Talk:Peter principle

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Requested move 16 August 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: Moved as requested Mike Cline (talk) 19:01, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

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Peter Principle → Peter principle – To match every other page of this sort, from Dunning–Kruger effect to Special relativity. This is one of the last remaining law/theory/meme/aphorism/model/method/doctrine (MOS:DOCTCAPS) pages that is still capitalized in this way.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:09, 16 August 2015 (UTC)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:09, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Support though for little reason other than that the topic might otherwise be confused with someone such as a half brother of someone like Elvis. Ngrams do not support the move and, at WP:CRITERIA, Consistency is presented as the final item in the list. If Laurence J. Peter had a surname that was in a form unlike a common given name or if a noun was used such as "effect" then I would have opposed. GregKaye 07:41, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

There would be no basis for such an oppose though; all article titles like this are lower-cased here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:06, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Oppose. The current policy is misguided. The Peter Principle is a proper noun, not a common one, and it is properly and commonly capitalized. Ngram shows that as of 2008 your proposed capitalization was 8× less common in the English language. (Don't worry, though. I'm sure enough people agreed with the policy to get it implemented in the first place and can come to support your well-meaning imposition of consistency. I also support consistency: in the imposition of COMMON ENGLISH names and the avoidance of policy bloat like what we're seeing here. But again I'm sure you mean well.) — LlywelynII 02:21, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

What I mean isn't relevant. If you don't like the current MOS line about this, you can propose to change it, at WT:MOSCAPS. In the interim, it would be applied here just like at second law of thermodynamics and Murphy's law.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:22, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Support. A similar orthographic topic is covered at Eponym#Orthographic conventions, which covers how terms such as "Parkinson disease" and "Down syndrome" are widely considered as better styled that way even though one will always find plenty of instances of "Parkinson Disease" and "Down Syndrome" in the wild. Quercus solaris (talk) 13:46, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

As a matter of tautology, if "Parkinson Disease" and "Down Syndrome" are more commonly capitalized as such "in the wild", then their lower-case variants are not "widely considered better styled" for all meaningful values of "widely". — LlywelynII 02:26, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Your point is taken, but nonetheless professional editing done to AMA style, APA style, CSE style, AP style, and other major regimens follows the norm of lowercasing the disease/syndrome/test part. If Wikipedia aspires to that type of editing, it would use the lowercased style. "In the wild" in this context means "in content that is mostly not copyedited." How much Wikipedia wants copyediting can be debated, but it seems that many Wikipedians prefer it over non-copyedited style. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:43, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Right. Blogs and stuff overcapitalize everything like mad.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:20, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• Note: The Talk:Somebody else's problem#Requested move 24 July 2015 recently closed in favor of the same kind of move, from Somebody Else's Problem to Somebody else's problem.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:45, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Obviously makes sense to follow our own style guide. Jenks24 (talk) 13:24, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
• Support per nomination. — the Man in Question (in question) 00:58, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Oppose. For the all the same reasons mentioned before. In the past, when I wanted someone to know the concept of "Peter princple", I sent a link to the wiki page. Now, the article is about a book, not about the concept, and that is misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.84.240 (talk) 17:20, 21 May 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.

Major omission -- Percussive sublimation

Was looking for some source material on "percussive sublimation" and this article seemed a reasonable source. But .... not found.

Shouldn't the article discuss the major terms that Peter introduced? drh (talk) 12:07, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes it should. I've added a temporary article for now; I'll expand the article properly soon. Richard75 (talk) 21:19, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 12 May 2018

Peter principle → The Peter Principle – I suggest that it makes more sense to name the article after the book, rather than about the idea expressed in the book. Richard75 (talk) 19:07, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. It wouldn't have made sense to move the article when it looked like this last month. Since then a series of edits by User:Richard75, proposing this move, have turned it into mostly an article about the book, but I think the page should be returned to the form it was in before, and if necessary, an article on the book created separately. Dekimasuよ! 19:21, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

I would suggest that my version is more informative than the old one, and we don't need both of them. Richard75 (talk) 20:12, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

The new version is more informative when it comes to the book, but I think overall the question is debatable. Most readers probably do not need a chapter-by-chapter summary of the book if they are looking for an explanation of what is usually referred to as the principle in other contexts, or how it has been used since its introduction. Dekimasuよ! 21:19, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Well that sort of information was almost completely absent from the old version of the article, so we've never really had an article about the principle rather than the book. Richard75 (talk) 23:00, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support the book spawned the concept. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:00, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support The book title is also a common name for the principle therein. Two birds with one stone. I do think though that the recent edits go too far. I thoroughly dislike the chapter-by-chapter summary and would prefer that the article return to a summary style which explains the concepts in prose (more like what used to be in the removed "Overview" section. If that can't be done, then this article should be split - this article reverted to its prior structure describing the principle, and a new article created to describe the book titled The Peter Principle. -- Netoholic @ 01:01, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

