Talk:Doge (title)

Untitled
I've been told that Doge's couldn't leave Venice at all. I don't know how much truth there is to that claim. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.197.93.121 (talk) 22:53, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

This article needs a note on how to pronounce the word - preferably IPA. --Doric Loon 10:59, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

DL: I'm reading Hazlitt's History of the Venetian Republic at the moment. He says they sometimes led important military expeditions in person. There was another official called the Vice-Doge who watched things back on the block until the Doge returned. The "Doge" page has the pronunciation in English and Italian; maybe you can cut 'n' paste?? Terry J. Carter (talk) 01:46, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I've heard "doge" pronounced more often as "douzh" (rhymes with gamboge) in English rather than "doudge." The former is how it's pronounced in The Court Jester. Could this be added as a possible alternate pronunciation in US English? ForestAngel (talk) 21:53, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Ungrammatical sentence
"Doge elected chief of state lordship, the ruler of the Republic in many of the Italian city states during the medieval and renaissance periods, in the Italian "crowned republics"." I don't know what this is supposed to say. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.192.168.253 (talk) 01:50, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Move reverted.
I have reverted the undiscussed move of this article, as it has existed at this title for eleven years, and has hundreds of incoming links. We should be in no hurry to upset its position in favor of a passing Internet meme. bd2412 T 21:46, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Representation in art
The majority of the 'Representation in art' section does not mention the title of 'Doge' at all. It focuses mainly on Venetian art and only mentions the title in the final sentence. I've removed the section given this. Sotakeit (talk) 10:14, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 July 2017
A typing mistake: At the bottom of the article, beneath the picture of Doge of Genoa Luca Spinola should be 1687-1689, instead of 1551-1553. 185.27.130.28 (talk) 13:59, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) (talk) 16:52, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Doge (meme) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:48, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 November 2017
I want to add some missing facts that are missing in this passage SuperNova 91 (talk) 23:05, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Considering that your other edits have been vandalism that probably isn't a good idea. But feel free to explain what edit you propose to make  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  23:17, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format.  General Ization  Talk   23:19, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 10 December 2020

 * 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: Not moved  (t &#183; c)  buidhe  05:40, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

– As evidenced by pageviews, there is no primary topic for the word "doge", with the meme vastly eclipsing the title (161 vs 1734 average pageviews in the last 20 days) but not having as much longterm significance. An attempt to move the meme to primary failed (as it should have), but I believe there is WP:NOPRIMARY. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 05:24, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Doge → Doge (title)
 * Doge (disambiguation) → Doge
 * Oppose move. The title has much more long-term significance.  O.N.R.  (talk) 07:11, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Per WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY: While long-term significance is a factor, historical age is not determinative.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 10:01, 10 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose move. The Venetian/Genoan office is encyclopaedic content, the meme is not. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:12, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Well that's a clear WP:IDONTLIKEIT if I ever saw it. Of course the meme is encyclopedic - it passed Articles for deletion/Doge (meme) as keep and only got more sources since then.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 13:41, 10 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose, per long-term significance of the title. BD2412  T 19:15, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Per WP:DPT, "while long-term significance is a factor, historical age is not a determinative." PyroFloe (talk) 00:38, 14 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Support no clear primary topic so its safest to disambiguate.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 10:27, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Whilst it clear |Doge that the meme is more popular in terms of page views, it is equally clear that the Italian title has greater long-term significance than a 21st century meme, and so the status quo should endure. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 11:46, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Support per nom, long terms significance is just one part of being a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.--Ortizesp (talk) 01:28, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Not sure if this is serious.  Never heard of the meme. I guess it must mean something to some recent sub-culture on some corner of the internet.  But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it is not likely to ever achieve the wide recognizability nor the staying power of a thousand-year old title of the rulers of one the most significant republics in the history of the world.  Walrasiad (talk) 01:52, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Strong Support per WP:DPT, "while long-term significance is a factor, historical age is not a determinative." It is clear that Doge as a title is an obsolete term as you said. Doge as a title only has principal relevance to only a small group of people (especially historians) but not the primary topic especially among a general audience. Plus Doge (meme) is listed as a good article, Doge the title is not. Disambiguation is the best option for both sides here. PyroFloe (talk) 00:20, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I am not sure who you think "general audience" is, but I'd bet my last long dollar there are a lot more people who have heard of the Doge than this meme. 25 million tourists visit Venice every year, and every one of them will come across references to the doge.  And that's, of course, not including general knowledge among reasonably educated people everywhere who haven't set foot there. Indeed, there are currently thousands of articles on Wikipedia that refer to the Doge of Venice and/or Genoa. How many refer to this meme? Heck, is this even noteworthy enough for a Wikipedia article?  Shouldn't this be on "Know your Meme" or some other internet trivia list? Walrasiad (talk) 02:44, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * +1 on the "is this even noteworthy enough for a Wikipedia article?", with an added side of "this silly thing has a name?" --Khajidha (talk) 19:11, 16 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The long-term significance criterion was made for cases like this. Srnec (talk) 03:23, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose, per long-term significance. --Khajidha (talk) 12:05, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Pure WP:RECENTISM. The title has very clear long-term significance. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:38, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 5 July 2023

