Talk:Frick Collection

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: not moved (non-admin closure) ~SS49~   {talk}  12:47, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Frick Collection → The Frick Collection – If you go to the “About” page on the museum’s website the very first sentence reads, “Welcome to The Frick Collection.” Based on its position within this sentence, grammatically the definite article could have begun with a lower case ‘t’; its capitalization informs us it is a part of the museum’s proper name.

In addition to its name being shown to be ‘The Frick Collection’ throughout its website, this is also how the museum refers to itself elsewhere including: email correspondence, envelope letterhead, printed brochures, and the guide book available for purchase to visitors.

Finally take a look at the photo of the building attached to the article, which shows the view of the museum as seen from 5th Avenue. Anyone passing by who reads what is chiselled into its façade will know this is “THE FRICK COLLECTION”. Observer1632 (talk) 12:59, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Support per nomination and numerous sources such as Oxford online. This may be considered an uncontroversial technical request. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 22:41, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 *  Weak oppose : I notice that the usage in the independent sources that are cited in the article is inconsistent. Many of them use lowercase for "the" in running text, and at least two completely omit "the" when referring to the collection in their titles. Per WP:THE, this may indicate that "the" should not be added. Self-published or affiliated sources are not what we should be looking at. —BarrelProof (talk) 23:33, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Opposition struck through above – switching to neutral. It does seem that "the" would nearly always be included (uppercase or lowercase) when referring to the topic. One of the independent sources that I referred to above was actually being misquoted in the Wikipedia citation –  it did include "The" in its title, but the citation wasn't showing it. This might be a bit of a borderline case. One example from WP:THE which may be relevant is The National Archives. —BarrelProof (talk) 23:42, 28 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose per WP:THE In ictu oculi (talk) 11:00, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
 * WP:THE states “a definite ("the") … article should be included at the beginning of the title of a Wikipedia article” if “the definite … article would be capitalized in running text”. The museum itself is the primary authority for this article, and they directly inform us regarding this when they say, “Welcome to The Frick Collection.” Observer1632 (talk) 17:29, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia prefers to get its guidance from independent reliable sources and its own guidelines. The museum itself is not recognized by Wikipedia as the primary authority on what Wikipedia should say about it. —BarrelProof (talk) 00:30, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you BarrelProof!! I appreciate your taking the time to provide me this clarification. Observer1632 (talk) 01:33, 28 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose It ain't broke, why change it?A.Jacobin (talk) 14:47, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose – per n-grams stats of book usage, most sources either use lowercase "the" or just start without an article. The "official" name need not force us to include "The".  See Talk:Ohio_State_University for example.  Dicklyon (talk) 04:55, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Unnecessary. Bus stop (talk) 05:10, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Bus Stop. On its face, Observer1632 has a fair point, but then again don't see any tangible benefit worth arguing in favour of, and changing this long established WP:VAMOS style would likely unravel precedents on pages far more problematic than this one, leading to many lost productive hours. Ceoil  (talk) 05:39, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose Let it Be...Modernist (talk) 11:25, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Clever to use a famous song to point us to an article with a title beginning with the definite article, although I am not sure The Beatles are applicable to this conversation :)


 * Seriously though, beyond the substantial discussion we have already had with respect to WP:THE, I would like to address the remaining arguments put forward in opposition to this change. Paraphrasing, consolidating, and summarizing them into the form of questions, I think it is fair to say there are two as follows:


 * 1 What would be the benefit of making this change?  This is the fundamental question behind the comments stating the title should be left alone, as it is not necessary to change it, with it not being ‘broken’.


 * 2 How can we make this change given what it says in WP:VAMOS?


