Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 March 27

March 27

This is a list of redirects that have been proposed for deletion or other action on March 27, 2012

Template:Portalpar

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more redirects. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the redirect's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was keep. JohnCD (talk) 14:50, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unused redirect. The "par" extension offers nothing. Nowadays "Portal" is well-established and well-known name as is. Magioladitis (talk) 18:17, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. While it's true that it's just been a redirect for several years, it's still getting a good number of hits on a regular basis (63 last month for example), showing that it still has value. If it's only just been orphaned then wait a couple of months to see if the usage dies off - it probably will but might not. Thryduulf (talk) 19:33, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Indeed, per Thryduulf. Why bother deleting this which is still in use. I found this today because my User Page was suddenly "broken" for no good reason. After fruitlessly clicking the non-working "this redirect's entry" on the banner notice, a 10 minutes or so of "WTF" cursing and much more I finally found the page here. Why on earth do people nominate working pages such as this without good reason? The nominators reason that it's" unused" is patently wrong, and causes unneccessary grief to Users who still rely on it. If you are going to nominate stuff for deletion Magioladitis, at least get your facts correct and do the users of such a page the courtesy of a notification at least (although some proper discussion beforehand would be preferable). --Cactus.man ✍ 21:30, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I should have written "unused in mainspace". My mistake. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:24, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Why is this page not used in the main namespace? [1] [2] [3]. It appears that it was intentionally orphaned just before the deletion discussion. That is completely inappropriate - it distorts the argument in favor of deletion and makes it impossible for others to see how the template is used when they are looking at the deletion discussion. If the outcome is delete, then a bot will orphan the redirect. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:30, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.

Tai chi

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more redirects. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on an appropriate discussion page (such as the redirect's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
The result of the discussion was No consensus as yet. It's been a long discussion (several weeks), several open minded commenters have changed their opinions several times, and the targets have changed due to at least one intervening WP:RM. I thought about relisting, but I think at this point, as someone noted below, it would probably be better to have a new nom explaining what the nom would suggest now. Feel free to immediately renom. (With that in mind, I'll leave the tags in place.) - jc37 15:09, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We have dozens of redirects on this subject - variations on language form, capitalisation, apostrophes etc - each redirecting to either Taiji or T'ai chi ch'uan. Taiji is about a concept, T'ai chi ch'uan the martial art, but it gets more confusing because the two terms we are using are in different romanization methods of Chinese. In Pinyin, tàijí or taiji means the concept and tàijíquán or taijiquan means the martial art. In Wade-Giles romanization, t'ai chi means the concept and t'ai chi ch'üan or t'ai chi ch'uan means the martial art. But in the Western world we use the terms tai chi or t'ai chi to mean the martial art! Aargh!

I can't figure out why some of the redirects were created, but they do no harm so I'm only nominating the potentially confusing ones. There is also Tai chi chih, a less common modern exercise form practised in a few countries. We do have a dab page at Taiji (disambiguation) but the only redirects pointing to it are Tai Chi (disambiguation) and Tai Ji (disambiguation).

This has been discussed at Talk:T'ai chi ch'uan. There is an older, long summary of most alternate spellings at the top of the same talk page. Nø tried to create some consistency by directing all spelling variations of taiji and t'ai chi to Taiji and all spelling variations of taijiquan and t'ai chi ch'uan to T'ai chi ch'uan. But it hasn't held up due to the Western usage ambiguity, and now we have a mess. In some cases (eg. Tai-chi / Tai-Chi) simply capitalising the C will land you at a different article.