 * 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: Not moved. Consensus against the second proposal (because Doge (meme) is not the long-term primary topic under WP:PT2). No consensus on the first proposal (based on whether Doge (title) is the primary topic). (non-admin closure) &#123;&#123;replyto&#124; SilverLocust &#125;&#125; (talk) 09:04, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

– The meme by the same name has more page views than this page, so it makes sense to move it to the more popular title. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 20:23, 5 July 2023 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Doge → Doge (title)
 * Doge (meme) → Doge
 * Oppose The proposal is to swap the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, which will result is substantial disruption and likely manual intervention to fix inbound links. There are currently over 500 of them, and per nom it's reasonable to suspect that some of them actually already want the meme instead of the current topic here. The current topic is also like a parent page of which there are several "Doge of..." subpages, so the proposed swap also starts to look inconsistent (Doge of Venice gets >400 hits a day, twice as many as Doge (the title) itself). Given how many "Doge" things we have, including several sets of related topics that are quite distinct from each other, I would instead propose alternate move:
 * Doge → Doge (title)
 * Doge (disambiguation) → Doge
 * This (my alt) is what was proposed 2.5 years ago with consensus against, but now we have evidence of some long-lasting significance of the meme-related set of meanings. DMacks (talk) 20:51, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I would say that works somewhat better. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 21:21, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, while the proposed move could arguably meet PT1, it certainly doesn't meet PT2 (A topic is primary for a term with respect to long-term significance if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term). - estar8806 (talk) ★ 21:04, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC - this is an encyclopaedia. Or trying to be. In ictu oculi (talk) 21:11, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * oppose doesn't meet wp:PT2—blindlynx 02:57, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose move. As I said last time around, the title has more long-term significance than the meme.  O.N.R.  (talk) 03:58, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Support 1st, oppose 2nd There is WP:NOPRIMARY for this topic and the disambiguation page should be moved to main. On one hand, the title has longterm significance, but at the same time, something simply being "weird" or "goofy" does not disqualify it from being a contender for a primary topic and it seems like a lot of editors just dismissed the meme offhand as "obviously not Wikipedia material". WP:NOTAVOTE applies, and simply stating your distaste for memes is not arguing on policy. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 11:20, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Support 1st, oppose 2nd, no clear PRIMARYTOPIC.--Ortizesp (talk) 13:16, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Support 1st, oppose 2nd, move the DAB to the base name as a compromise.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 16:35, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose as proposed the disambiguation page should be the base usage -- 67.70.25.80 (talk) 00:06, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose both per long-term significance. Srnec (talk) 02:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Support first, and disambiguate the base page name. I was opposed to this in the previous discussion, but the meme has sustained in a superior level of interest for long enough to disrupt any primacy to the term. BD2412  T 02:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose both per WP:PT2 (touch the grass). —  AjaxSmack  22:42, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose any change would have to be to change the base name to a DAB. Walt Yoder (talk) 01:41, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Is this some sort of joke? WP:RECENTISM at its very worst. The title is the overwhelmingly primary topic in terms of long-term significance. If you want Wikipedia to look ridiculous, this is the way to do it. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:25, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose – In this case WP:PT2 applies. Favonian (talk) 17:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 16 July 2023

 * 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: moved. Numerically, both sides have about the same support. However, arguments in favor of the move are stronger.

