Talk:Red Meat (comic strip)

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Untitled

"Bizarre" "tasteless" "twisted" "dark" "funny" ... that describes pretty much every comic strip featured in alt weeklies and college papers! A little more detail about the strip would be nice (e.g., does it have recurring characters - does it have a standard setting, and if so what is it? etc.) This shouldn't be a fan site. DavidWBrooks 01:22, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

i think descriptions of the characters would be helpful such as teds fondness of wetsuits, i cant think of anything else off the top of my head at the mo.

Agreed. The list of characters is pointless without explanations. Who is Mister Wally? What is this Ted person like? HonestTom 19:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Characters.

I've added some more to the character list (and will probably do more in the future)... but... while I agree there is a place for that information on the page, do we want it there?

Most of the fun is discovering the characters and their behaviour. Reading what is at best a 2 or 3 line summary will only disappoint, and probably won't match the off-beat humour that is Red Meat.

I'm undecided. What say you all? 81.107.198.21 04:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a online encyclopedia., not an advertisement or review site for any movie, book, or comic strip. The information here should be as complete, but concise as possible. If it's appropriate to have a character list, then any and all recurring characters should be listed. Chrisirwin (talk) 14:15, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Chrisirwin, for weighing in on a completely unrelated point. Should we be worried about whether or not Wikipedia is an advertisement or review site for any movie, book, or comic strip, we'll know who to ask. You might have missed the question, so here it is again, and a few more : Do we want, or need, a character list? Which characters? All of them? There aren't that many. Just the important ones? Which ones are the important ones? The recurring ones? All but a handful recur. Should the description be dry, or should it (attempt to) distil the humour of the strip? 82.26.18.62 (talk) 21:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I added several more characters and their descriptions but I saw the other day that the character section was being challenged because it had too much stuff-- damned if we do, damned if we don't... Lisa mynx (talk) 01:45, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I have never made an article so I don't really know what I am doing but wouldn't it make sense for someone to make a separate page for the characters? We could leave the main ones like Ted, Earl, Milkman Dan and Karen here but link to another article to list all the other characters... Lisa mynx (talk) 22:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I am going to (try to) make a separate article for the list of characters (pretty much just a copy and paste of what is here already) but for the time being I am not going to change the list as it exists in the main article... Lisa mynx (talk) 09:43, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Ok, it's been a week and the character page is still unchallenged so I am going to remove the character list from this page (leaving just Ted Johnson, Bug Eyed Earl and Milkman Dan). Lisa mynx (talk) 08:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Newspaper listing?

Maybe a list of newspapers that print the comic might be of use.. shows that the comic has some actual followers.

cs302b —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.176.136.25 (talk) 08:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

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: not moved. Favonian (talk) 11:35, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

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Red Meat → Red Meat (comic strip) – ...or Red Meat (comic). Red meat is a primary topic; not sure about this topic, but it is too indistinctive. --George Ho (talk) 12:09, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. If you google "Red Meat" -wikipedia, the comic strip is the topic for the top three results. Red meat is already primary, at least for the term Red meat. This move wouldn't increase its primariness. Disambiguation by capital letter is specifically provided for in WP:PRECISION, with this article used as an example. The two topics are very different, so a reader can figure out which is which from the context. There is no need to have an ugly parenthetical disambiguator sitting on top of the article. Kauffner (talk) 14:34, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. I'm sympathetic to the argument, but it's my opinion that sometimes capitalization is sufficient disambiguation. As this is the ur-example used in our MOS for many many years, I would suggest this nomination be more widely advertised. Powers ^T 19:34, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. As noted above, this is textbook example of our naming conventions (until such time as the policy is changed). —David Levy 20:15, 24 February 2012 (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.

