Talk:Clipper (disambiguation)

Requested move 26 June 2019

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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. The page view stats can support each side. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:35, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

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• Clipper (disambiguation) → Clipper
• Clipper → Clipper (ship)

– WP:ASTONISH since "Clipper" generally means a tool in everyday speech and there is also no primary topic by [views]. Target is consistent with Cog (ship) and many others at Category:Ship types. A Google and Google Image search don't return any results for the ship. This came from Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2019 June 26#Clippers when checking for views for the singular. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:38, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

• Comment re A Google and Google Image search don't return any results for the ship. When I do a google search for "clipper" the first (non-ad) result is the Wikipedia article on the ship. That remains true if I do the search in an incognito window. I guess location can still change search results, but I'm surprised it would differ that much. Colin M (talk) 19:39, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

  Yes many of the things in a Google search are indeed ad results, the first non-ad is Clipper (disambiguation) (7th). Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:58, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

  Even in an incognito window? Colin M (talk) 20:15, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

  That unfortunately doesn't work anymore (the link for the non-personalized Google search at WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY is still giving me the same results). A search for site:wikipedia.org Clipper returns the DAB page then Clipper and Clipper tea. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:22, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support I've always known the vessels as "clipper ships", anyway, and the proposal is consistent with the naming conventions of other topics. HopsonRoad (talk) 20:36, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support "Clipper ship" I like this best, per Netoholic. HopsonRoad (talk) 11:30, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

• Comment I have always understood that the tool described above is named in the plural: i.e. "clippers" for a single tool used to clip your hair in the barbers, to shear a sheep, prepare a dog for the show ring, etc. This is an item of equipment that I have often used, bought, seen being used by people who earn their living using clippers (the shearers left a couple of hours ago), and this usage appears to me to be universal. The google searches that find people selling these tools do not make this apparent as they are selling more than one. It seems entirely consistent to me that "clipper" should be a ship and "clippers" is the name of a tool. Or does some naming convention within Wikipedia subvert this nicety of English language?ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:46, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

I should add, try googling "how do I use dog clippers" (or for any animal with hair that gets clipped, including humans) and study the English usage in the instructions you get. WP:ASTONISH applies to Hair clipper, which then goes on to refer to the single item as "clippers" for much of the article.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:08, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

I think there may be some regional variation, and some subtle variation depending on what kind of object you're talking about. I (southern Ontarian) would use "clippers" to refer to objects that resemble scissors - including gardening tools, and scissors used for cutting hair. I would use the singular "clipper" to refer to an electric hair clipper. I think I slightly favour "nail clipper" over "nail clippers", but the latter doesn't sound too unnatural. Colin M (talk) 22:14, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps the tool is indeed a topic that would be except from WP:PLURAL similar to scissors and even if it wasn't I agree that the tool would more often be called "clippers" than "clipper". Crouch, Swale (talk) 06:09, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose move. The type of ship is primary and many of the later uses relate back to the ship. There is no good reason to change, and anyone searching for barber or gardening clippers can easily find them. Kablammo (talk) 01:58, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - no evidence given to support the idea that the ship is not the primary topic. It's also worth pointing out that clipper gets an average of 436 views per day while the disambiguation page gets an average of 18 views per day - even if we assume all of those 18 hits per day come from someone landing at clipper and clicking the hatnote, that doesn't exactly justify the ASTONISH argument. Parsecboy (talk) 02:31, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. "Clipper" by itself refers to the ship. Further, WP:ASTONISH is found in a supplement to the MOS and has no bearing on our policy on article titles. Calidum 03:45, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

  WP:PRECISION says "Usually, titles should unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but should be no more precise than that" of which "Clipper" likely isn't. Also WP:NWFCTM says "We certainly don't want to astonish our readers, and the topic that comes first to mind indeed often is suitable as the primary topic". Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:15, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

  Given the tiny number of hits per day for the disambiguation page, it seems clear that readers aren't being surprised. Parsecboy (talk) 17:40, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

  That's more than many others for example, with the exception of Lewis the DABs get less than 1% of the views but the hatnote from Los Angeles Clippers could account for many if they're landing there incorrectly from searching "Clippers". Although I agree that this isn't a big astonish though. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:50, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

  That's my point - if perhaps 4% (which is certainly an overestimation, given the number of hits on the LA Clippers) of the readers who land on Clipper want something else, I don't see that as particularly compelling evidence that we need to be moving pages. I don't find google results particularly compelling either - I live in a city with a different sports team named the Clippers, so the algorithm heavily favors those results for me. But that's obviously not indicative of anyone else's results. Parsecboy (talk) 18:41, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