Assuming that we don't want to delete anything now, I propose:

An alternative solution is to retarget all the commonly-used variations of t'ai chi to the dab page, but then almost anyone searching for the globally-practised martial art by its common Western name will have to go through the dab. ~ Kimelea (talk) 02:36, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Opposed to mass delete and redirects: they're cheep and there's no reason to break existing links. This appears to forum shopping as the consensus was not in favor of redirecting the concept (T'ai chi/Taiji) to the martial art, see the discussion at T'ai chi ch'uan. Thanks.—Machine Elf 1735 03:16, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Um?? I haven't nominated anything for deletion. I've nominated the ambiguous ones for discussion, with suggestions to keep some where they are and redirect others. As for forum shopping, there was no consensus on the talk page, not enough participants for a consensus, that's why I brought it here. It was a completely friendly and civil discussion with one other editor (Nø). We both agreed that it's a mess the way it is, and are working together. I'm a little stunned by your accusation. ~ Kimelea (talk) 03:30, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It's a euphemism for deletion ("keep/delete"). Once again, they were being discussed, and User:Nø was not in favor of your proposed redirects. Now it's 2 to 1 opposed and make no pretense of it, this is not working together, this is circumventing. I didn't imply that it was uncivil, did I? Choose to be "stunned" if you wish but there's 208 links to those redirects and you you've chosen to include none that go to your desired location, despite the lack of consensus (or rather none that would go to your desired location, per User:Nø's recommendation).—Machine Elf 1735 03:57, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand what's led you to assume bad faith so completely, but I'm going to take it back to Talk:T'ai chi ch'uan. I hope Nø will weigh in here, as you seem to have claimed a hostile opposing !vote on his behalf. ~ Kimelea (talk) 11:43, 27 March 2012 (UTC) [Word 'hostile' redacted due to being misinterpreted. 16:37, 30 March 2012 (UTC)][reply]
LOL, you're accusing me of bad faith? You're the one claiming that I've accused you incivility, telling me to calm down, (take your own advice). You're the one pretending that you're not explicitly trying to get redirects pointed to your preferred article, (not that you couldn't have just edited them yourself without all the subterfuge). It's perfectly obvious you've been fibbing, as I've had to point at Talk:T'ai chi ch'uan; and it's perfectly obvious that you've left out the "MANY" (per your hollering) examples of the exact same problem for the redirects to your preferred page; and it's perfectly obvious that you've nominated these redirects for a little something more than discussion (apparently, discussion wasn't working out the way you wanted). I take it what's not perfectly obvious is that your "detailed recommendations" are bogus: the best choices for Taiji are the ones most editors have been using, (who would have thunk it)
  • Tai Chi 73
  • Tai chi 32
  • Taichi 15
  • T'ai Chi 12
  • Tai Ji 11
The alternate capitalizations look like perfectly helpful redirects to me, I disagree they should be deleted… No one is talking about etymology, and there is nothing confusing about them. That's not a "mess", that's 70% of the links right there, as opposed to 16%. This is not the forum to discuss moving one the two articles to Taiji (concept). It's not an unreasonable suggestion that the martial art is WP:PRIMARY in English; too bad you're not getting there from here.—Machine Elf 1735 16:21, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Kimelea's detailed recommendations, they represent the most likely targets of all searches. What matters is how the terms are used in English, not what their etymology is. Also, "discussion" in RfD is not a euphemism for "deletion". Thryduulf (talk) 09:47, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that in the interests of maintaining accuracy in the articles/searches while not disregarding usual usage, spellings in the short form "Taiji/T'ai chi" should redirect to the respective disambiguation pages, or if not, then to the Taiji article page, with hatnotes to the T'ai chi ch'uan page the disambiguation page(s). Honestly, I'm undecided about the matter, but in a way think the disambiguation pages should be consolidated (I won't pursue that though). Additionally, I agree on deletion of redirects based on variations in capitalisation, with only one of each respective variant left, since the search engine compensates, but have no comment on deletion of spelling variations as I'm not aware of much of the WP guidelines regarding such. — Preceding unsigned comment added by InferKNOX (talk • contribs) 12:26, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • While the internal search function is case insensitive, there are many other ways that people use to search and find articles on Wikipedia and many of them are case sensitive. For this reason we tend to keep redirects from other