Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Music

RfC: using "The" in song/album article titles

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

(non-admin closure) The discussion is closed and the result is Remove.

There seems to be some confusion as to the purpose of having in parenthesis a clarification of an article's subject. The purpose is to distinguish that particular subject from, at least, another one that has the exact same name or title but concerns something different. This is an important point for the discussion, and, appropriately, it has already been pointed out by participants.

Wikipedia's policies leave little room for doubt as to how the titles of articles should be created. WP:COMMONNAME directs us to have article titles that are based on what the subject is called in reliable sources. Which is why we have in Wikipedia The Beatles, The Who, and The Shirelles, since this how these acts are denoted in both their official discography and reliable sources, and we don't have The Cream or The Pulp. (For instructions about the use of the definite article in Wikipedia titles, we have MOS:THETITLE.)

In the context of disambiguating a title, however, nowhere is it mandated that the parenthetical clarification of the subject should follow the rules about an article title as such. On the contary, we must bear in mind that, per WP:D, the purpose of disambiguation is to resolve conflicts and to ensure that a reader who searches for a topic using a particular term can get to the information on that topic quickly and easily. The primary purpose of the process under discussion is, therefore, the reader's quick and easy orientation. In this, whether we have "Beatles album" or "The Beatles album" inside the parenthesis makes evidently no difference whatsoever, in terms of information and orientation.
In conclusion, we are left with the simple instructions in WP:NCDAB to keep it simple, or as the text has it: Use the same disambiguating phrase already commonly used for other topics within the same class and context, if any. Otherwise, choose whichever is simpler. For example, use "(mythology)" rather than "(mythological figure)". Notice that the example uses a typically innacurate yet entirely helpful term to orient the reader.

Note: A participant who provided an extensive and IMO well presented suggestion to Keep all definite articles concedes the point that disambiguated articles are not meant to have everything inside the parenthesis following the rules about article titles, by stating "Disambiguated Wikipedia article titles are not really Titles. They are purely an expedient for finding the right content." Well, not exactly, since formally a title is always a title, but one could not agree more with the point being made! The Gnome (talk) 12:42, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

---

Hello there. I'd like to see what other editors think in regards to the use of the word "The" in band names in parentheses in the titles of articles about songs and albums. Here's an example of what I mean by this: there is currently an article titled "Revolver (Beatles album)". However, there are also numerous articles where this is NOT the case: for example, "Smile (The Beach Boys album)" or "Smash Hits (The Jimi Hendrix Experience album)". I've looked at MOS:TITLE, MOS:THECAPS, MOS:THEMUSIC, and WP:NCTHE, but I'm not really seeing any indication of what the protocol should be here. –Matthew - (talk) 01:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

• Having slept on it, I am of the opinion that the "The" should only be included in cases where the band's name without the "The" would not be the primary topic, or would lead to a disambiguation page. This is a bit difficult to put into words, so allow me to present examples once again:

• Beach Boys redirects to The Beach Boys.
• Beatles redirects to The Beatles.
• Jimi Hendrix Experience redirects to The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
• Rolling Stones redirects to The Rolling Stones.
• Who, however, leads to a disambiguation page, and does NOT redirect to The Who.

Therefore, articles about songs or albums by specific bands should be titled as follows:

• Example (Beach Boys album)
• Example (Beatles album)
• Example (Jimi Hendrix Experience album)
• Example (Rolling Stones album)
• Example (The Who album)