"Clipper" by itself refers to the electric hair clipper. Or a clipper, Or Clipper. The ship is the last thing most readers would jump to. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:56, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support per books. In ictu oculi (talk) 10:58, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

• @In ictu oculi: Could you elaborate on what you mean by "per books"? Colin M (talk) 17:20, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

this In ictu oculi (talk) 17:47, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support, but move to clipper ship as WP:NATURALDIS. Based on views, this topic is not "more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term". -- Netoholic @ 11:12, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

  The pageview stats from Crouch, Swale give us something like the prior probability that someone is searching for information about each topic. But the guideline you quoted is talking about conditional probabilities, i.e. what is the probability that someone is searching for information about this topic given that they used the search query "clipper". Bayes' rule tells us that this is a function of the prior, and another conditional probability: what is the probability that someone would use the search query "clipper" given that they're seeking information about this topic? For the ship, this probability is close to 1 - let's call it 90% based on redirect views. But what about the two next most viewed articles on the list: Nail clipper, and Hair clipper? If I were seeking information about nail clippers, I would type "nail clippers". I would be surprised if as many as 10% of readers would use just "clippers". So if you agree with my handwavey guess, when looking at view ratios to determine the PTOPIC here, we should only count 10% of the views of 'Nail clipper'. Once you downweight Nail and Hair clippers, it actually becomes a very close call between clipper and the sum of all others. Colin M (talk) 17:20, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

  Most people arrive here via searches on external search engines (ie googling), and I firmly think anyone searching for any specific type of "clippers" would automatically include Los Angeles, hair, nail, ship, etc. alongside their query. External search engines largely don't care about our titles and will provide the encylopedia entry near the top of results, but the title (and lead setnence) does help readers arrive with confidence at the page they are looking for. For less savvy searches, a bad primary topic choice can definitely hurt that process. In this case, for someone searching for just "clippers", I think we want to deliver them to the disambiguation page directly. -- Netoholic @ 03:49, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. Cannot see any advantage to anyone except the very few who currently hit the hatnote; with such a change it is likely a more significant number would end up arriving at the ship unnecessarily via the dab. Status quo is fine. Davidships (talk) 22:04, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support per WP:NOPRIMARY but move ship to Clipper ship per WP:NCDAB. Clipper ship is used frequently in the article and is probably more common in general usage than clipper since the end of the sailing-ship era. Google Scholar results for clipper mostly relate to electric clipper patents. The main argument for the ship as primary might be long-term significance, but that seems odd given that the name comes from just one of many meanings of the verb clip. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:32, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Clipper ship is also consistent with the navbox Template:Clipper ships. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:49, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support per nom. No primary topic for this name. Neutral on whether it's "Clipper (ship)" or "Clipper ship". Paintspot Infez (talk) 23:53, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
• Support per Sangdeboeuf and Paintspot. I prefer Clipper ship, but not strongly. The ship as primarytopic is absurd. Dicklyon (talk) 06:41, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
• Conditional support for "Clipper (ship)" over "Clipper ship". If there must be change, there are strong logical and reference based arguments for "Clipper (ship)" over "Clipper ship".
  (a) the usage of "clipper" versus "clipper ship" in the article is not definitive - it merely indicates how well the article is written (how accurately it reflects the usage in its sources).
  (b) if we must rely on Wikipedia articles, look also at Cutty Sark where the unqualified "clipper" predominates, and Great Tea Race of 1866 (on which I have to declare an interest) where "clipper" is universal.
  (c) if you look at sources, MacGregor's definitive work uses "clipper" alone (he discusses the origins and usage of the term on page 43).
  (d) The authoritative expert on tea clippers, Basil Lubbock in The China Clippers uses "clipper" alone. In discussing the origins of the word and the type of ship (page 1-4), he also discusses the Baltimore clipper. This leads to reason
  (e) the word "ship" has 2 levels of meaning. One, the more common, is (loosely) something larger than a boat. The other, more technical, is the rig of a sailing ship, where "ship" denotes square rig on 3 masts (with some fore and aft sails set on stays or flying, and spanker on the mizzen). The Baltimore clipper is much more variable in its rig and is not ship-rigged in any instance of which I am aware.
  (f) I suggest that when the term "clipper ship" is used in historical documents (e.g. in British Newspaper Archive), the word "ship" is added to denote the rig. This is supported by being able to find usages such as "clipper barque" (for example Lloyd's List - Thursday 05 January 1871, pg 1 column 1). (You get over 21,000 hits if you search the BNA for "clipper barque" - I am not going to check all of them for being "good" hits, but I have sampled many and found none with any other meaning. The 193,000 odd BNA hits for "clipper ship" depict, I suggest, the relative frequency of the 2 different rig types on clippers: the vast majority were fully-rigged ships.)
  (g) Whilst some may argue that "English usage evolves, let's use the modern term" we need to remember that some who search Wikipedia will be using the encyclopedia to help interpret old documents (family history research, greater availability on internet, etc.), so trying to keep some consistency with obsolescent usages is helpful to the reader.
  In summary, "clipper" is used alone in good quality secondary sources, so "clipper ship" would be wrong as an article title, and "clipper (ship)" must be preferred, but only if a change has to be made.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 08:51, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
  • On British Newspaper Archive searches, the numbers are so large that carrying out a count of search hits for "clipper" unqualified by the addition of "ship" would a massive piece of manual work (the BNA search engine is quite "fuzzy" with its results - I can find no automated way of identifying the unqualified usage in their database. You might need to try this out to see what I mean!)ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 09:01, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
    • The specialized sources that use clipper(s) by itself are aimed at readers that already know the subject is "ships". Wikipedia, on the other hand, is meant for a general readership, so the title Clipper ship seems more suitable. Tea clipper and China clipper are also unlikely to be confused with other topics, unlike clipper. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 09:45, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
      • To clarify, I am silent on the part of the debate about changing from "clipper" to something else, but I am arguing that the something else should be "clipper (ship)" rather than "clipper ship": both convey to the non-specialist reader that we are dealing with some sort of ship, but the former is consistent with more specialist sources. Why do we need to dumb down if the technically correct form is equally understandable? On the subject of dumbing down, the potential source, the Cutty Sark's website[1] (notorious among those with a passion for maritime history for turning the subject into a trivialised theme park) uses the word "clipper" in isolation, without the qualifier "ship". If they don't dumb down, there is no excuse for Wikipedia to do so. Additionally, I dispute the contention that Wikipedia is just for a general readership - it should readily accommodate a general readership, but not ignore that it is consulted by those with a greater level of knowledge.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 12:17, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
        • I think you're confusing specialist with expert. Visitors to sites like https://www.rmg.co.uk/cutty-sark don't need to be explicitly told the topic is a ship. Wikipedia titles, on the other hand, appear in a variety of contexts, so it pays to be as clear as possible.