capitalisations. Thryduulf (talk) 18:15, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Understood. Thus I recant what I said regarding deletion on the grounds of variation by capitalisation. I do, however, propose that pages based on gross misspellings/misinterpretations (e.g. "Tai qi", "Thai chi", etc) and/or hybridisation of Wade-Giles & Pinyin (e.g. "T'ai ji") for both the informal short and formal long form of taijiquan, be deleted. I say this because I believe their very existence serves to mystify what the proper spellings are, "taiji" & "taijiquan", or "t'ai chi" & "t'ai chi ch'uan". I may be wrong in that they may serve some other purpose & am willing to hear what it could be. Foremost, I propose that all variations of the shortened forms "t'ai chi" & "taiji" redirect to Taiji (disambiguation). Doing so will serve to both inform the reader that the commonly used shortened form of taijiquan/t'ai chi ch'uan is actually the spelling for and thus is technically the concept, whilst not forcing them to the concept page itself, and allowing them to see that it's shortened use is, in fact, informal, not actual, before allowing them to proceed to the martial art page. In my view, such use is a major point of a redirect's relevance. InferKNOX (talk) 21:44, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Agreed regarding the weird hybrids. However, Taiji is an article and what you're proposing would be to demote it from WP:PRIMARY would it not? It would need to be renamed something like Taiji (concept) in order for Taiji to become the dab. At the very least that discussion should happen on Talk:Taiji, not here or at Talk:T'ai chi ch'uan. But for wider participation, it would probably be best to submit a move request.—Machine Elf 1735 22:08, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I see what you mean. I do believe that the properly spelt "T'ai chi" & "Taiji" themselves aught to point at Taiji, however the honest situation is that the variants could be searched for in hope of finding either Taiji or Taijiquan, thus pointing them at Taiji would be disregarding the common informal use. At the very least pointing the variants at the dab, would inform the reader of the proper spellings and the alternate uses of the term. After all, Taijiquan is not necessarily a subset of Taiji, but rather is a merger between it's principles & martial arts, while otherwise would be suggested if all the variants pointed to Taiji with merely a Taijiquan hatnote. Ultimately the most honest measure is to have proper short spellings (T'ai chi & Taiji) point to Taiji, improper short spellings point to the dab, and all proper & improper long spellings point to T'ai chi ch'uan. Not particularly ideal, but true to the reality, I believe. InferKNOX (talk) 22:47, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • I don't understand why searches for the concept Taiji/T'ai chi would tend be spelled correctly but variants (without a third syllable) would be ambiguous. FWIW, I think almost all of them will be looking for the martial art, either way. I'm sure it would come as no surprise to English speakers if a search for T'ai chi went to directly to T'ai chi ch'uan (the hat note's there for anyone who wants the concept). A dab page isn't about subsets. No one looks for a dab page: it's better to go directly to one of the two articles. Spelling variants of Taiji/T'ai chi should go to the WP:PRIMARY topic, otherwise it's hit or miss (mostly miss) for people who only vaguely know how to spell it, e.g., English speakers.—Machine Elf 1735 00:07, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • It is not about ambiguity, it's about acknowledging the necessity to compromise for the sake of both usage and accuracy. By pointing redirects to Taiji, which is what the short variants essentially spell, it would disregard the informal usage for the martial art. If it points to the martial art, it's ignoring the fact that taiji/t'ai chi & all the misspelled variants thereof are in actuality a concept, whilst taijiquan/t'ai chi ch'uan and their misspelled variants are a martial art. I believe the proper spelling taiji & it's Wade-Giles form t'ai chi should of course point the page whose name they have (Taiji) and likewise for Taijiquan/T'ai chi ch'uan, however, it would also create a middle ground if the misspelled variants are pointed at the dab, thereby recognising both informal usage and actual fact. The dab would simply serve to inform the reader, not undermine Taiji or T'ai chi ch'uan. The ambiguity would be to continue pointing taiji one way & t'ai chi the other when they are different transliterations of the same thing. That is the very reason for this discussion & a failure to reunify their direction, or directing them to only one thing when they also mean the other would be a disservice to the topics themselves & the readers they're meant to inform. InferKNOX (talk) 09:57, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                • You say “it would also create a middle ground if the misspelled variants are pointed at the dab, thereby recognising both informal usage and actual fact.”, however it's unclear how that creates a middle ground: By informal usage do you mean