Under this model, the "The" would be included for such bands as The Clash, The Doors, and The Who, since the words on their own (clash, doors, and who) either lead to disambiguation pages or articles which are not about the bands. Meanwhile, the "The" would NOT be included for bands whose names are still the primary topic even without the "The", such as the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and the Rolling Stones. I don't know if I'm allowed to cast a vote, if you will, since I started this discussion, but I would support this as a proposal. Thoughts? –Matthew - (talk) 16:13, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Note: I have eventually come to oppose my own initial proposal. I now support retaining the exact names of bands as given in their respective articles. See below for details. –Matthew - (talk) 03:35, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support or remove all The from parenthetical disambiguators – Add Shirelles -> The Shirelles to your list, where I got reverted for a such a change at Tonight's the Night (The Shirelles song) and some others a few years ago. @Discographer: might say if he'd reconsider with this framework. IIRC there was an explicit discussion and approval for the Beatles case; I had assumed that applied more generally, but didn't try to define the limits. Dicklyon (talk) 20:57, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
• Keep all (proper names) with the guidance of MOS:THE and MOS:THEMUSIC; I prefer to see "the" left out when an authoritative references tell us that "the" is not part of the band name, and left in when "the" is part of the name. i.e. use the proper name properly. What redirects exist is not a useful metric. "(Beatles album)" is bad and "(The Beatles album)" is good because it's the band's name. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 21:24, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

  I disagree. I think that "Revolver (Beatles album)" looks less awkward and rolls off the tongue much better than "Revolver (The Beatles album)" does. However, I would prefer "Endless Wire (The Who album)" to "Endless Wire (Who album)", because of the primary topic reasoning I outlined above. I understand where you're coming from though. –Matthew - (talk) 21:32, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

  I appreciate your desire for information to be aesthetically pleasing, though I sincerely hope you wouldn't forgo clarity and accuracy to achieve it. Thinking of Verve, I pondered "Forth (Verve album)" and felt bad for casual readers/researchers. Is that the forth album Verve released, or an album called "Forth" released by the Verve? That "the" really helps clear things up doesn't it? I suggest a shave with Occam's razor i.e. KISS. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 01:47, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

  I think that there are two problems with your example about Forth though. First, it's spelled "Forth", not "Fourth", so I don't think people would get confused there. Second, under my proposed model, the band The Verve would include the "The" in a case such as this, because the term "Verve" leads to a disambiguation page. Regardless, there are no other albums with Wikipedia articles called Forth, so as of right now, that article is just titled "Forth (album)" anyways. I don't think that my proposal would be confusing for casual readers/researchers. –Matthew - (talk) 03:16, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

• Remove all because of common usage. Certainly the name of John Lennon's most famous band was "The Beatles" but he, and every other writer, dropped the "the" when the band name was used as an adjective, for instance the statements, "sounds like a Beatles song" or "never appeared on a Beatles album". Essentially, our parenthetic disambiguation is the same type of descriptor, and the "the" is not needed. Binksternet (talk) 21:43, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

  I think I agree, actually. It may be the Beatles, but in such instances like you mentioned with John himself, simply "Beatles" works without issue. My problem lies with bands like The Clash and especially The Who. Never once have I ever heard somebody refer to The Who as simply "Who", but after a quick Google search, I've found that there are a few sources which do write it that way. I may well end up changing my position in agreement with yours. –Matthew - (talk) 22:33, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

• I don’t have a stance, but I do in general support coming to a consensus one way or another. This is one of those perennial time wasting arguments that do nothing other than rile editors up and turn them against one another. Sergecross73 msg me 21:47, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
• Remove all, even in "The Who" and "The The". The inital cap is a sufficient signal that a proper name is being referred to. "Endless Wire (Who album)" is no less clear than "Endless Wire (The Who album)". Deor (talk) 22:43, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

  Oh someone didn't forget the The (yay). To be clear then, by "remove all" you suggest "Dusk (The Album)" is more appropriate than the current "Dusk (The The album)"; you don't think that this and your "The Who" examples are possibly a little confusing to readers who may not be familiar with article title policy, and in fact are very good examples of exactly why we shouldn't "remove all"? Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 01:22, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

  It would be "Dusk (The album)", not "Dusk (The Album)", and yes, I think it's sufficiently clear for use as a disambiguator. Deor (talk) 15:23, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

• Keep "The" when it's used as proper-noun Wikipedia-article title. So "Eagles" but "The Who".--Tenebrae (talk) 23:09, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
• There actually already was an RfC consensus on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Smashing_Pumpkins/Archive_5#Request_for_Comment. Do we really want to reopen a hard-fought discussion that ended in a workable compromise? --Tenebrae (talk) 22:43, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

  That discussion is a consensus on one band. This is on handling all bands in general. Sergecross73 msg me 23:06, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