          Nor is a commonly recognizable title necessarily "dumbed down". Britannica uses "clipper ship". Google Scholar returns almost 5 thousand results for "clipper ship", so there seems to be a willingness among experts to use this name where necessary.

          Even if we only used clipper in the article text, Clipper ship would still be a helpful title for readers. Parenthetical disambiguators are Wiki-specific, and so should be omitted where possible to enhance readability. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:18, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

          • Not sure if I have made myself clear: I am just arguing for "clipper (ship)" instead of "clipper ship". The brackets will, in terms of meaning, be invisible to a user of Wikipedia who is not versed in the finer details of Wikipedia title choice. Absence of the brackets will mean that the article does not follow its sources - since the best quality sources use the word "clipper" unqualified (unless they are trying to denote rig). Surely content that is reference-based trumps the (if I can say this politely) arcane rules of this encyclopedia. I am not sure that your Google Scholar search adds much to the debate, as (a) it is presumably not feasible to search for the unqualified word "clipper" being applied to a sailing vessel, to give a comparitive number (b) it is not practical to determine how many of the hits are good quality references - they may be references in passing, for instance (WP:RSCONTEXT). And, if we are to follow Britannica on everything, what is the point of Wikipedia?ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 07:49, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
            • The brackets will, in terms of meaning, be invisible to a user of Wikipedia who is not versed in the finer details – this makes no sense. Brackets/parentheses are visible to anyone. The fact that they aren't widely used the way Wikipedia uses them will likely make them more of a curiosity to unfamiliar readers.

              ...the best quality sources use the word "clipper" unqualified – are we sure about this? Is Britannica not one of the "best quality" sources? How about [2][3][4][5][6][7]? Even if that were true, we don't have to slavishly copy sources. WP:NCDAB states outright that a natural-English phrase can be preferable even if it's not the most common name for the subject. (And sources certainly aren't using clipper (ship) with brackets, so in fact your argument supports the alternative.)

