Talk:Right Place, Wrong Time (song)

Requested move 30 December 2022

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: not moved. Per consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 15:44, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

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Right Place, Wrong Time (song) → Right Place Wrong Time (song) – Image shows the song title has no comma. The song as listed on the back of the original In the Right Place LP sleeve also has no comma, if you want to find images of this to verify. 2605:A601:AADC:2100:C2FA:4802:5984:FA49 (talk) 01:58, 29 December 2022 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). – robertsky (talk) 14:31, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

The only cited non-self-published source that I could find includes the comma (RPM Weekly). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:06, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

Now that these two discussions have been split up, it's no longer clear that the points relevant to this issue are in Talk:The Sun, Moon & Herbs#Requested move 30 December 2022. In a nutshell, WP:UCRN states that "Wikipedia... generally prefers the name that is most [prevalent] in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources"; I claim that, regarding the added comma, no such prevalence has been established, and in its absence the work's canonical title ought to be the one Wikipedia uses. 2605:A601:AADC:2100:C2FA:4802:5984:FA49 (talk) 20:23, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

No, that canonical title is in this case a primary source, and it counts a little but not nearly as much as a secondary source. Andrewa (talk) 15:24, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose: As noted above, the only cited non-self-published source that I could find includes the comma. The absence of the comma in this phrase would be very unusual in ordinary English, so we should not do that unless there is substantial evidence that independent reliable sources consistently omit the comma. Per Wikipedia policies and guidelines, it doesn't really matter very much what's on the cover art or in self-published or primary or affiliated or promotional sources. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 05:01, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. BarrelProof put it very well. I was tempted to close it but better to have my participation I think. Andrewa (talk) 15:21, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

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.

Regarding all of the above- apart from the title being uniformly rendered without a comma on the single sleeve/label and the LP sleeve/label, and indeed registered with ASCAP without the comma, the non-comma version is used in eg The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, The Rock Song Index, The Inevitable City (a book on New Orleans), and Joel Whitburn's books compiling Billboard chart history. I don't think it's possible to say that one form or another predominates in reliable sources- the pattern seems to be that sources concerned with documenting/cataloging music history use the title as given on official releases (without the comma), while casual references to the song elsewhere use the comma, as would be more typical of the phrase used in regular prose- but there's enough use of both forms that both versions should probably be noted in the article. Yspaddadenpenkawr (talk) 21:49, 23 September 2023 (UTC)