misspelled? By actual fact, do you mean something in particular? A dab serves to help readers navigate, it's the articles themselves that are informative. I don't think anyone has suggested dab pages undermine those two articles but I'll take your word for it regarding “the very reason for this discussion”. As they're the same word, it's certainly reasonable to point Taiji and T'ai chi to the same WP:PRIME article on that topic, as well as misspellings of that word. What do you mean by “& a failure to reunify their direction, or directing them to only one thing when they also mean the other would be a disservice to the topics themselves & the readers they're meant to inform.”, it seems to suggest an impasse or self-contradiction? Machine Elf 1735 20:55, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Before I continue, let me just say that unless I specify otherwise, or it's obviously not the case, take it that I'm simply using the term taiji to refer to all it's variants, correctly spelt or not. Now, answering you: I mean it creates a middle ground by not pointing to any article in particular, since the intended search could be for either Taiji or Taijiquan. By informal usage, I mean referring to taijiquan as the shortened "taiji". By "actual fact", I mean that the fact is that taiji is in actuality the name of the concept, not the martial art. The dab would be informative by making the reader aware that taiji could mean either the concept or martial art. Lastly I mean that pointing misspelled variants of t'ai chi to t'ai chi ch'uan, while pointing misspelled variants of taiji at Taiji would be creating/maintaining a division where there shouldn't be one, whilst pointing both at either t'ai chi ch'uan or Taiji, would be disregarding the topic they aren't pointing to, bringing me back to the dab page being a "middle ground" of sorts. InferKNOX (talk) 22:52, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I understand your points InferKNOX. It's a tough one. I think you're saying if we had Wade-Giles spellings (t'ai chi etc) pointing at the martial art and Pinyin spellings (tai ji etc) pointing at the concept, we'd create a double standard by drawing a line that is only a bit less arbitrary than it is currently. And I think you're saying that redirecting t'ai chi etc to the dab page (compromise) would serve part of the educational process by informing readers of the actual meaning of "t'ai chi" before they are allowed to move on to the martial art article. Have I got this right?
The trouble is, the sole purpose of a redirect or a dab page is to help readers find the article they are looking for. It might pain us all to think about it, given the trouble we are taking to serve them, but not all readers care about this. If an English speaker wants to quickly check whether the 'slow' martial art they're thinking of is t'ai chi or tae kwon do, they will not appreciate Wikipedia trying to teach them the proper use of the words "t'ai chi". They just want to look up something about the martial art that everyone calls t'ai chi. I really sympathise with your position InferKNOX, but in my understanding, redirs and dabs are navigation tools only - they are not intended as learning tools in themselves. See WP:PRIMARYTOPIC - it is usage, not correctness, that decides where they should point. Even misspellings and misconceptions (like our Thai Chi, for example) are deliberately kept as redirects because they help people who use them to find what they actually wanted.
The question for us to answer together is: what is the Primary Topic - most likely desired article - of each one of the Wade-Giles-ish spellings.
  1. In my nom I suggested that the primary topic for Wade-Giles-ish searches is the martial art, as Thryduulf deftly illustrated in the section below. Exception being the confused typos, which are too weird to have an established primary topic, thus a nudge towards the dab might be the gentlest way for us to say "um, what?"
  2. There's a case for the primary topic for all Wade-Giles-ish searches including confused typos being the martial art, as Machine Elf said; then we'd use the dab in hatnotes only.
  3. There's a case for there being no primary topic for the Wade-Giles-ish spellings, in other words, searchers for "t'ai chi" etc are not more likely to be looking for T'ai chi ch'uan than all our other t'ai-chi-related articles, and therefore we should use the dab for all Wade-Giles-ish spellings.
  4. There's a case for there being no primary topic for ANY of the Wade-Giles-ish spellings OR the Pinyin-ish spellings, so ALL the nominated redirects should be retargeted to Taiji (disambiguation). The dab page would suddenly start getting a whole lot of hits, and I personally don't like forcing every searcher to go through the dab, but nobody could say we weren't consistent. ;)
I hope all that made some semblance of sense... ~ Kimelea (talk) 07:12, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Totally Kimelea, I agree 100%. And thanks InferKNOX, that helped a lot but please do correct me if I miss-objectify any of what you proposed. Which is to say, I don't mean to question the subjective merits, just the normative considerations in terms of guidelines.