Requested move 4 December 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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved, consensus to move per the discussion below. (page mover nac) Flooded with them hundreds 19:03, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

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Red Meat → Red Meat (comic strip) – I do not think that this comic strip is the clear primary topic for the upper case never mind taking into account the lower case. Red Meat (band) gets around a 3rd of the views of the comic strip (despite the advantage of getting people who use the upper case) [[1]] Red Meat (Supernatural) is a redirect so naturally doesn't get as many views as an article at that title since search engines don't land people on redirects. There is also Red Meat (film) which if created may bring down the views further. Red meat gets over 71x the views of the comic strip and is known by nearly everyone around the world and is clearly a topic of vast encyclopedic importance compared to the comic strip, see WP:WORLDVIEW and WP:ASTONISH. A quick search on Google returns articles which use "Red Meat" (capitalized)[2] for the article title even though they use "red meat" in running text. I have been on Wikipedia since 2009 and I don't think until 2 or 3 years ago I was even fully aware that WP titles that aren't proper nouns aren't capitalized (apart from the 1st letter). If I was looking for the meat article, I would have searched for "Red Meat". While I think WP:DIFFCAPS can be good in situations where there are 2 well known topics and 1 is a proper noun and 1 isn't. I don't think its good when 1 is well known and 1 is obscure and we have multiple upper case articles. "Red Meat" should redirect to Red meat (disambiguation) (or move the DAB to Red Meat). I suggest replacing the DIFFCAPS example with Iron maiden/Iron Maiden, see also discussion. @Amakuru and Station1: who made many comments at the Attention Seeker RM. Talk:Grateful dead (folklore)#Requested move 5 March 2018 was declined where a move based on lower case. Crouch, Swale (talk) 11:44, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

• Support move and redirect change. As evidenced by the linked discussion, editors do not support the distinction laid in the WP:DIFFCAPS policy. Nowhere online for a regular user, does it matter the capitalization style they use, which is what they would expect here. For this specific scenario, as Crouch, Swale, pointed out, Red meat gets over 71 times the amount of views the pretty obscure comic strip gets. Invoking WP:IAR as this clearly is a policy which serves computers more than it serves our readers (and again, as can be seen by the opinions of the majority of editors in the linked discussion and per most past RM discussions from the last few months). Regarding the replacement of the example, do not support any. --Gonnym (talk) 12:03, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose (ec), Although I was the closer who did not find consensus in the linked Talk:Grateful dead (folklore) discussion, WP:DIFFCAPS is still in effect and this is still a valid case. A more appropriate page view analysis is at [3]; the strip gets 4/5 of the total views in this analysis (or 7/9 if you're feeling picky), not 2/3. I think the link to the diabetes article is very weak evidence. By that standard WP:DIFFCAPS would not exist, period, based upon unrelated sites having different standards from Wikipedia about sentence case. It's not clear that Red Meat is obscure. However, I have no objection to the possibility of changing the example listed at WP:DIFFCAPS as suggested here. Dekimasuよ! 12:12, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

  Grateful dead was a bit different in that that redirects to the upper case and there are only those 2 articles. I am not proposing to redirect "Red Meat" to "Red meat" but to the DAB. And you're views only take into account those 3 articles, it would probably be a lot lower than 3/4 if errors for the lower case and the others I gave were included. Crouch, Swale (talk) 13:30, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