              ...unless they are trying to denote rig – where do any published sources suggest clipper ship refers to the rigging and not the ship itself? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 12:24, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

              • Brackets: The key words are "in terms of meaning" - you may or may not be aware of the British Army (old) way of listing things: "Glasses, looking; Glasses, drinking; Glasses, field, officers for the use of." Clearly an alien system, but perfectly understandable to an outsider. Most people read through what they do not understand. I do not think the brackets create any sort of barrier of understanding for any reader. "Ship" as a type of rig: You actually provide an example of this in one of the links you provide (The American Clipper Ship 1845-1920) - search for "barque" in the text and you will see an explanation that nearly all clippers were "ship rigged". This is followed with "clipper bark" (this is the American spelling), from which I hope you would deduce the meaning that the word after "clipper" denotes the rig when used by someone who is an authority on the subject. I accept that there is some loose usage of the terminology at times - but you encounter that in other disciplines: for instance the planet Venus appears as a star in the night sky (when it is really a planet). If you want to see what the difference is between the rigs, google "clipper barque" and choose the option for images. Given the existence of the Baltimore clipper, there may be a greater need for American writers to add the qualifier "ship" to differentiate from a type that was mostly rigged as a schooner. With the greatest respect, I feel obliged to point out that this is why editors should stick to topics with which they have some level of understanding. Quality sources: I see as quality sources as things like books recommended by the curator of the Merseyside Maritime Museum (The Tea Clippers by David MacGregor), the frequently cited works of Basil Lubbock, The Great Days of Sail: Reminiscences of a Tea-clipper Captain by Andrew Shewan (again, widely cited). There are, unfortunately, a large number of "coffee table" books that are less precise, of variable quality, and which are hardly ever cited by anyone. I feel it is now down to User:Sangdeboeuf to come up with compelling reasons why the bracketing of the word ship is so undesirable: why does this detract from the article? What does the reader lose from this? How would it equate with discussing in the article clippers with other rigs?ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:31, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
                • Unless there's a source that says anything about clipper ship as a term for rigging, then that point is simply a red herring, and is contradicted by the (many) sources that clearly use it for the boat itself.

                  I think it's rather flip to compare material from the University of Chicago Press[8] and the Naval Institute Press[9] to low-quality "coffee table" books. If we're going by number of citations, then the foregoing have 14 and 55 on Google Scholar, respectively; that's more than Shewan's and MacGregor's respective 13 and 25. Clark's The Clipper Ship Era (1910) has 32. Not as good as Lubbock's 73 for The China Clippers (1910) but not nothing. In any case, the numbers aren't huge. (Crothers' The American-built Clipper Ship is also comparable to Shewan with 16 citations.)

                  Given that these and other sources use the common and easily-understood term clipper ship, the syntax of clipper (ship) is needlessly awkward. Since WP:NCDAB supports the former option, it's actually up to those who favor the bracketed version to show why it's preferable. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 18:12, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

                  • I have given you reasons why "Clipper (ship)" is a better title. I can only presume that you either do not or do not wish to understand them. It occurs to me that of all the sources that you list, you cannot possibly have read them - whilst internet searches have some value, they should always be checked by drilling down into the data. Incidentally, I note that you have been touring round Wikipedia articles changing clipper to clipper ship,for instance[10]. I am not sure that such activity is in the spirit of the discussion hereon.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:57, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
                    • It's clear that you believe Clipper (ship) to be a better title; others may draw different conclusions, based on the sources and Wikipedia's naming conventions. One doesn't need to read the full sources to see that many use Clipper ship (meaning the boat, not rigging) in the title. Since we're discussing a title change, that seems like pertinent information to me. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:03, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
• I would also point out the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2017 September 8#Category:Wool clippers where it appears that the category, Category:Clippers was assumed to be about the tools, not ships. Even if the article isn't moved I still think we should disambigaute that category. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:46, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. I would say that the ship is the primary meaning. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:44, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't think it's appropriate to directly compare pageview stats for the ship vs. articles like Nail clippers, Hair clipper, etc. when judging WP:PTOPIC status. I would consider nail/hair/hedge clippers to be more akin to partial title matches. I believe that if they were looking for information about nail clippers, the average reader would search for "nail clippers", rather than imagining that "clipper" would take them directly to the article. Colin M (talk) 16:36, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

References

• Mild oppose. Other than nail clipper and hair clipper (which are seldom referred to as "clipper" unqualified), most of the other uses are derived from the type of ship. That hints at the ship being the primary topic when "clipper" is used unqualified. Deryck C. 09:52, 5 July 2019 (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.

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Clipper which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 18:16, 28 November 2020 (UTC)