  1. T'ai chi should be the one and only redirect targeting the concept article Taiji
  2. All duo-syllabic variants/misspellings (w/o ch'uan) should be re-targeted to Taiji (disambiguation)
  3. No change for any triple syllabic+ variants/misspellings targeting the martial arts article T'ai chi ch'uan
As Kimelea was saying, the dab page is merely a means to an end. Most searches will be for the martial art, (maybe even more than all the other subjects combined), however the Daoist/Taoist concept is currently WP:PRIME and Kimelea lists several viable alternates besides the either/or scenario. Due to English usage, it's effectively a name for both, thus the 2-syllable variants/misspellings are all ambiguous.
No doubt there's China-related political scenarios that warrant precautions against snubbing one topic in favor of another, but no such worries here as far as I know. Normally, if there's a WP:PRIME, all the variants/misspellings should target it. With a few exceptions, that seems to be what they're doing (2-syllable). That certainly disregards the primacy of the martial art over the philosophical concept in terms of English speakers, but it's almost never a good idea to link to a dab page. Normally, it's expected that when re-targeting a redirect from an article to a dab page, incoming links should be updated so they keep pointing to the actual article, (and maintain the same text via piping). It's a good idea to revisit the special exception made for T'ai chi, etc. from time to time, but indirectly retargeting hundred+ links to a dab instead of the WP:PRIME wouldn't be tenable, people would disambiguate them.—Machine Elf 1735 10:47, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad we're on the same page now Machine Elf. I'm confused about one thing though. I understand that you're supporting all nominated redirects to be sent to the dab except T'ai chi, which should go to the concept? T'ai chi is perhaps the most commonly used term for the martial art, whereas Tàijí for example is exactly the same word as Taiji but with the original diacriticals in place. I understand the case for forwarding the whole lot to the dab, but why single out T'ai chi either way? ~ Kimelea (talk) 15:52, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That was an attempt to summarize InferKNOX. I don't support that, no.—Machine Elf 1735 16:28, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding of InferKNOX's personal preference was to direct all spellings to their Chinese meaning, as was Nø's original solution (t'ai chi, tàijí and similar to Taiji, taijiquan and similar to T'ai chi ch'uan; confused typos to be purged from existence), but that he accepted the need to compromise due to the common usage, so instead supported directing all the nominated Wade-Giles-ish spellings to the dab - option 3 in my previous post. I trust he'll correct either or both of us if we misunderstood. By the way I am calling both of you 'he' on no good basis - correct me if you're female please! ~ Kimelea (talk) 17:44, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think you have both indeed made a somewhat accurate estimation of what I said. As for purging, it's something more prevalent in the taijiquan variants, but in this case, Thai chi, Tai qi & Tao chi [which is actually a painter] are the ones I feel have no place, but I won't fight you if you insist they must remain. The reason I believe t'ai chi should point to Taiji, is because it's the exact same word as taiji, but only WG. If what you're proposing is to have taiji & pinyin-ish variants point to Taiji, t'ai chi point to T'ai chi ch'uan, and all other WG-ish variants point to the dab, then I think I'll concede that that's fair and I would give a 'thumbs up' to that. Oh, and yes, I'm a man. :-) InferKNOX (talk) 21:01, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Do what you like with Thai Chi, Tai qi and Tao Chi, they're horrible and I'm indifferent to their fate, but I can't find a "reason to delete" them per WP:R#DELETE. An argument for keeping them is so that people who actually use those search terms can still find the article they wanted and learn how it's actually spelled. Sending Tao Chi to Tao Chi (painter) sounds like a very smart idea to me, we can plant a hatnote. And we all seem agreed that pinyin-ish variants of Taiji should continue to go there.