• I would also note that Attention Seeker was deleted in 2005 which was about attention seeking, not an obscure EP that didn't exist back then. Evidence that some editors do expect titles to be at the upper case. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:39, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support per nom. WP:DIFFCAPS is dead. Long live WP:COMMONSENSE.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:45, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support per nom - no primary topic. I'm kinda against a majority of primary topics unless it's super obvious, but even without that, I'd support this move. Paintspot Infez (talk) 13:26, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose, per WP:DIFFCAPS. When you search for an article, it never happens that you get a title without context. The first few lines of the article are attached to the title, both on Wikipedia and on external search engines. So there is no need for a parenthetical to disambiguate. FineStructure137 (talk) 13:39, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
  • No idea what you are on about. Use the search box in the upper right corner and you only get the article title. Also, less concerning readers and more other editors, in categories you also don't have any context. So that's two scenarios that you have zero context what the article title is. --Gonnym (talk) 13:50, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
    • I typed "red meat" into the search box and pressed return and I got the Red meat article. This article has a header that says, "For other uses, see Red meat (disambiguation)". As far as autocomplete goes, that's a technology that is still evolving. Try autocomplete on the intro page. It already provides context in the form of pictures. FineStructure137 (talk) 13:46, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
      • The autocpmplete also retuens the Red Meat article and readers may click on that thinking its about red meat. Crouch, Swale (talk) 13:51, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
        • My point was, that's libel to change at any time. Now that the wikignomes have added pictures to provide context on the intro screen, it's only a matter of time until they do the same for the search box. FineStructure137 (talk) 17:10, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per the perfectly healthy WP:DIFFCAPS and WP:COMMONSENSE. Readers looking for red meat have no need to hold the shift key down to reach Red Meat. Getting three times as many views as the band is a good indicator of a primary topic, and things that may get created later can be considered by later Wikipedia. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:11, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support – Per the nomination, which I strongly agree with. 'Red meat' and 'Red Meat', and indeed, 'RED MEAT', are all different stylings of the same name, and that name alone cannot clearly indicate a comic strip, as the primary topic is clearly the primary meaning of the term, that is, meat that is red... WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE make it clear that article titles must clearly identify the subject...I do not think that "Red Meat" identifies this subject. DIFFCAPS may still exist, but I do not agree that this is a case where it applies. RGloucester — ☎ 23:12, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support: It seems highly unlikely that it would even occur to a reader that capitalization would be a significant distinguishing factor on Wikipedia; Web search engines seem to totally ignore capitalization; it tends to be somewhat hard to type with specific capitalization on some devices; and many people (especially younger ones) often don't bother trying to follow capitalization rules in the interest of increasing their typing speed. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:26, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Even if WP:DIFFCAPS survives, this topic is not a good application of it – e.g., because it is just a very common two-word phrase for a more-often-discussed different topic in ordinary title case. —BarrelProof (talk) 18:49, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
    • @BarrelProof: This very article is mentioned as a case example within WP:DIFFCAPS itself...--~Sıgehelmus♗ ^(Tøk) 18:52, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
      • Yes, but it is not a good example. If WP:DIFFCAPS survives, the example should be changed. I am not, however, advocating that WP:DIFFCAPS should survive. —BarrelProof (talk) 21:34, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
        • Yes that what what I was meaning, it would remain but we have to take into account searches/importance from both cases. Iron Maiden was the suggested replacement example. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:39, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
        • But WP:DIFFCAPS has survived a RfC closed just a few days ago. That RfC proposed that caps alone never be enough "and/or" Red Meat be removed as an example. No consensus was found. Station1 (talk) 22:06, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
          • I specifically used "depends" at the RFC, I oppose removing it altogether but having Red Meat at that title has been opposed my most people (it appears in most discussions) and Iron Maiden would probably be better and less controversial. I don't think the specific example used has been controversial (meaning strong consensus is required to change it), meaning that even if this isn't moved (unlikely) the example should be changed to a more suitable one. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:12, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
            • I was only responding to BarrelProof's remarks about "if" DIFFCAPS survives. Some might not be aware of the RfC. However, the RfC did include a proposal to change the example. Of course, consensus can change, even after a few days, but logically, if there was no consensus to remove the example there, Red Meat must still meet the requirements of the policy stated at WP:AT. I do think the comments here that cite that policy should bear more weight with a closer than conjecture about how readers search that is not backed up by evidence, and I hope the closer will also take into consideration relevant comments at the RfC. Station1 (talk) 22:27, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
              • The example change wasn't really discussed in the RFC. I intended on changing it after this RM is closed. If this page stays here it is then we may have weak consensus for it. If this is moved then it will be moot. We may not have evidence to support how many people want the meat but given the fact that this gets 71x the views, even if 70 of those 71 search for the lower case it would clearly not be primary for the upper case. I think it would be difficult to argue that close to 71 of those use the lower case. I think that we have cited policy (which there was consensus "reminding respondents that the policy's current language allows for the application of common sense exceptions on a case by case basis") and common sense here (for example my 71x views argument). Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:30, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
