Talk:The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song

Requested move 2 February 2020

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: no consensus to move the page to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 21:02, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

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The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (song) → Yo Home to Bel-Air – Pretty sure this song was never officially released under the title "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", therefore it should be moved to its proper title. ⓋᎯ☧ǿᖇǥ@ℤε💬 20:51, 2 February 2020 (UTC) —Relisted. PI Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 05:09, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

• Support - very tough call here. It is certainly true that the published title of the song is "Yo Home to Bel-Air", but likewise that fact is incredibly uncommon knowledge, as its most often referred to as the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme". I feel like the proposed move meets more of the WP:CRITERIA than the current name. It is precise and concise, and the title is a recognizable lyric of the song - but not at all natural (most people would not know to search that title). It is consistent in that we very rarely have a mismatch between published titles of works and titles of their associated articles. I also feel we gain WP:NATURALDISAMBIGUATION. -- Netoholic @ 22:16, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose move. The official title is so obscure that I don't believe it stands a chance at being the common name. O.N.R. ^(talk) 00:31, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

• @Old Naval Rooftops:I never said it was the common name. Also, we could move the article to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song since that is the common name, but to me it just seems more logical to move it to the song's official title. ⓋᎯ☧ǿᖇǥ@ℤε💬 09:34, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
• Support The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song or Oppose (no move), the real title is a complete nonstarter. Axem Titanium (talk) 18:08, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
• Support The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song, I'd prefer the real title but I don't think there's consensus for it. Support as proposed. I don't like the current title, it's a clunky attempt at recognizability. No one would assume the song is called "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". Nohomersryan (talk) 20:06, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

  @Nohomersryan: - please vote with your actual top preference, otherwise you may inadvertently fall prey to the Abilene paradox. The closer will assess the consensus, but they need to know clear preferences. -- Netoholic @ 04:22, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

  Adjusted accordingly after the comment below. Doesn't seem like there's danger of a no consensus close at this point. Nohomersryan (talk) 07:23, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

• Support official name per Netoholic comments. The other titles in this discussion can be redirects which will help other readers find this article, but there is absolutely no reason not to use the official title as the article name, i.e. there is nothing to gain from using a descriptive name as the title (again, redirects still lead to the same place). --Gonnym (talk) 06:14, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per ONR. The current title is the WP:COMMONNAME for the song, and the proposed title fails WP:RECOGNIZE.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:04, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
  • @Old Naval Rooftops and Amakuru: To the COMMONNAME argument, please consider this line that also appears as part of COMMONNAME: "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources." This is a special circumstance, as the proposed name clearly meets more of the WP:CRITERIA than the current inaccurate one. -- Netoholic @ 20:32, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

    In what way is it ambiguous or inaccurate? If reliable sources call it that, and that's the name known to the populace, then it's not "inaccurate", it's just that people use that name instead of the WP:OFFICIALNAME. And Wikipedia article title policy tells us precisely that we should use common names in preference to official names. It's a similar case to Inter Milan, where purists keep saying we're using the "wrong" name, yet sources regularly use it.  — Amakuru (talk) 20:49, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per @Amakuru and Old Naval Rooftops:. I normally Like official names, but even the sources cannot agree on what the song's name is. Thus, the common name is as titled. I, too, would prefer a natural disambiguation, but as proposed, this doesn't make sense. I would, however, suggest (if that's not already done) including the bolded official name in the Lede.

Note: I originally tried to close this discussion, not taking a view one way or another, but somehow missed noticing both Nohomersryan's sufficiently hidden comments and change of position. It was possible to close this as "no consensus," and perhaps a "not moved" outcome would've held up, but I thought it best to take a position to help solidify the consensus further. Doug Mehus T·C 19:01, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

• Support: Clearly the actual title of the song. Babar Suhail (talk) 08:34, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

  I like natural disambiguation, too, and I like official names, as well. However, almost no one would be typing in or searching for this song by its official name because it is so sufficiently obscure. It makes no sense, in my opinion, to force a redirect for what is so clearly the common name to get so many pageviews, and have virtually everyone arrive at the article via a redirect (that is, the current title that would become a redirect). Doug Mehus T·C 15:17, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

