Talk:Moon

Requested move 10 June 2024

 * 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. With 15 opposers and just 3 supporters (including the nom), there is a 5:1 ratio indicating a consensus against the move. This discussion was supposed to close at 5pm on June 17, 2024, but was closed two hours early as there is a WP:SNOWBALL chance that the change will be successful. (non-admin closure) 21 Andromedae (talk) 14:58, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

– Earth's moon is almost always preceded by the definite article, and moon without the definite article more likely refers to a natural satellite. Ergo, this seems like a clear-cut case for moving per the first criterion of WP:THE. JohnCWiesenthal (talk) 17:00, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Moon → The Moon
 * Natural satellite → Moon


 * Question: How do you square this with Earth being an example on WP:THE where the definite article should not be used? Leaning support btw but think this needs clarifying. YorkshireExpat (talk) 17:31, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * At the risk of WP:OSE, we'd also need to clarify how the Moon differs from the Sun, the Solar System, the Milky Way, etc. Would the best title be  or ?  (Both currently redirect to Moon.)  A compromise would be to move Moon but not Natural satellite, instead moving a suitably modified Moon (disambiguation) to Moon.  Natural satellite is unlikely to be the primary topic for the term "Moon", as our article on Earth's moon has nine times more page views and four times more incoming links. Certes (talk) 18:16, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Certes I think I have a problem with the name of the article Natural satellite, as planets and indeed stars are also natural satellites. So are (the so far I believe purely theoretical) submoons. I know the article points that out, but still. I think the case for the other objects that you mention, is that there are many other moons that are within our consciousness as humans, whereas other solar systems, suns, and Milky Ways are far more abstract constructs. The reason you call it 'The' Moon, is so that you don't confuse it with some other moon, which there are plenty of relatievly close by. YorkshireExpat (talk) 12:02, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That doesn't matter, as they're not usually described in those terms. We don't pick names firstly striving for some level of technical correctness, we pick common names that are clear to a general readership. I'm sorry, but people can only get confused about this if they're trying to confuse themselves on purpose.
 * No it's not! Not at all! We called it The Moon (in English, in other languages where applicable, etc.) well before we were able to fathom moons orbiting other bodies. Here's some of Ælfric of Eynsham's Old English from 994:
 * Sē mōna næfþ nān lēoht būtan of þǣre sunnan lēoman, and hē is ealra tungla niðemest
 * Likely because it's been of a definite, singular importance to our world. I doubt the meaning when we use the definite article has actually strayed from that.
 * Anyway, Moon is the correct article title. Remsense  诉  15:37, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * On the first point, are you suggesting that the term 'natural satellite' is more common than 'moons' when discussing, for example, the Moons of Jupiter?
 * On the second, are you advocating naming articles based on a 10th century understanding of science? YorkshireExpat (talk) 16:54, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm suggesting that to most people, natural satellite and moon are synonyms.
 * I'm advocating naming articles based on a holistic understanding of human language, with the example meant to demonstrate how our use of language is often invariant or orthogonal relative to our scientific understanding, as opposed to it inherently making scientific claims itself. You made a big assumption of what people mean when they use language; I pointed out it was a big assumption to make.
 * Remsense 诉  17:00, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll take the point on 2 (it may not be the original reason for the definite article, but I think today it helps with clarification). On 1, there's some internal incosistency in article name in this case. Should Moons of Jupiter etc. and articles like Minor-planet moon be renamed substituting 'moon(s)' for 'natural satellite(s)'? You cite WP:COMMONNAME but there's no way that 'natural satellite' sees more usage in common parlance than 'moons', and the titling of these other articles seems to reflect that. YorkshireExpat (talk) 17:26, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * @Remsense actually, going back to point 1., and as we're looking at literature, I'd like to point you at Intergalatic Ed and the Space Pirates as a slightly more modern counter to Ælfric of Eynsham. Ignore the fact that the pirates are inexplicably French, and navigate to about 3:30 where Earth's moon is confused with Ganymede. YorkshireExpat (talk) 10:25, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I suppose the breadth of this point isn't clear to me, as the context of this passage is very specific. Ambiguity can always arise in situations sufficiently narrow. Remsense  诉  13:57, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't worry about it. Just giving you the benefit of my own experience. YorkshireExpat (talk) 14:00, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose “Moon” overwhelmingly refers to the Moon, not a moon or moons in general. Renaming natural satellite to moon would probably require another  renaming of Moon to