  Oops. Well, maybe that discussion will help inform this one.--Tenebrae (talk) 23:09, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

  That discussion is completely off point. But there was one on the Beatles which concluded to drop "The" in disambiguators (and I thought I recalled also in categories such as Category:Beatles songs, but looks like not). Not sure where that is. Dicklyon (talk) 00:18, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

• While this discussion is heavily featuring the Beatles as an example of "common use", remember that there's is but one of many and varied names. Consider the common use of "the Band of Joy". And just for kicks; let's not forget the The? A reliable coverall !policy should be indifferent to specific cases (which can be argued case by case as needed); we already have a reliable coverall, and it's to use bands' proper names. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 01:07, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
• Remove all I agree with the reasoning offered by Binksternet above. This has nothing to do with disambiguation (the rationale provided by the RFC proposer), nor does it have anything to do with whether or not "the" is officially part of the band's name; it has to do with on common usage. My observations of common usage are as follows: When used as a noun in a sentence, the band name is preceded by "the" in almost all cases, even if "the" is not officially part of the name. There are exceptions on a per-band basis in common usage, depending on the nature of the band name, such as if it is pluralized, and when otherwise it would be confusing to leave out "the". "I went to a concert and saw the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Carpenters, the Eagles, and Bread" (the last being a common usage exception). You probably wouldn't write "I went to a concert and saw the Beach Boys, the Beatles, Carpenters, Eagles, and Bread." However, the inverse is true if the band name is being used as an adjective, even more so in a sentence than in parenthesis after a song or album title. "I went to a Beatles concert. I went to a Beach Boys concert. I went to a Carpenters concert. I went to an Eagles concert. I went to a Bread concert." You certainly wouldn't write "I went to a The Beach Boys concert"; you wouldn't write "I went the Beach Boys concert" either unless you were referring to a particular Beach Boys concert (HA see how I left out "the") that is already known to the reader. Although "the" in the parenthetical reference is less objectional, I think it should still follow this common usage and be left out. When I first saw this change being made to article titles of Beach Boys works (HA did it again), I thought, "here's another case of someone with too much time on their hands making a mass arbitrary change." However, after thinking about it more and actually looking at articles with "the" removed, I think it is comes across better, is more consistent with common usage, and should be the convention going forward. —hulmem (talk) 01:52, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Look, I get the premise here, and agree that "Revolver (The Beatles album)" doesn't roll off the tongue as well as it does without the "The". But the first problem (there are a lot of them) with changing this convention is that including the "The" is never wrong, while dropping the "The" can be wrong in so many different ways.

As discussed, there are countless situations in speech and prose when it is contextually acceptable (huuuge emphasis on contextually) to omit the "The" when talking about bands with "The" in their names. But the situations for omitting a "The" in prose or speech are almost purely intuitive, will vary from band to band, and can sometimes be a judgment call. It's not an on/off switch either, but more of a spectrum; some band's "The" is stickier than other's. It's not possible to replicate the "naturalness" of judging when to hack off a "The" with a yes-or-no rule like this. The current rule, "use the band's formal title as given in the Wikipedia article", is simple, easy to remember, intuitive even to readers and new users, and the process to check or make a correction is trivially easy. Basing a new rule about dropping "The" in every case is silly, and any rule about dropping it sometimes based on redirects/disambiguations is unworkable and needlessly complicated.

The reason "The Who" presents a difficulty is that people very rarely call the band just "Who", while people routinely say "Beatles" or "Beach Boys". Why? There's a whole spectrum of acceptable cases to drop the "The" from a band's name. It's not just because "Who" is a common word, because there are other bands with "The + [common word]" names where the "The" gets more commonly left off, like the Fall. Yet no one searching for the Fall would type "Fall", even though it is sometimes contextually natural to call them that. Similarly, even given that people sometimes say "Who" to refer to the band, it's usually when you're already waist-deep into reading about them—i.e., you already know you're reading about The Who, so there's no opportunity for confusion. It may sound a little odd, but you still know Who they're talking about. But that unusual, purely contextual usage has no bearing on whether people think of "The" as a dispensable part of the band's name as a title. Would you call "The Police" just "Police", or "The Band" "Band"? Rarely, if ever. What about, say, The 1975? I guarantee that outside of a deliberately jokey usage about how unnatural it sounds to refer to them that way, you will almost certainly never find an instance of someone calling that band just "1975". And "The The"—again, outside a joke, no one would ever call them plain "The"!! This is silly; we'd be switching from "The Beach Boys" to "Beach Boys", which is acceptably natural either, but also switching from "The Who" to "Who", "The Band" to "Band", "The 1975" to "1975", and "The The" to "The", which all sound unacceptably unnatural without their "The".