I did misunderstand part of what you said. One thing I do feel strongly about is that Wade-Giles-ish spellings should stay together. T'ai chi, T'ai Chi, Tai Chi, Tai chi, Taichi, T'aichi, T'ai-chi, Tai-chi and Tai-Chi form a chain, each just one character different from its neighbours, and all likely searches by English speakers who don't know the spelling of the martial art commonly called t'ai chi. (In retrospect I think T'aichi should be included with them and not the weird ones like Thai Chi.) I still propose to send all of them (the reasonable Wade-Giles-ish two-syllable spellings) to T'ai chi ch'uan with a prominent hatnote and explanatory note in the lead, because I think the primary sense of those terms in English is the martial art. If the consensus is to send the Wade-Giles-ish spellings to the dab, fair enough - just please don't split them up! ;) ~ Kimelea (talk) 12:29, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If all the Wade-Giles-ish point to T'ai chi ch'uan, then the dab remains without anything to disambiguate. As you said before, only "Tai Chi (disambiguation)" and "Tai Ji (disambiguation)" would point to the dab. Considering that the cloud of ambiguity surrounds the Wade-Giles-ish, would it not be fair to then point them entirely, if not in part, to the dab? It would alternatively kind of make sense, to have them point to T'ai chi ch'uan, but wouldn't that be ignoring the fact of their ambiguity? Would pointing only 11 pages (+2 confused spellings) to the dab be excessive? I would whole-heartedly agree to that: Pinyin-ish → Taiji, Wade-Giles-ish → dab & all tri-syllables → T'ai chi ch'uan. InferKNOX (talk) 13:38, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If the Wade-Giles-ish ones went to T'ai chi ch'uan, the main function of the dab would be to sit prominently in hatnotes and swiftly relocate anyone who ended up at the wrong article. Thing is, we can't please everyone - if they go to T'ai chi ch'uan we will get a few linguists who insist that it's wrong, and if they go to the dab we might lose a few people who either can't be bothered to read down to the third line, or just saw a poster in the gym and don't even know that t'ai chi is a martial art so don't know which option to select. ;) But I like what you propose a lot better than what we have now. If this RfD closes in favour of Wade-Giles-ish → dab, how would you feel about moving the martial art to the top line of the dab? ~ Kimelea (talk) 18:27, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, unfortunately not all can be pleased. I do think that someone that doesn't have the common sense or patience to see what they may want on the dab, can't be helped though. The hat note is easier to miss though, possibly misleading the reader. The martial art at the top of the dab is an excellent suggestion, as it is the most likely searched for. InferKNOX (talk) 18:32, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In addition to any specific hat notes, articles include a link to the dab for the even less frequent uses. Again, I do not support redirecting the exact same word to different articles due to pinyin vs. Wade-Giles for the reasons Nø and InferKNOX have given (although InferKNOX seems to have changed his mind for some reason).—Machine Elf 1735 20:05, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My fundamental belief that all should point to Taiji (for the sake of accuracy) remains, however, in acknowledgement of valid arguments made regarding usage, I am trying to be reasonable/compromising for the sake of satisfying both arguments as best possible, so that progress can be made and an agreement reached. In terms of the usage vs accuracy arguments, I lean towards accuracy, but reality isn't that black & white, so it is my belief that one needs to be malleable enough to concede on some aspects of an argument for an optimal result. Pinyin vs Wade-Giles is an unfortunate circumstance brought about by laymen, but the truth is that the (usage) ambiguity surrounds the Wade-Giles version(s), so sadly the line is actually between pinyin & WG, when there shouldn't even be one. At least this way, the number of directions being pointed to would be brought under control, with the relative definites pointing to their respective articles & the ambiguous pointing to the dab. InferKNOX (talk) 18:32, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
For anyone following this discussion, it is still very active, just that Machine Elf  1735 has seen fit to continue/restart it here: Talk:Taiji#Requested move. InferKNOX (talk) 15:46, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's your excuse for following me? Am I so strong with the Force? Don't let me stop you, carry on with this discussion… it's about a controversial move, is it? These are not the dramz you're looking for.