It's clear that the more commonly-searched term is the meme, while the title is arguably more significant long-term. However, there isn't consensus that the title is so much more significant to outweigh the usage arguments, especially as the meme has had significantly more views for many years. While there would not be consensus for making the meme the primary topic (and that was shot down at a recent RM), there is a clear consensus against there being any primary topic here. (closed by non-admin page mover) Elli (talk &#124; contribs) 18:44, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

– It has become clear that both the title and the meme apply to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, as the meme applies to criteria 1 (popularity) and the title applies to criteria 2 (long-term significance), so I see this as a good compromise. Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 17:38, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Doge → Doge (title)
 * Doge (disambiguation) → Doge
 * Support no clear primary topic per previous discussions.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 17:40, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Support as per my reasoning in the most-recent preceding discussion. Given the contradictory situation Blubabluba9990 notes, the best we can do for our readers and for editors who create links is to have the base-name be a DAB page. DMacks (talk) 17:41, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:RECENTISM. Clear primary topic. Walrasiad (talk) 20:19, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Support per nomination; Crouch, Swale and DMacks. There are eight bulleted entries listed upon the Doge (disambiguation) page, with no indication that the renown of one of those entries is at such an elevated level that it exceeds the combined notability of the remaining seven entries. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 23:44, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Support, per the previous discussion. The meme is now well over ten years old, and shows no sign of declining in relative significance. BD2412  T 01:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * But its "relative significance" was always low. Srnec (talk) 03:16, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * How high do you estimate the significance of the Italian title, only ever used in a handful of regions of one country in the world, and long-abandoned? BD2412  T 03:35, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Including the ruler of one of the most famous cities on earth! As compared to, a puerile internet dog joke... How low have we sunk? If a meme entitled "President of the United States" appeared and garnered many more page views than the article on the minor regional ruler, would we then make that primary? When will editors learn that long-term significance is just as important? -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:47, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That sounds a lot like WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Your final "just as" comment indicates that Red Slash's DEAR CLOSER is on-target. DMacks (talk) 21:30, 17 July 2023 (UTC)\
 * He's talking about WP:PT2: "A topic is primary for a term with respect to long-term significance if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term.". His despair is understandable.
 * As to "how do you estimate the significance of the Italian title...", well, from a historical angle, it is highly significant without question. From an WP:RS angle - that is what is found in "reliable, published sources" - it is easily primary. And not only history. People come across the term frequently when reading about art, travel, architecture, etc. From a general popularity angle, well, millions of tourists visit Venice every year - it is one of the most visited cities on earth - and every one of them hears about the "Doge", the Doge's this, the Doge's that. Outside the Pope, it is one of the best-known Italian titles out there. And, oh, many of those general readers, visitors, etc. are very likely to come here to Wikipedia wanting to learn more about it. Why make readers jump through hoops? For an internet meme? Walrasiad (talk) 02:05, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I couldn't have put it better myself! -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:58, 18 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose for the same reasons as above. An internet encyclopedia's pageviews will always be heavily skewed towards internet topics. Srnec (talk) 03:16, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:RECENTISM/WP:PT2. While the current doge article is a bit meagre, the topic is still primary, specifically in the form of the doge of Venice and to a lesser extent the doge of Genoa.  (We can check back in 226 years, though.)  —  AjaxSmack  03:23, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Support As with my opinion in the previous discussion, people are vastly overstating the importance of the historical title. The meme was not inspired by the historical title and has no evident relation to it. I don't think there's a clear argument that the title is so important and educational to modern day society that it completely and utterly overshadows the meme beyond a doubt. There can be bias towards Internet topics, but there can also be bias against them due to preconceptions that they are "unencyclopedic". ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 04:14, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose. As I said above, the title is the overwhelmingly primary topic in terms of long-term significance. The idea that a meme could take equal precedence to a title which was significant in history for hundreds of years (and no, nobody is "overstating its importance"!) is just thoroughly laughable and makes Wikipedia look ever more stupid. Are we really going to let this encyclopaedia be taken over by pop culture? -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:43, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * A topic does not have to take "equal precedence" for there to be no primary topic, it's just not the thing that most people searching for it would want. Nobody's claiming the meme has equal significance, this is a discussion on whether or not the historical title is primary with regards to people looking for it. The pageview disparity is enormous. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 18:57, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That's because it's WP:RECENTISM! And once again, you seem to be of the mistaken belief that page views are all that matter, when it's been pointed out again and again that they are not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:58, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose we just had this conversation the title is overwhelmingly the primary topic in terms of long term significance, there is more to the world than the internet—blindlynx 14:28, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * if we look at traffic a small minority of readers move on to other pages and only about a fifth of those go to the meme suggesting that this is the primary topic for the term—blindlynx 18:43, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose. This was just discussed and closed as no consensus.  OP would be advised to wait.  See WP:THREEOUTCOMES. 162 etc. (talk) 15:27, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose move. Again. We just discussed this a week ago.  O.N.R.  (talk) 17:52, 17 July 2023 (UTC)


