Talk:Octagonal (horse)

Untitled

There are other useful uses of the word 'octagonal'? —Preceding unsigned comment added by ProfDEH (talk • contribs) 19:31, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Requested move 05 February 2014

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: move. Xoloz (talk) 17:40, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

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Octagonal → Octagonal (horse) – this should redirect to octagon as the primary usage of "octagonal" is as an adjective for the polygon, and this WP:ASTONISHes as the landing point. Also will prevent linkage failures for people expecting wikilinks of adjectives to link to the primary topic noun. -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 07:44, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support per nom. Clear primary topic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:14, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support, per above. A Google Books search yields many, many hits for this word meaning the shape, and none at all for the horse. bd2412 T 16:26, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
• !! Support!! Red Slash 16:58, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose: A dablink to Octagon would suffice. A solution in search of a problem. Montanabw^(talk) 19:33, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
  • The problem is that we have, and will always have, articles like Irish Houses of Parliament, which refers to its "octagonal parliamentary chamber", Christian Science Hymnal, which refers to the book having "an octagonal emboss of the Original Mother Church tower", Tattershall, which states that "An octagonal 15th-century buttercross stands in the Market Place", Tented roof, which refers to "a wooden turret with an octagonal base with steeply pitched slopes", and Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral, Lutsk, which states that "The west tower was square in plan, the east tower octagonal". Editors link to common adjectives with the reasonable expectation that they will have common adjectival meanings. bd2412 T 13:56, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
    • Your examples raise a good point. I withdraw my opposition. Let the change go through. Montanabw^(talk) 05:53, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support Obviously the normal usage of the word "octagonal" has nothing to do with a horse. "Octangonal" referring to a horse is obviously an obscure alternative use of a standard word to refer to something other than what it normally means. Someone linking to "Octagonal" or entering "Octagonal" in the search box would usually intend the usual meaning of the word and would be startled to find an article about a horse. In such cases the standard thing is that the obscure alternative usage would have a disambiguating parenthesis (in this case "Octagonal (horse)") and would be listed at a page called "Octagonal (disambiguation)". All this is especially true when the alternative usage, as in this instance is even more obscure than usual. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:07, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose Wikipedia isn't a dictionary, except maybe in strange exceptional cases. Since the adjective octagonal ostensibly does not deserve its own article, this doesn't seem exceptional. Use the DAB, and provide a link to wiktionary. Rschwieb (talk) 14:05, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment if octagon is an article, then the solution of a dab to that article is probably better than a wikt link. JMO. Montanabw^(talk) 05:53, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support Parallel to Pentagonal and HexagonalNaraht (talk) 20:46, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

Comment: Personally, I think it is pretty strange and unlikely to enter adjectives like "triangular" into wikipedia expecting material about the adjective. I expect that the number of people ASTONISHed by the current setup will be exceedingly small. Speaking as a mathematician, the status quo seems fine to me. I guess there is precedent like for the search result for "dry," but even that seems weird, and "octagonal" seems much more obscure. Rschwieb (talk) 14:48, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps the number of people searching for "octagonal" would be small, but I still expect that not many of them would have in mind the horse. But the greater concern is that people often link to adjectives. I'd probably format the link as [[octagon]]al but I've observed that others don't always do that. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:10, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Why don't we just replace any links like that with appropriate links to wiktionary? Normal encyclopedias aren't dictionaries, and while wikipedia isn't a normal encyclopedia, it doesn't seem sensible to needlessly step on wiktionary's toes. Rschwieb (talk) 14:03, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Why point them to Wiktionary when our article, Octagon, covers the topic that someone clicking the link would be searching for? bd2412 T 03:19, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Note: I've updated the hatnote to a more "standardized" template, Template:About, to reflect the newly created Octagonal (disambiguation). I personally support moving the article about the horse to a different name. Octagon should have Template:Redirect from "Octagonal". --Anon126 (talk - contribs) 03:01, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Comment: FWIW, if the move motion succeeds, Octagonal (horse) is the appropriate form of rename, consistent with other named race horse articles, so that's not a problem. I still oppose the move, but I'm not going to make a federal case about it,I withdraw my opposition to this move the supporters have legitimate arguments. Montanabw^(talk) 19:54, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

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.