—Machine Elf 1735 04:14, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ignoring suggestions of drama and excuses, since everyone here is trying to improve the encyclopedia, please see my post at the bottom of this RfD. ~ Kimelea (talk) 16:57, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, I carried out a completely unscientific straw poll among people I interacted with today. I asked them what they would expect the Wikipedia article called "tai chi" to be about? (This was verbal so it doesn't impact spelling). The results were 5 martial art, 3 exercise, 1 dab page, 1 person who couldn't decide and one person who said "tea". Obviously you can't draw consensus from this, but it's another perspective. Thryduulf (talk) 01:54, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Tea :) Unless someone can rally an argument based on prevalence in the relevant WP:RS, it seems like a slam dunk.—Machine Elf 1735 03:57, 28 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I actually guffawed to realise that the last answerer probably spoonerised Chai tea. :D ~ Kimelea (talk) 07:17, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Something my niece loves to call it in order to tease me whenever it's mentioned within her earshot.... InferKNOX (talk) 21:01, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, retarget as needed - I'm not at all sure why this has been brought to AfD. Nobody seems to want to delete these (useful) redirects, so Keep is the snowball outcome. I understand the Taiji (concept), Tai Chi... (martial art) distinction - and it should be reflected in the targeting of the redirects, for which AfD authority is not needed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:19, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's been brought to RfD (redirects for discussion) to discuss where they should redirect (martial art or concept), not whether they should be kept. There are different opinions about whether Tai Chi should indeed direct to the martial art (I personally agree with you, but it's complicated, hence bringing it to RfD). Thank you for weighing in. ~ Kimelea (talk) 10:37, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I see. Well, I think I'm with you then - specialist 'Concept' usages to Taiji, everything else to whichever form of Tai Chi Chuan is preferred. It's all arbitrary given the impossibility of transliteration so we just have to do something sensible. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:18, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I've said, I don't think this RfD is the appropriate place to decide whether or not to demote Taiji from WP:PRIME. Unless anyone feels that a discussion on that article's talk page will suffice, I think it would be best to solicit wider participation with a requested move and a heads-up to WP:WikiProject China and WP:WikiProject Taoism; the current note on Talk:Taiji#Redirect of Tai chi indicates only that Tai chi and related redirects are under discussion here. That discussion should decide, as a rule of thumb, the destination of redirects that do not end with some form of "chuan". Unfortunately, characterizing various subsets as pinyin-ish or Wade-Giles-ish confuses the scope of the issue, so unless any of the listed redirects are supposed to be special cases or candidates for deletion, let's close this farrago and move on to the WP:PRIME discussion.—Machine Elf 1735 20:05, 31 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Talk:Taiji#Requested move – WikiProject China & WikiProject Taoism (#Pinyin vs Wade-Giles at Taiji/T'ai chi).—Machine Elf 1735 21:59, 1 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to point out (now that I finally understand it) that the Requested Move proposal is not meant to override the outcome of this RfD proposal. In my understanding, the only remaining point of consensus for the RfD's closing admin to figure out will be whether to redirect Wade-Giles-ish two-syllable spellings (such as Tai chi) to the dab or the martial art article. The Requested Move is a separate suggestion to rename the concept article (currently Taiji) to Taiji (concept) to reduce confusion. It does not have any bearing on this RfD. ~ Kimelea (talk) 16:57, 3 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Is anyone other than InferKNOX voting for the dab? Every article linking to them would need to edited to edited to point to a non-dab page. Not a viable proposal. OTOH, the consensus to point Tai chi etc at the martial arts article seems well grounded in usage, policy, and guidelines.—Machine Elf 1735 14:46, 4 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Only InferKNOX has stated the dab as his first choice for Tai chi etc, but consensus is judged on strength of argument not voting, and he made some good points about compromise. Um, and not sure whether you realise but your own early !vote opposing retargets is still standing. ~ Kimelea (talk) 05:02, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No contest either way, it's almost always a bad idea and this is no exception. It was deletes and redirects to dabs I was opposed to; I'd prefer it to simply close as keep (except for a few silly ones); they're normally edited normally per consensus.—Machine Elf 1735 13:46, 5 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Important comment: Machine Elf's requested move for Taiji gained consensus and the page was moved to Taiji (philosophy). In the process, the closing admin retargeted Taiji to the martial art. All redirects in this RfD that used to point to the philosophy article are now double redirects to the martial art, and many links to Taiji on philosophy pages are now incorrectly directed to the martial art.
