Talk:Fred Vinson (disambiguation)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived 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 moved, with Fred Vinson redirecting to Fred M. Vinson. Whether to move that page I'll leave to a new RM or BOLD action. --BDD (talk) 19:01, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Fred Vinson → Fred Vinson (disambiguation) – I find it very difficult to conceive how someone who was first the United States Secretary of the Treasury and then the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court could not be the primary topic of the name. Note that neither of the other two subjects, a basketball player and a football player, were outstanding in their field during their careers. bd2412 T 00:53, 26 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. Fred M. Vinson is often referred to as "Fred Vinson" in sources and is clearly the primary meaning for that name.  —  AjaxSmack   01:59, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Support ditto. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:43, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Support. And to be clear, this request includes changing Fred Vinson to be redirect to Fred M. Vinson or moving the latter page to Fred Vinson. older ≠ wiser 15:20, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * That is correct. I think that either result would serve the purpose of the request. Whether the best title for the page is "Fred Vinson" or "Fred M. Vinson" is a somewhat different question. bd2412  T 16:47, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Addendum: This Google Ngram suggests that "Fred Vinson" has been slightly more popular in references since the mid-1960s. That, combined with WP:CONCISE (which would favor the shorter name) seems to support moving "Fred M. Vinson" to ""Fred Vinson". If the requested move for the disambiguation page succeeds, I think that this would be uncontroversial as a follow-up. bd2412  T 16:53, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose: Since the judge is known as Fred M. Vinson, there is absolutely no need to make Fred Vinson a redirect. Keep Fred Vinson as a disambiguation page. The basketball player Fred Vinson is also quite notorious with NBA seasons for more than one NBA team. Keep disambiguation as main page. werldwayd (talk) 22:57, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * According to the basketball player's article: "In 1994 he played 5 games with the Atlanta Hawks, scoring four total points. During the 1999-2000 NBA season, he played 8 games with the Seattle SuperSonics, averaging 1.6 points per game." Note that an NBA season is 84 games, and most decent players play in most of those games. Therefore, if by "notorious" you mean that some level of notoriety attaches to only ever playing a handful of games, then we are really going to need to redefine "notorious". If this athlete's name was "John Roberts", would you want to move John Roberts in favor of a disambiguation page? bd2412  T 23:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Werldwayd has a valid point that has been mentioned but not addressed above. If the article about the judge is to stay at Fred M. Vinson, then there's no need to even decide whether this is he primary topic for Fred Vinson, and assuming that neither of the others is a candidate for primary topic, the DAB should stay at the undisambiguated name. This needs to be sorted out first. Andrewa (talk) 17:16, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
 * This is insane. We have two athletes with barely notable careers which ended after each played only a handful of games in their respective sport, and we have the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, who is widely referenced in sources as "Fred Vinson". Compare Franklin Roosevelt, which redirects to Franklin D. Roosevelt, despite there being other people named "Franklin Roosevelt". bd2412  T 17:23, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
 * A strange example to pick. In most parts of the world, the US president is far better known than the the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. I'm a bit surprised that's not the case in the USA too, but I haven't actually been there since I was five, so it may be so. But even if it is true (-> Roosevelt was probably one of the more notable presidents, and in any case we take a worldwide perspective here. Notable as the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court may be to those in the USA, from a worldwide perspective a president (such as Roosevelt) is far more notable. Andrewa (talk) 10:31, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The United States has three branches of government, the legislative, executive, and judiciary, each of which has some power to check the other two. Each branch has a head, the Speaker of the House, the President of the United States, and the Chief Justice of the United States. Although the President has the power to appoint a new Chief Justice (with the approval of the Senate) when the previous one dies or retires, the President has no other control over that office. It is actually a bit unusual that before being appointed to the Supreme Court, Vinson was the United States Secretary of the Treasury - another high office which by itself would provide notability vastly eclipsing either of the two sports players with barely-there careers. Incidentally, Vinson also previously served in the United States Congress, putting him on the relatively short list of people who have served in all three branches of the United States federal government. Lastly, I would point out that we are not comparing Vinson to athletes on the level of Cliff Levingston and Patrick Chung, who are at least respected and productive role players who played multiple full seasons with their teams. Compared to other people sharing the name, Vinson is substantially more notable and has substantially more enduring historic value that all others combined. bd2412  T 15:26, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Support. Both Werldwayd and Andrewa have confused the question "What topic should the title Fred Vinson lead to?" with the independent question "What title should the article on the topic of the judge have?". The answer to the first is the judge, regardless of the answer to the second. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:30, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * No, the questions are not independent at all. If the answer to the second question is Fred Vinson, then the answer to the first question follows inevitably. How can that possibly be independent? I'm fascinated. Andrewa (talk) 10:37, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
 * If the answer to the second question were "Fred Vinson" and the independent answer to the first were somehow "the NBA player", then the article on the judge would be either qualified "Fred Vinson (judge)" or a less-preferred title would be used, such as "Fred M. Vinson". The error occurs when assuming that because the topic is titled "Fred M. Vinson" that there is no need to decide whether he is the primary topic for the title "Fred Vinson" -- he could be the primary topic for a title he doesn't use, just like United States is the primary topic for titles it doesn't use: "USA" and "US". -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:59, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
 * But this somehow can't happen. The problem seems to be that we are interpreting your second question in two different ways. Your question was "What title should the article on the topic of the judge have?". You seem to to mean by this, ""What title should the article on the topic of the judge have, if there were no other possible claimants to consider?". Agree that's an independent question. But it's not what you said. Andrewa (talk) 03:56, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Support. JHunterJ nailed it. It is quite possible for the correct article title to be "Fred M. Vinson" and yet for the article to be primary topic for "Fred Vinson". In such cases, a redirect from the latter to the former is used. Disambiguation contains the relevant lines of scripture. Favonian (talk) 11:10, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Well put and an important point, I agree that It is quite possible for the correct article title to be "Fred M. Vinson" and yet for the article to be primary topic for "Fred Vinson". I understand that this is what is proposed, I just don't think it's the case. I think there is doubt as to whether a primary topic exists, and under such circumstances the default should be for the DAB to be at the undisambiguated name. I think that's what the guideline says, too. But it seems a minority view here, I concede that. Nor do I want to put too much emphasis on the fact that Roosevelt is a far more famous figure than this lawyer (of whom I doubt many Australians have ever heard, I certainly hadn't), so can someone come up with a better example? Andrewa (talk) 03:56, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
 * You are raising questions that are irrelevant to the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC inquiry. Basically, your 'I hadn't heard of him' stance is that your ignorance should be given equal weight to someone else's knowledge. However, this is not what policy provides. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC states that "A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term. 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". There are two other people named "Fred Vinson", and I doubt you (or any Australian) has heard of of them, either. However, the mere fact that there is one person by this name who was in fact a U.S. Congressman, cabinet member, and Chief Justice of the most powerful Supreme Court in the world, should tip you off to the fact that this person is more likely than the other two topics combined to be the most sought-for subject and by an immense measure the subject with the greater enduring notability and educational value. bd2412  T 04:05, 7 October 2013 (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.