Talk:Tom Stevenson

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was No consensus for move: 4v2 is not an overwhelming majority, and no particularly strong arguments nor supporting evidence have been provided for this article's claim to primacy. Parsecboy (talk) 01:22, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Or rather, requested undo of previous undiscussed move. I don't see that moving this article to "Tom Stevenson (author)", in order to make "Tom Stevenson" a redirect to "Thomas Stevenson (disambiguation)" is warranted or necessary. Here is an article with a precise name, and a clear primary topic with unique namespace, and it is made a redirect as an abbreviation of another name? It makes no sense to me, and this is a case where a hatnotes would suffice. MURGH ^disc. 12:12, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

• Support request to return the redirect back to the Primary topic. 04:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support. There's no other article using the name "Tom Stevenson" so qualifier is unnecessary. A hatnote to "Thomas Stevenson" is appropriate. Station1 (talk) 06:39, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
• Support - incoming links all appear to be to him, no ambiguity, no need for disambiguation, and dab page will sort out links for other people with similar names (and the same applies to Thomas Stevenson (designer), who has been similarly moved to inappropriate name from primary usage). PamD (talk) 08:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. If there's a primary topic, it's the lighthouse designer. See also Talk:Thomas Stevenson (designer)#Requested move. Andrewa (talk) 22:53, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Comm: Is his legal name "Tom"? MURGH ^disc. 22:58, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

For the name "Tom Stevenson"? The wine writer is the clear primary. Look at the regular google hits for Tom Stevenson and the nearly 23,000 hits for the Tom Stevenson plus wine compared to the minuscule 346 hits for "Tom Stevenson lighthouse". Even "Thomas Stevenson lighthouse" only pulls up a little over 9000 hits. There is no contest here. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 23:00, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Whether or not his "legal" name is Tom, this wine writer appears to be the primary usage for "Tom Stevenson", and the lighthouse engineer is the primary usage for "Thomas". Neither of them appears to be known by the other version of the name. It makes sense to have these two as primary usages, and have a single dab page, linked from these two, to connect all the other Tom/Thomas Stevensons. PamD (talk) 23:05, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Disagree with your interpretation of those Google figures. What you've established is that there is an ambiguity, as the lighthouse designer does get some hits as Tom, and that there are far more websites discussing wine than discussing lighthouses. Andrewa (talk) 23:55, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

An overwhelming testament of Google hits shows that there is no ambiguity. While there is a few straggling mentions of "Tom" in relation to the lighthouse designer, the overwhelming and primary usage of Tom Stevenson is clearly the wine writer. Just because there are few straggling reference to Paris, Texas as "Paris" doesn't mean that there is any ambiguity about what the primary usage of Paris is. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 00:00, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Disagree. There are many things that can skew the Google results, so simple counts of Google hits are no case at all. They're useful in indicating where to look for better evidence, but that's about all.

We need to ask what the reason is for this imbalance. It might be, as you suggest, that nearly everyone who uses the name Tom Stevenson does mean this author. Or it might just mean that there are more webpages concerning wine than lighthouses, and there are. Or looking deeper, it might mean that this Tom Stevenson is mainly of contemporary interest in areas with lots of web users, while the other Thomas Stevenson is of historical interest, and therefore of interest worldwide and in the longer term, and he is. Lots of things to consider.

It's not all that important. The most important thing is to have a combined disambig page, so everyone can get to the article they want in a reasonable number of mouse clicks. Andrewa (talk) 01:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

• Let the plain name be the disambig page. Currently Thomas Stevenson (disambiguation) lists 4 people and Thomas Stephenson lists 2 people. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 06:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

You know what is odd....the original no-consensus move that took place a few days ago would have obviously failed. Yet for some reason you now need a "super majority" to correct it? Where is that in Wikipedia policy. I actually think WP:BRD should be applicable. The original bold page move should be reverted as there is a clear lack of consensus for that. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 03:33, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Seconded. There is no evidence for anyone else being called "Tom", and the move should clearly have been reverted. PamD (talk) 08:21, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Adulation

The whole entry sounds more like an eulogy to Tom Stevenson than a matter-of-fact style encyclopedia entry. Having read books by him myself I do not doubt his expertise. But statements like "In this book, Stevenson has shown that he has the gift of taking vast quantities of knowledge and experience and translating them into lucid, sparkling prose, easily graspable by the novice, yet still interesting and instructive to the connoisseur." are in my opinion not fit for encyclopedias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.87.19.25 (talk) 12:59, 15 July 2016 (UTC)