                • It's interesting that you chose 70 of 71 for your example. If true, it would mean that 10 of the 13 daily readers of Red Meat actually want the meat, and would indeed be a very strong argument in favor of a move. However, if you had instead speculated that 69.5 of 71 search in lower case, it would mean 15 out of 13 daily readers want the meat, a literal impossibility. If you had speculated that 70.5 out of 71 search in lower case, it would mean only 5 out of 13 readers wanted the meat, an argument against moving the article. But that's all pure guesswork. The facts are that fewer than 2% of readers click on Red Meat and that 13 hits a day is in line with some other articles in its categories that do bear parenthetical disambiguation, like Red String (webcomic) and Goblins (webcomic). - Station1 (talk) 19:10, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
                  • Remember that the vast majority of readers get to pages through other means (such as Google or internal links) so its possible to get a negative number. As you note fewer than 2% of readers end up on the cap version compared to the non-cap version. So yes if say 98% of readers (which it probably isn't that high) get there through means other than the search box you could still have 80 of the 1,162 land on the wrong place. Likewise readers searching for the comic strip (or one of the others) may end up on the meat article and increase its views. The argument about it getting what similar disambiguated articles is convincing, though not conclusive either. The argument that an article receives a large number of views compared to another topic (such as Nosedive (Black Mirror), meaning we inconvinience a large number of searches) or a base title doesn't get many views (such as Unlikely meaning not many readers are landing on the wrong place) often comes up, but is inconclusive either way. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:33, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support, WP:DIFFCAPS has always been a mystifying convention in its disregard for readers. older ≠ wiser 01:46, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support per Gonnym, Amakuru, RGloucester, BarrelProof, and others. DIFFCAPS should be given a nice retirement party, a gold watch (or a Gold Watch), and a good-bye pat on the back. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:51, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. Caps make a difference! Otherwise, we would Polish our silver and speak polish, just like we'd read red meat while eating Red Meat. Only about 12 people a day read this article, fewer than 2% of those who read red meat, so it doesn't look like large numbers of readers are somehow mistakenly upshifting in the search box and landing on the wrong article. There's no problem here that needs solving. Station1 (talk) 07:48, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support I've never liked the idea that capitalization is sufficient disambiguation, especially when so many people don't understand/follow the rules for capitalization. I also suspect that the minority who want to find the comic strip but find red meat first assume there's not an article for the comic strip. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:38, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support – It's never too late to fix such stupidity. Dicklyon (talk) 15:05, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support - far too obscure for WP:DIFFCAPS, which should really be modified to remove silly things like this (and keep things like The Wörld Is Yours). A key factor in this particular decision is that this comic does not even have a monopoly on Red Meat as capitalized. Red Slash 17:58, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
  • The Wörld Is Yours has a lower-case "is" on the album cover. Just sayin'. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:03, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
    • WP would never care, even for five seconds (MOS:TITLECAPS, MOS:TM, WP:OFFICIALNAME).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:01, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support. It's been clear for a long time that WP:DIFFCAPS has not really been viable, at least not for "fine print" like this. I was going to say that it might be okay for unmistakable cases like SILAS [which isn't actually even the article title, but it's hard to find an example that's not a DAB page] versus Silas, but in actuality, multiple British newswriting style guides, and one American one, advocate writing all word-acronyms (or just acronyms, if you distinguish acronyms from initialisms) as if words, thus "Silas" is in fact how various readers (mostly Commonwealth English speakers) would renderer the acronym SILAS anyway. Someone above said "DIFFCAPS is dead" and I was going to argue against that (out of the habit of defending WP:P&G stability and continuity), but I find that I can't mount an argument that's not full of holes. As for this particular case, I have never heard of the band, and I read the comic strip all the time, but if fully 1/3 of the visits to this site for Red Meat are for the band, then having a non-disambiguated title here is probably a poor idea, even if there were not a red meat ambiguity issue. (And anyone who thinks no one in their right mind would ever capitalize the phrase referring to dead animal chunks hasn't been paying attention to the signs in the grocery store.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:01, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
• Support DIFFCAPS only works in very well defined special big name cases, this obscure comic isn't one of them. At the very least WP:FILEUPLOADWIZARD should be used to get an image to help the user where titling currently doesn't. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:51, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
• C Abstain Support seems clear majority, but I would nevertheless defer to WP:DIFFCAPS for future similar cases, as per above.--Sıgehelmus✨ (Tålk) 03:56, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Even in the RfC which was closed as "no consensus" the majority of editors (12) were in favor of sending WP:DIFFCAPS to early retirement - so while some editors try to hold onto technicalities to keep this policy alive, it has more consensus for it to be ignored, then for it to kept. --Gonnym (talk) 15:58, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
• If this is an assault on WP:DIFFCAPS, then support a move. Having a title differ by only a single letter being upppercased is too much to ask of readers. —  AjaxSmack  01:26, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

  Well, kind of, as noted I do still support it in sensible cases, of which I don't think this one is. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:30, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

• To most readers, Red Meat without disambiguation is red meat, and the place to buy it is at a butcher's. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 06:01, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

• Personally, I interpret that comment as support for the proposed move. —BarrelProof (talk) 19:51, 10 December 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.

Ceased.

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