You could try to adopt a rule for selectively dropping "The" in some cases but not others, maybe based on redirects/disambiguation pages as discussed above. But there is never going to be a simple, unambiguous, easy-to-remember rule of thumb to make that distinction in a way that works. There are going to be tons of tricky cases that will arbitrarily depend on a band's relative level of notability in relation to the common noun—as judged by the state of Wikipedia in a given moment. Some examples: People commonly say "Doors" to refer to the band, while "Clash" for "The Clash" tends to be unnatural (but like "Who", occurs in rare, contextual instances). So while keeping "The Clash" remains good, natural-sounding, and obvious, mandating "The Doors"—but not "The Beach Boys"—just because of a redirect/disambiguation is totally arbitrary and confusing. It ditches/thwarts the purported reason of adopting of more natural-sounding titles, basically on a technicality. Worse, the distinction would be done for a reason that will seem opaque and arbitrary to an average user or reader, not to mention hard to apply for experienced users. Some more: "kinks" redirects to The Kinks, replacements goes to the disambiguation page Replacement. Quick: based on the proposed rule for selectively dropping "The", which one gets the "The" left off in an article title? Can you remember intuitively, or do you have to take a second to remember to yourself how the rule works? What if the state of the titles/redirects change?

Analogously, the problems with a rule like that can also be shown if you were to apply it to titles of articles about TV episodes—and why not, since TV show titles, like band names, sometimes sound natural without their "The". So, some examples from TV land: Sopranos redirects to The Sopranos, and people routinely say "Sopranos" for the show; Americans is of course its own article, separate from The Americans (hardly anyone calls the show just "Americans"); office is its own article, natch, while The Office is about the original British show—so what about the (more popular, but disambiguated) The Office (American TV series), plus the fact it would be profoundly weird to call either show "Office"? How would this all play out for articles with "(The _____ episode)" in the title?

Even if you like the idea of making some new rule so that some articles can have "more natural" titles like "Revolver (Beatles album)": at the end of the day, the reason for that new rule (and opening a can of worms), the purported big benefit, is... that if you were to read a title like "Revolver (The Beatles album)" out loud, it may sound momentarily unnatural. What?? Ask yourself, when are you ever saying Wikipedia articles out loud, or even typing them out like that? Do you tell a friend "Oh, check out the Wikipedia article 'Revolver' (The Beatles album)'"? That sounds odd, but it's not because of the "The". No, you would say "check out the Wikipedia album about the Beatles album Revolver". You'd go by subject, not the actual title. And this is keeping in mind that the "drop every The" rule would enforce "weird-sounding", or even outright wrong, phrases like "(The album)". So even if we're taking the problem of natural-sounding vs. weird-sounding titles very seriously, on net you'd probably lose more natural-sounding titles than you'd gain.

Disambiguated Wikipedia article titles are not really Titles, and we don't (or hardly ever) have to announce them or think about them as Titles. They are purely an expedient for finding the right content. "Copy-paste the band's exact title as given in their article" is a fine rule; adopting any change discussed here would add needless complication and confusion for, at best, little gain. —BLZ · talk 02:35, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

@BLZ: I think you've changed my mind here. While it does pain me from an aesthetic point-of-view to admit that including the "The" is never wrong, while removing the "The" in some cases may cause issues, I can't help but agree with your reasoning. The Kinks are an especially tricky case, and the fact that titles and redirects can change is problematic. I concede my previous viewpoint, and (with great and petty sadness), now support retaining the exact names of bands as given in their respective articles. –Matthew - (talk) 03:32, 12 July 2019 (UTC)*

• Note – I updated MOS:THEMUSIC for how we do this normally in text; no prejudice to whether it applies to disambiguators. Dicklyon (talk) 03:17, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Tony (talk) 01:07, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
• Retain articles Otherwise, what would we do with The The albums or A Silver Mt. Zion? If the name of the main article is "The XYZ", then let's retain "The XYZ [foo]" for consistency's sake. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:45, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
• Remove all. Simple, natural and perfectly clear without the definite article.