Also in the process, InferKNOX !voted on the requested move (now located at Talk:Taiji_(philosophy)#Requested_move) for retargeting ALL two- and three-syllable spellings of both romanization systems, to the martial art article T'ai chi ch'uan. This suggests, if I may say InferKNOX, that we have a clear consensus for the destination of the Wade-Giles spellings. But it surprised me as previously we were all agreed that pinyin-ish two-syllable spellings such as Taiji and Tai Ji should redirect to the philosophy article. That makes less sense now that the philosophy article is not called Taiji, but since they used to point to the philosophy article, and now they point to the martial art article, and we have a dab page, and there is no primary topic for these spellings, how about we send pinyin-ish two-syllable spellings to the dab and all other spellings to the martial art (except Tao Chi, which can go to the painter). But if people want to send them all to the martial art and have it consistent, I'll happily go with that to have this settled. I'll help sort out the mistargeted links and double redirects, whatever we decide. ~ Kimelea (talk) 21:46, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Addition: I'm now talking to the closing admin of the requested move, JHunterJ, on Talk:Taiji (disambiguation) concerning the implications of our decision on what the primary topic of Taiji is. Put simply, if we decide the martial art is its primary topic (Taiji redirects to T'ai chi ch'uan), I have some concern about how it is to be shown in the dab page (as does Nø, who edited it before me). If we decide it has no primary topic, Taiji may have to become the dab page, not just redirect to it. ~ Kimelea (talk) 23:32, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Every philosophy article link will be re–targeted to Taiji (philosophy). That was no surprise at all; I've mentioned it several times. It was not the closing admin's job to edit them:

When repairing a link, use pipe syntax so that the link does not show the new qualifier. For example, when renaming Topic Name to Topic Name (qualifier), [[Topic Name (qualifier)|Topic Name]] will render as Topic Name just like the original.

— WP:FIXDABLINKS

None of them are to go anywhere different. I wish you would have helped to sort out the links, because regardless of the fuss you're raising over the close, you're not seeking a full reversal… so either way, that part's already been decided.—Machine Elf 1735 07:17, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What fuss? You lost me. I'm not seeking any kind of reversal - I supported your page move. I updated this RfD with information about something that happened elsewhere which has a bearing on our decision here and the cleanup work necessary after this is closed. ~ Kimelea (talk) 14:31, 16 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak support for Kimelea's proposal, as it sounds reasonable to an outsider in the area but I hesitate to speak strongly. But I would suggest that the hatnote at T'ai chi ch'uan needs to be expanded to reassure people who've looked for a spelling with a "ch" in it that the dab page Taiji (disambiguation) will cover their "other uses" too. Might have to use a non-standard wording rather than a template, to end up with something like:
""Taiji", "Tai Chi" and similar spellings redirect here. For the philosophical concept, see Taiji (philosophy). For other uses, see Taiji (disambiguation)."
Not everyone will recognise the similarity of "j" and "ch" here, and we need to make the scope of the dab page clear. PamD 18:39, 22 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support everything per nom. I wouldn't dare to attempt the work necessary to put together such a detailed nomination on this subject, but the nominator's rationale is convincing — unlike the "don't delete" rationales from some of the opposers, because no deletion is being proposed here. Please remember that RFD is also meant as a place where we can discuss changes of targets. Nyttend (talk) 21:03, 5 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Sorry for my interruption, but please could you help me re-establish what the point of discussion is now after the "Taiji" → "Taiji (philosophy)" move. I've been thrown off as to which redirects are still under discussion & what (& whose) are the proposals regarding those redirects at this point. (Please note that this is a genuine appeal, not sarcasm.) Thanks. InferKNOX (talk) 12:29, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.
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