• Interesting case. As pointed out above, the articles before and after recent edits are entirely different in focus. Both Peter principle and The Peter Principle are notable topics. Should they dealt with separately as also suggested above or together in one article? If separately, then the book article should be a new article following a split. If together, should the primary focus be the principle or the book? It seems from Google books and web results that that principle is a more sought after topic than the book. (Print sources like this abound; titles like "New Evidence The Peter Principle Is Real", "Why The Peter Principle is Outrageously Wrong" and "Why Is Your Boss Bad At His Job? It May Be The 'Peter Principle'" rank high in search results but often do not even mention the book.) Therefore, shouldn't the material on the book be a section in an article on the principle than vice versa? —  AjaxSmack  01:20, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose The concept is definitely a primary topic over the book, as demonstrated above. The article transformed to change its subject matter is a bold change that I don't agree with. I'm sure there's a case for a separate article about the book, which the current iteration can be moved to, with an article about the concept restored, even if the version as it existed was lacking and needed work. Ralbegen (talk) 20:32, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• This should be two articles. The concept warrants a page because it is commonly used. The book is notable and important enough to warrant its own article. The book article should be expanded to cover the origin and publication of the book as well as the critical reception of the book. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/Non-fiction article. --Jaldous1 (talk) 22:12, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support per nom, and keep as one article. The two are intimately connected. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:38, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support but do not split. There is not at this time sufficient material to justify a split, and it's not obvious what would be added. Note that Laurence J. Peter already has their own article. The Peter Principle is far more recognisable, and its adoption will therefore be of benefit to readers. Andrewa (talk) 20:21, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. Sometimes a thing being mostly known from a single original source is more of an accident of history than a pertinent factor. The "principle" here makes its own meme; this didn't gain currency merely because the book went on some weird and completely unexpected Jordan Peterson rocket flight (see 12 Rules for Life). Rule of Cool would have been the Rule of Cool whether or not Bruce Lee once published a book by the title The Rule of Cool—however well it originally sold. Note that we already have a related page, software Peter principle, that can't be named after the book. There are many pages on Wikipedia that are fundamentally about two subjects at the same time. Just about every social media startup has a page named after the social media platform which ambiguously alternates between discussing the namesake platform and the corporation behind it. Even if the first paragraph is very short, merely defining the Peter principle in one sentence, that would be good enough to keep the current page name. The second paragraph could define The Peter Principle is a book ... and then the rest of the article could fixate on the book, and do no damage to having the page named after the principle, and the principle itself having miniscule pride of place with a small, primary definition. But some people find it confusing that a large nickel is worth less than a small dime—if this troubles you, you'll probably disagree. I'll further note that it's a general principle of managing complexity and human attention to place the short items at the front of a complex list, leaving the hairiest item for last, to be processed when your brain no longer has to leave the list open for further admissions. (If you're not afraid of Virginia Woolf, it's because she's very, very good at this, in the sequencing of her long, flowing sentences.) Not that this principle is universally understood by lesser artists. In software engineering, for example, I find that the majority of coders, when writing an if/else statement, tend to put the more complex half in the front half (on the if side) like this: if (need_to_do_hard_work) { hard_work; } else { trivial_base_case; } rather than if (no_more_hard_work) { trivial_base_case; } else { hard_work; }. (Note that the no_more_hard_work predicate is the simple boolean negation of need_to_do_more_hard_work, and that hard_work might run 10, 20, or 50 lines of code whereas trivial_base_case probably runs 1–5 lines of code.) In summary, the "Peter principle" is clearly self-powered as its own meme; it can be dealt with as a one-paragraph trivial base case, before the second paragraph introduces the book title, in bold, as a second primary definition; and that this proposal is actually consistent with good cognitive hygiene, properly understood. But you do have to get over the nickel/dime status/value inversion to fully appreciate the genius of this tidy solution. — MaxEnt 23:13, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. The Peter principle is highly noteworthy outside the context of the book that popularized it. I can see the call to create a separate article for the book, but we definitely need an article on the concept.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:21, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is VERY misleading if someone just wants to know the concept of the Peter principle.