The following discussion is an archived 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: no consensus. While, numbers-wise, some (note, some) might argue that there were enough supporters to result in a move, there was no compelling reasoning for why WP:NATURAL -- which explicitly lists examples of capitalization differentiating titles -- should not apply here. -- tariqabjotu 05:12, 14 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Top Hat → Top Hat (film) – At the moment, this is only distinguished from our article Top hat by an upper-case "H". I think that we should make it more obvious that this article is about the film, not the hat. — --Relisted. -- tariqabjotu 02:38, 6 August 2013 (UTC) Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 00:39, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support also at the disambiguation page there are some entries that are also referred to as "Top Hat" -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 06:14, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose as unnecessary precision, see WP:PRECISION. I think it's fairly obvious that this article is about the film, we have to grant our readers some basic intelligence, if people want we could add an "about" hatnote. The other "Top Hat" entries are rather obscure, this is clearly the primary meaning. What is it proposed to do with "Top Hat", will it redirect to this article or what? PatGallacher (talk) 11:54, 26 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support – we have generally agreed that distinguishing titles by one capital letter is not enough. The disambig page serves its purpose here, and the movie should be disambiguated. Dicklyon (talk) 04:06, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply Maybe so, but could you show me where this was generally agreed, as this could have implications for a substantial number of articles. PatGallacher (talk) 12:54, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Perhaps I misremembered. Not that disambiguation by case alone is never allowed, as it is in Red Meat, but that it's widely frowned upon when there are decent alternatives. In this case, we already have Top hat (disambiguation) with other things called Top hat, Top Hat, TopHat, TOPHAT, Tophat, and Top-hat. Why should this film get such special treatment? Dicklyon (talk) 05:58, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Just because we can disambiguate by capitalization doesn't mean we should. I suspect most readers who type in "Top Hat" expect to read about a hat, not a film. --BDD (talk) 17:52, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: WP:NATURAL says, "Titles of distinct articles may differ only in their detail. Many such differences involve capitalization, separation or non-separation of components, or pluralization: MAVEN and Maven; Red Meat and Red meat; Sea-Monkeys and SeaMonkey." Examples of the capitalization case exist with panic room and Panic Room, hall pass and Hall Pass, and public access and Public Access. This seems based on the assumption that when readers type a multi-word query in titlecase, they are looking for a proper noun rather than the common term. Are we ignoring the guidelines here, or are we arguing that the film article should not be the primary topic for Top Hat and instead go to the disambiguation page where there are various "Top Hat" items? Erik (talk | contribs) 18:26, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's among the more controversial titling conventions. I see nothing wrong with examining articles on a case-by-case basis. --BDD (talk) 19:03, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If "examining articles on a case-by-base basis" means choosing titles on a case-by-case basis based on the personal preferences of the very small self-selected sample of editors who happen to be looking at each case, who in turn rationalize their preference by cherry-picking and ignoring the rules as needed to support their preference, then we might as well choose titles by tossing a coin. There is something wrong with that; something very wrong. It means there is no solid ground on which titles are selected, which means they're all subject to change at any time, depending solely on the preferences of whoever happens to watch or stumble upon a given case. If that's what you mean by "examining articles on a case-by-base basis", that's a disaster. --B2C 05:05, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose per WP:NATURAL and (unnecessary) WP:PRECISION. If we're just going to ignore the rules for no stated good reason, why even have policy and guidelines? The rules state that capitalization is a natural way to distinguish titles. That's what we have here. Going beyond that is doing something based on how we personally would rather see the title, which is exactly the type of irrelevant argument WP:Closing discussions#Consensus says to ignore.

  If you have an issue with WP:NATURAL, take up there. But, as has been noted, be aware that a change in that affects countless articles. Do we really want to change all these titles? --B2C 05:01, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per nom, and because there are multiple uses of "Top Hat" with both words having a capitalized first letter. There are not "countless" articles affected; there are about 150, and if this move is made I will fix them myself. bd2412 T 16:22, 4 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • 150 articles is still quite a lot, and moving them yourself without a formal move request could be controversial in some cases. PatGallacher (talk) 01:33, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's why I specified, "if this move is made". By the way, I was not discussing moving any articles, but fixing links to articles, which is not controversial at all. bd2412 T 01:43, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per WP:NATURAL as it stands. Per the guidelines policy, there is enough of a distinction between "top hat" and "Top Hat" that further disambiguation is not needed. In addition, the 1935 film appears to be the primary topic for the specific term "Top Hat" since the other topics that match the term are the 2011 musical based on the film as well as a character from a children's television series. Neither seem to challenge the film in terms of pop culture importance. The other disambiguation terms do not match exactly. BDD mentions that this distinction is "among the more controversial titling conventions". Maybe this is true in some RM discussions, I reviewed WP:AT's talk page archives and did not find any recent wider discussion about removing the titlecase clause as insufficient disambiguation. I would be open to discussing its removal in a RfC, but considering that it is part of policy, the clause should apply here in the meantime. Erik (talk | contribs) 17:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  That's nonsense. There is no policy that says how much ambiguity is too much, or how much precision is enough. Besides, there's at least one other topic named Top Hat. Dicklyon (talk) 20:25, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  It's not nonsense. The policy page says, "Titles of distinct articles may differ only in their detail. Many such differences involve capitalization, separation or non-separation of components, or pluralization: MAVEN and Maven; Red Meat and Red meat; Sea-Monkeys and SeaMonkey. While each name in such a pair may already be precise and apt, a reader who enters one term might in fact be looking for the other; so use appropriate disambiguation techniques, such as hatnotes or disambiguation pages, to help readers find the article they want." The example of Red Meat vs. red meat is what applies here. If we had closely competing topics that share the term "Top Hat", I would support disambiguation of them all, but the film article easily outpaces the derivative musical article, and the other article is actually a redirect to a list article. Erik (talk | contribs) 20:31, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  Nonsense. That section clearly allows that one might sometimes let case alone by used, but other times use a disambig page. The point of that section is to tell editors what to consider, not to predetermine the outcome. In this case, with the multiple ambiguity, the disambig page makes the most sense. The use of case only to distinguish title is sometimes tolerated, as in the famous Red Meat case but has never been very popular or widely approved of. Dicklyon (talk) 21:26, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  I apologize, I did not see what you said at the beginning of the discussion and did not realize you were aware of the "Red Meat" example. I can't agree that disambiguation by titlecase is "widely frowned upon" since the related talk page showed no real discussion about removing that clause. For what it's worth, I've changed TopHat to redirect to TopHat (telescope), though I would be fine with making a move to be more direct per the same policy. I still think that for the term "Top Hat", the film is the primary topic. Erik (talk | contribs) 21:05, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  At least two editors have tried to "fix" the Red Meat problem; it would be really helpful to recognizability, as well as precision, if the title said it was about the comics. I'm sure it was discussed elsewhere, but I don't recall where. Dicklyon (talk) 21:26, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per nom. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:56, 9 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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.