  @Dmehus: Remember that exceptionally few readers locate articles by typing the exact titles into the URL bar.... the vast majority use search engines which work by context and keywords - search engines which really don't care what the title of the article is. And really, isn't one of the purposes of Wikipedia to present accurate information... to educate people? Wouldn't it be part of that goal to name the article its actual published title? -- Netoholic @ 08:20, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

  Netoholic, in theory, yes, as like I said, I normally prefer official names, even for companies and organizations, but we have WP:COMMONNAME so why should we make an exception for songs? To be honest, I'd rather just scrap WP:COMMONNAME and possibly WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, but I doubt there's appetite for that. Doug Mehus T·C 20:07, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

  @Dmehus: - WP:IAR... if it furthers the goal of educating the readers, then we should match our article title to the song's actual published title. Besides, is the commong name "The theme from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", or "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme", or "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song", or just "(The) Fresh Prince of Bel-Air"? These, and many variations, are all phrases used inconsistently in sources regarding this topic. -- Netoholic @ 21:22, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose: I would normally agree that a song article should be titled after the real name, but in this instance, the current title is the common name. It is the common name to the point that the article DYK noted the song's real name was an interesting factoid. Aoba47 (talk) 18:31, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per COMMONNAME. I get the argument behind using the official name, but the song is almost unknown by that name. We can state right in the lead what the official name is and educate our readers that way, but from an article title point of view, we need to stick with the most recognizable title. I'd also be fine with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song or some variant thereof. CThomas³ (talk) 18:02, 24 February 2020 (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.

Requested move 19 February 2021

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.

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result:
Moved. Consensus that the proposed title doesn't represent itself as an erroneous song title. (closed by non-admin page mover) -2pou (talk) 17:09, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

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Links: current log • target log

This is template {{subst:Requested move/end}}

}} The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (song) → The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song – Natural disambiguation. The song is titled "Yo Home to Bel-Air", but that title was judged too obscure in the last RM about a year ago; this alternate option was brought up a few times during the RM, including by myself. O.N.R. ^(talk) 07:35, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support per nom, as "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" is not the title of the song (but the current title makes it seem like it is). Paintspot Infez (talk) 16:04, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Also, Pinging all participants of the previous discussion (who might want to weigh in): @Vaporgaze, Netoholic, Axem Titanium, Nohomersryan, Gonnym, Amakuru, Dmehus, Babar Suhail, Aoba47, and Cthomas3:. Paintspot Infez (talk) 19:25, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support per WP:NATURALDISAMBIGUATION. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:37, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support as it seems like a good compromise to me. Aoba47 (talk) 19:29, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Weak oppose Thanks for the {{ping}}...I don't really see a compelling rationale for upending our standard method of disambiguating article titles. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (song) is appropriately titled, with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song a reasonable redirect to the title, I think. On the other hand, I wouldn't be too fussed if this passes, either...I just don't see a compelling enough reason to support. Dmehus (talk) 19:33, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Weak support per Dmehus for basically the same reasons. It ain't broke but if you're trying to fix it, might as well... Axem Titanium (talk) 20:31, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - the song's title is Yo Home to Bel-Air. -- Netoholic @ 21:52, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

• Yes, but wouldn't "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song" be a minor improvement? Because we can all agree that the song is NOT titled "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", so the current title of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (song)" is erroneous. Paintspot Infez (talk) 22:43, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

• When we're fibbing about the title of the song to readers either way, I don't see it as a minor improvement. -- Netoholic @ 17:50, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support. Yo Home to Bel-Air would be ideal but agree this an improvement so readers don't think the song title is The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, just as we wouldn't call I'll Be There for You (The Rembrandts song), Friends (song). –CWenger (^ • @) 16:45, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air isn't the title of the song, but its actual name, Yo Home to Bel-Air, isn't nearly as recognisable. —El Millo (talk) 16:48, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

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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.