 * If in an informal chat I were asked which other museums have I visited along the East side of 5th Avenue during my trips to New York (I am not a resident of the United States), I could see myself responding with something along the lines of, “I have also gone to the Neue Galerie and the Guggenheim.” On the other hand, if I were in front a class of young students I would introduce these institutions using the following names:  ‘Neue Galerie New York’ and ‘Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’.  When teaching a lesson about museums it is important to begin with their formal proper names, and then later on commonly used shortened versions can be shared.  Now consider the scenario where no teacher is involved and a student who has heard somewhere of ‘the Guggenheim’ seeks to learn more about it on their own.  If they come to Wikipedia and search for this they will be redirected to the ‘Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’ article.  Having the main article title for this museum be its formal name functions in facilitating an immediate lesson.  I hope all Wikipedia editors keep in mind not just what encyclopedias are, but also the potential users of the valuable work they are doing.  While the collecting of factual information is of itself a worthy endeavor, the greatest benefit to society from your efforts will come from the articles being used for learning and no part of an article should hinder this.  The current title of this particular article, “Frick Collection”, is at minimum confusing, and could reasonably be described as being misleading.  The current, formal title of this museum is “The Frick Collection”, and anyone coming to Wikipedia to learn about it should not be going away with misinformation about this.  No young student should ever be guided by Wikipedia to hand in an assignment where they have incorrectly stated the name of this museum.  Achieving this disservice to a student solely so we can adhere to a guideline goes against common sense.  Simply put, the benefit of making this change is it allows students to properly learn about the museum.


 * Regarding WP:VAMOS, I did a search through the document for the word ‘museum’ and found a total of 23 occurrences. When I investigated each of these, I did not find any were used within the context of telling us how an article about an art museum should be titled.  There is a specific ‘Article titles’ section in this guideline, but it deals with the 4 categories of:  Biographies, Works of art, Manuscripts, and Exhibitions.  Within the notes for ‘Works of art’ one bullet point begins with the statement ‘The use of "the" is complicated.’ and goes on to eventually provide 3 examples of art articles with titles beginning with ‘The’.  Based on all this, it does not appear WP:VAMOS prescribes against making the proposed title change for this article.  Museums are unique institutions, and I very recently discovered there is a project specifically dedicated to them, which includes a draft guideline for how to write articles about them (Wikipedia:WikiProject Museums/Guideline).  In this document the ‘Article name and infobox’ section begins with the sentence, “The name of the article should be the current, formal title of the museum.”  For anyone who still does not agree with the wisdom of this guidance, I ask them to please consider the following question:  How is anyone who comes to Wikipedia to read this article going to be benefited by having this requested move not implemented?  Observer1632 (talk) 14:11, 1 July 2019 (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.

Update to lead section to foreground relocation
"The Frick Collection is an art museum in New York City. In March 2021, the Collection temporarily relocated to Frick Madison, at the Marcel Breuer–designed building at 945 Madison Avenue, during the renovation of its historic buildings. Its permanent collection features Old Master paintings and European fine and decorative arts, including works by Bellini, Fragonard, Goya, Rembrandt, Turner, Velázquez, Vermeer, and many others. The museum was founded by the industrialist Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919), and its collection has more than doubled in size since opening to the public in 1935. The Frick also houses the Frick Art Reference Library, a premier art history research center established in 1920 by Helen Clay Frick (1888–1984)."
 * Specific text to be added or removed: add the underlined sentence and remove the struckthrough sentences as they would then be redundant

"Amid a two-year renovation, the museum building is temporarily closed; the Frick is exhibiting at 945 Madison Avenue, the former Whitney Museum building. There the Frick gallery is called Frick Madison; it opened in March 2021." --Infopetal (talk) 19:40, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Reason for the change: foregrounding current event/wording
 * References supporting change:
 * ✅ Ferkijel (talk) 18:47, 27 March 2021 (UTC)


 * This info was added to the lede, fulfilling the edit request in March, and was subsequently removed in June. I have been in touch with the Frick recently, as we've done editathons together before, and they still feel it's very important to have something in the lede, and I do think they have a point. Perhaps something a bit shorter than the previous version, like: Its permanent collection (normally at the Henry Clay Frick House, currently at 945 Madison Avenue)...-Pharos (talk) 20:06, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree that this brief inclusion in the lede is important enough to include. ɱ  (talk) 19:10, 28 January 2022 (UTC)