melchoir 03:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

We normally only shorten titles like that when it is the result of software limitations, such as the full name for Enaptin or Titin. That is not the case here. I think it's fine as is. — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-15 03:47

Then you don't see the problem in the category either? Melchoir 03:57, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I can respond to your point. What if the software had no limitations? Surely we would be forced to develop an upper limit on title lengths. Perhaps it wouldn't be a hard ceiling, but it would recommend trying to avoid titles above a certain length. How long would that length be? I'm sure it would be shorter than this. Melchoir 04:01, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I believe the title is fine...it's long and doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but on my somewhat screwy browser it works out just fine. And it is the book's title. Chooserr

Okay, but I can't be the only person who sees a problem in the category.

Look, a long title is a fine thing to print on the cover of your own book using five different type sizes and lots of colors. But the Wikipedia title just looks out of place at the top of an article, all in bold and taking up four lines. We have an image of the book, and we start with the full title in the body. Isn't that enough? Melchoir 03:57, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Unprecedented

From an old talk page, it seems that this page's title is twice as long as the record-holder two years ago, Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. I bet this IS now the record, and that existing guidelines didn't forsee it. Shall we take this discussion to a broader forum? Melchoir 04:37, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

• That is not the record. I talked to devs about that. The previous record is only slightly shorter than this one. There are at least a couple dozen articles with longer titles than that "record". — ₀₉₁₈^BRIAN • 2005-12-15 04:55
  • Can you point me to a list? Melchoir 05:41, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Is there such a list? CybergothiChé (talk) 13:13, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Capitalization

Is the capitalization of this article correct? --HappyCamper 02:02, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Look at the photo of the cover. Ardric47 06:29, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Stop wasting time

How about expanding the article so that it tells us something interesting about the book, rather than pursuiing this childish argument about the length of the title and whether or not it represents some meaningless record? Brianboulton (talk) 10:40, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

But is not representing some meaningless record the very goal of all mankind? CybergothiChé (talk) 13:18, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

short title more appropriate

see WP:TITLE (tried to undo but it wouldn't let me?)Coolabahapple (talk) 01:10, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 17 July 2015

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: page moved. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 18:45, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

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How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare, robbed a grave, made a new friend who might not have really been there at all, and while he was at it committed a terrible sin which everyone was doing even though he didn't know it → How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare – WP:CONCISE, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Subtitles. Rob Sinden (talk) 08:55, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose Never saw this page, quite unique on Wikipedia (personal note to RobSinden, no I'm not following you, I check Requested moves daily, I'll remove this line once you see it), as it seems the book title is itself. The author specifically created this long name, which is purposely accented on the cover of the book itself (see the infobox pic). This seems like a good exception to the guideline, maybe a one-time exception (do any other Wikipedia pages on books have long titles? If not, an exception for this may be fine). Randy Kryn 13:43, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

  Now Support, I didn't see that WP:CONCISE is a policy and not a guideline. Randy Kryn 13:57, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

• Support, thanks for this, also see WP:TITLE? Coolabahapple (talk) 18:37, 18 July 2015 (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.