Of course, what's really underpinning this question is the old argument about whether we consider definite articles part of band names. And I don't think we should. Edit: This has inspired me to finally get off my ass and write an essay on this subject. Popcornduff (talk) 06:04, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

• [Lukewarm] support for removing all; make exception for The The. Having got so used to seeing examples in Beatles song and album articles, I go to an article like the Rolling Stones' Aftermath album and struggle with the inclusion of "The" in the title. I take the point that not everyone is familiar with the Beatles examples, and the changes made in their articles don't necessarily constitute common usage here. When the Beatles page moves took place years ago, I had the impression it was more about some editors wanting to reinforce the outcome of the RfC/RfM dedicated to The/the Beatles. Same with the moving of, say, The Beatles' break-up to The break-up of the Beatles.
• One thing that's always confused me with the removal of "The" from the Beatles article titles: how come we still have "The Beatles chronology", "The Beatles singles chronology", etc, in the infoboxes? It's not as if the header sets the band name in the possessive form: it's not The Beatles' chronology (as one would write "the Beatles' career" or "the Beatles' touring history") – which makes sense, because the band name is being used adjectivally. But then, shouldn't the chronology headers also lose the word "the"? Same with some of the template titles for the band, I guess. JG66 (talk) 03:52, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

  JG66 - Wikipedia is hopelessly inconsistent about dealing with this. Hence we have the Spice Girls but The Rolling Stones. It drives me nuts. Popcornduff (talk) 08:01, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

  There is that inconsistency with band names, yes (and I can't fathom that one either). But I'm talking about why we have, say, "The Rolling Stones singles chronology" when, as in album and song article titles, we're not using the band name in the possessive sense, otherwise it would be "The Rolling Stones' singles chronology". We're really saying "the Rolling Stones single chronology", just as we would "the Bob Dylan singles chronology" – in which case, the definite article should be dropped, leaving us with "Rolling Stones singles chronology". (Either that or make it possessive: "The Rolling Stones' singles chronology".) JG66 (talk) 15:03, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

  While interesting, this RfC is about the use of "the" in parenthesized disambiguation; either you're suggesting this RfC needs to have its scope altered, or this is off point and distracting. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 18:59, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

• Remove all (Summoned by bot) – Exactly as Fred reminds us just above. There are all sorts of comments concerning official band titles, but this Rfc is not about that. There are also all sorts of comments about common name, but this Rfc is not about that, either. This Rfc is about the use of the word the in parenthetical disambiguation. It doesn't matter what term the band used. It doesn't matter what the common name is. It doesn't matter whether reliable sources have the band's name mostly with or mostly without the. Parenthetical disambiguation is about getting you to right article, and that is all. So the question you have to ask yourself is: Does "Revolver (The Beatles album)" get you to the right place faster, or better, than "Revolver (Beatles album)"? Answer: No, it does not. Therefore, leave it off, because of WP:CONCISE. (Exception for "The The".) Mathglot (talk) 08:04, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
• Torn - There are lots of persuasive arguments here, but none so persuasive that it makes me say "yeah, the others are wrong." I don't see a demonstrated need firm written guidance here, so I would suggest establishing local consensus by band. If guidance is needed, then I support always using "The" when it's the band's name. That way it's always accurate and doesn't require editors to review DAB pages or tally up how reliable sources are using it. (Summoned by bot) Argento Surfer (talk) 15:13, 23 July 2019 (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.

Closed?