 * DEAR CLOSER: please disregard any comments that say "we just discussed this a week ago". That move request was to give the meme Primary Topic. THIS move request is to put a disambiguation page there. Anyone who says "we just discussed this" apparently hasn't even read the proposal. Red   Slash  21:29, 17 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Support, no primary topic. The ancient title for an Italian prince is not English, is not relevant, and really was never that important to begin with. Honestly, doge should just redirect to and merge into prince. Red   Slash  21:29, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Doge certainly is English and has been for hundreds of years. Even pretty pedestrian dictionaries like this include it.  And it is not replaceable with "prince" any more than tsar is by "emperor" or maharaja by "king". Conflating the term with "prince" or subserviating it to an internet meme is not reflected in similar works.  —  AjaxSmack  02:11, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think we should be using Britannica's far more limited coverage as an example for Wikipedia to aspire to. WP:ABOUT states that Wikipedia must be "the sum of all human knowledge". Yes, that also includes memes if they are notable enough to pass notability criteria. And if it's to be included, it should be judged by the same metric. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 10:02, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I mentioned Britannica in reference to the WP:CRITERIA for the article's name; I don't think anyone here is arguing that the internet meme shouldn't have an article at Wikipedia. It's just that a flash-in-the-pan cultural reference can't compete with the leader of two world-influential trading empires that lasted for 1100 years for primacy (PT2) any more than the ten-year reign of the The Presidents of the United States of America (band) could dislodge the real President of the United States from its primary status. —  AjaxSmack  12:54, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Is not relevant to what? You? That's irrelevant! -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:58, 18 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose – reiterating by stand based on the applicability of WP:PT2. Favonian (talk) 17:30, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Support "long-term significance" is not a trump card. Page views at Doge (meme) have been consistently 8-10 times that of Doge for the past 5 years.  The page views and WP:RECENTISM arguments balance: the conclusion must be that there is no primary topic. Walt Yoder (talk) 22:32, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * You're ignoring the long-term significance aspects! -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:27, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That would mean any archaic term would always automatically get the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC name and every later meaning relegated to parenthetical-DAB or other non-primary pagename. It still sounds like you are thinking this discussion is about whether the title meaning is notable at all, or is more valuable than some other meaning. Nobody is ignoring long-term significance. But many are pointing out that it is only one of the two criteria the guideline lists, and that the criteria do not say this is the one that is definitely the more-important criterion. DMacks (talk) 18:15, 21 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Support because the meme has enjoyed higher popularity than the Italian title for around a decade now. Also, the meme gets around 8-10x the traffic as noted above. The Quirky Kitty (talk) 08:08, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.