@The Gnome: There was no consensus here. Correct my math if it's wrong but I count 8 against 5 with 2 uncertain. Hardly enough to rule one way or the other. I would have also voted against this proposal, so make it 8 against 6. ilil (talk) 05:35, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

The close is at least aligned with the clear majority. I thought you were saying the opposite at first. Dicklyon (talk) 02:16, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree with ILIL this is very clearly a no consensus close, and with all due respect to The Gnome, it looks like they've put their own opinion rather than assessing the consensus of the discussion, which had very clear opposes in almost equal numbers to the supports. For the record I also strongly oppose this change - it is being used now as an excuse to force through large numbers of undiscussed changes to long-term article titles, when there was no consensus in the discussion to do so. If we title a parent article as The Supremes, then for consistency the disambiguator should follow that.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:38, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

IMO no conclusion can be drawn from this RfC. It's not a clear consensus either way. Andrewa (talk) 08:42, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

• Bad close. BADNAC, SUPERVOTE. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:01, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

ILIL, Dicklyon, Amakuru, SmokeyJoe: From the above ISTM that the RfC should be reopened. Suggestions as to how? Andrewa (talk) 17:48, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't know. How do these things work? There isn't a "move review" or "deletion review" forum for this, is there  — Amakuru (talk) 18:04, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Closing discussions#Challenging other closures. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:11, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Addendum

Greetings, all. Despite my misgivings about piling on comments or clarifications onto a discussion already closed, I understand that a detail I thought self-evident in the above probably isn't. The case presented here is whether the Remove decision involves each and every band whose name carries the definite article. The response is, of course, yes, it does, and, therefore, albums from The Who need only by denoted in a disambiguating parenthesis as "(Who album)". In the context of music, this evidently constitutes a perfectly clear orientation for the reader. The only exception we can admit, and here perhaps the clarification was necessary, concerns work by the group named The The. In this unique case, it would indeed be confusing to have "(The song)", so the full group-name is to be used, i.e. "(The The song)".

ilil's complaint about the closing is one we often encounter in Wikipedia. Decisions in Wikipedia discussions, such as RfCs or AfDs, are indeed more often than not the result of the numerical superiority of one side's !votes, but not necessarily and not always so. The strength of an argument determines the degree to which it influences the outcome, with stronger arguments being given more weight in determining consensus per WP:CRFC. This is precisely what went down in this case. I hope this is clear enough. -The Gnome (talk) 06:57, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm aware that consensuses are drawn based on arguments, not number of votes, but the ruling did not seem like it was based on argument. There was no rebuttal to the points raised by @Brandt Luke Zorn:, who I thought offered the strongest and most cogent argument of either side. It even convinced @MatthewHoobin:, the nominator for this proposal, to 180 his views on the matter. Just seems strange to me. To me, this discussion clearly ended without a definite consensus. ilil (talk) 07:15, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Greetings, ilil. I addressed, whether directly or indirectly, the relevant, important points that were made. Even with such an austere approach, the decision's text is rather long. In the addendum above I clarified all that merited a clarification. As far as I'm concerned there is nothing more to be said in this context. Of course, if anyone feels strongly something went wrong with the closing, they can ask for a review of it, per WP:CLOSE. Take care. -The Gnome (talk) 07:38, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

@The Gnome: What about Brandt Luke Zorn's point about The 1975? I'm okay with the decision being to generally remove all instances of "The", from an aesthetic point-of-view, but it seems to me that BLZ's "extensive and ... well presented" argument is in opposition to the removal of "The"s. –Matthew - (talk) 15:59, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that Song (1975 song) would be too easily misinterpreted in the same manner as Song (The song). I think reasonable exceptions like these can be made. Binksternet (talk) 16:12, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

A few points:

• If simplicity is the goal, which rule is simpler?

(A) Using the band's proper name as given in their article title, verbatim and including the word "The", consistently in all uses.

(B) Omitting "the" selectively in some cases, but not in others, based on the vibe we get about whether the word "the" is really part of the band's name.

If simplicity means "fewer words," then sure, (B) is "simpler". If simplicity means "which rule will be easier to apply consistently and intuitively", then (A) is obviously simpler.

• Again, on simplicity: The Gnome cites WP:NCDAB and quotes this part: "For example, use '(mythology)' rather than '(mythological figure)'" Sure, but simpler is not always shorter. This is not a rule mandating shorter disambig phrases in every instance. Neither "mythological figure" nor "mythology" are proper nouns, so this example is not a fitting analogy for what we're dealing with here.
• There are countless instances beyond "The The" where it would be improper to drop the "The". I know I gave a long comment in my first response, but this was in part because I tried to really meticulously articulate why some bands need the "The" in their name, and how there are degrees of necessity rather than black/white on/off. So I'll save everyone some time—but hint at how much time could be wasted in the future—by giving another counterexample, but with no explanation: The Game (rapper). Higher (The Game song).

I bring this example up only to, once again, hint at the worms inside the can we'd open with this new rule: the endless relitigation of specific cases and the bizarre, haphazard, and unevenly applied results that could occur with a default rule to drop the "The". By the way: yes, I know there are counterarguments, even compelling ones, about why "(Game song)" might be appropriate to use. I have already thought through these arguments, and am prepared to discuss them in depth if someone wants to go down that road. But I'm asking, more fundamentally: do we really want to have this kind of back-and-forth in individual instances on such a tedious issue? The fact that there could be any valid disagreement at all about how to treat a particular name highlights the failure, complexity, and impracticality of the proposed rule. The list of "reasonable" exceptions and potential exceptions would grow to mind-numbing length, which is a red flag that a rule does not really work as a general rule.

• The Gnome said that part of my earlier comment "concedes the point that disambiguated articles are not meant to have everything inside the parenthesis following the rules about article titles, by stating 'Disambiguated Wikipedia article titles are not really Titles. They are purely an expedient for finding the right content.'" This is a total misreading of my point in the quoted portion. What I said there was in response to the aesthetic argument that a title like "Revolver (Beatles album)" is somehow more satisfying than "Revolver (The Beatles album)"—and how irrelevant such considerations are. And in fact, rather than conceding tha disambig phrases "are not meant to have everything inside the parenthesis", I was making precisely the opposite point: when it comes to proper nouns, disambig phrases should follow the form of the band name verbatim because that is an easier rule for both writers and readers. —BLZ · talk 18:28, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

@The Gnome: Thoughts? –Matthew - (talk) 17:52, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Working on "the" removal

I've done quite a few bands, removing "the" from (the Beach Boys song) and (the Beach Boys album) for instance; also the Shirelles, the McCoys, the Zutons, the Carpenters, the Byrds, the Cars, the Lumineers, and a few others. I haven't seen any reaction, so I'm assuming this is all OK and we can keep at it, yes? And I haven't found anything that looks like exceptions beyond "The The" and "The 1975". Besides song and album, there are a few EP articles to do, too. Dicklyon (talk) 14:38, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

• Question, what happens with titles like Dynamite (The Supremes and the Four Tops album). Should it be Dynamite (Supremes and the Four Tops album) or Dynamite (Supremes and Four Tops album)?. © Tbhotch^™ (en-2.5). 00:01, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Based on the new rules, I would say the last option. Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:10, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Dicklyon, Tbhotch, Walter Görlitz, I would suggest that there are no new rules that would justify Working on "the" removal for the moment. There is AFAIK no standard procedure for reopening an RfC after a contested close, but there is sufficient discussion above to warrant it. Suggestions welcome. Andrewa (talk) 17:44, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Parenthetical disambiguators in "songs" categories

See

• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 August 31#Category:Halsey (singer) songs and
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2019 August 31#Category:The Damned (band) songs.

Is it appropriate to copy parenthetical disambiguators into the middle of category titles, when there's no actual ambiguity? Comment here in general, or there in particular, or both. Dicklyon (talk) 05:04, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't know of any specific guidelines which would confirm or contest my viewpoint on this, but I think it's probably permissible for the sake of consistency. For example, the main category for Category:Halsey (singer) songs is Category:Halsey (singer). You make a fair point about the lack of ambiguity though. Perhaps someone more experienced with naming conventions for categories than I can weigh in on this. –Matthew - (talk) 17:59, 1 September 2019 (UTC)