Moon (satellite of Earth); and even if we broke with guidelines and renamed it to The Moon, it would still be extremely easy to confuse with the article formerly known as “natural satellite”. Tl;dr this is a whole can of worms that doesn’t need to be opened— the current titles are unambiguous, whereas the proposed titles would make it harder to find either topic despite being COMMOMNAMEs. Dronebogus (talk) 19:47, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't worry about it. Just giving you the benefit of my own experience. YorkshireExpat (talk) 14:00, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose “Moon” overwhelmingly refers to the Moon, not a moon or moons in general. Renaming natural satellite to moon would probably require another  renaming of Moon to Moon (satellite of Earth); and even if we broke with guidelines and renamed it to The Moon, it would still be extremely easy to confuse with the article formerly known as “natural satellite”. Tl;dr this is a whole can of worms that doesn’t need to be opened— the current titles are unambiguous, whereas the proposed titles would make it harder to find either topic despite being COMMOMNAMEs. Dronebogus (talk) 19:47, 10 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Dronebogus pretty much sums it up. The current titles are intuitive and sensible. - Special-T (talk) 20:15, 10 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Interesting but ... no Credit where it's due; it's true that, when referring to the Moon as a distinct object, English almost always uses the definite article, whereas for other moons this is not so. Still, I'm not convinced that the proper name includes the "the".  Intuitively I would say it does not.  Also when used adjunctively ("Moon lander", "Moon rock") it is still referring to the Moon in particular, not moons in general, but no article is used. --Trovatore (talk) 20:44, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose basically per Certes: we'd need to apply this same logic to Earth, Sun, etc. We don't need to add the "the" here and there's no real disambiguation issue as our moon is clearly the primary topic. Elli (talk &#124; contribs) 22:46, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Support. We do always refer to our moon with the definite article, and 'natural satellite' is not the WP:COMMONNAME for other moons. The very first example given in WP:THE is that using 'the' in a title makes sense in a case like 'the Crown', where 'crown' and 'the Crown' naturally lend themselves to two, separate articles. That's exactly what we have here. (Regarding squaring the circle with the Sun – there are other stars, but there aren't other Suns...) AVNOJ1989 (talk) 00:46, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Well from the perspective of beings on exoplanets those stars are their sun(s). Dronebogus (talk) 16:44, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose, per Earth and Sun, uppercased Moon is the proper name (not 'The Moon') per MOS:ASTRONOMICALBODIES. As for 'stars', etc., renaming the natural satellite page Moons may work well (please notice that 'Moons' has redirected there since 2004). Randy Kryn (talk) 03:32, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Well yes that makes sense per WP:PLURALPT as the Earth's moon can't be in the plural just like the Earth's sun.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 16:55, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose per consistency with Sun (not the Sun) and Earth (not the Earth). Moon overwhelming, with long-term significance, refers to the Earth's moon and not moons in general. cookie monster   755  04:26, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * However, Earth's moon is almost always referred to as the Moon, with the definite article, not Moon. Even other pages, such as Far side of the Moon, Orbit of the Moon and even Template:The Moon, use the definite article in their titles. JohnCWiesenthal (talk) 05:16, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose the definite article is a convention when referring to it, but is not actually part of its name. It's called "Moon" not "the Moon". Canterbury Tail talk 12:38, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It is actually part of its name, though. --AVNOJ1989 (talk) 17:25, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Not according to the references in the article. We even have a section on its name that states it's simply "Moon". Do you have references that state that the definite article is actually part of its proper name? Canterbury Tail talk 17:51, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Britannica doesn't treat "The" as part of the name.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 17:58, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Subtle but important – all the sources state Moon is its name. None say that it is its only name. The conditions listed in WP:THE do not seem to me require "the X" to be the only name for something to implement it as an article title. --AVNOJ1989 (talk) 18:01, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I think the real difference here is the relative prominence of the articles. Someone typing "moon" in the search box, or linking to it, is overwhelmingly likely to be intending this article, not the class of objects that includes Io.  On the other hand, someone entering "crown" is most likely looking for the type of hat, not details about Britain's unwritten constitution. --Trovatore (talk) 20:18, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It doesn't directly speak to what I was getting at – it's not that there's no difference at all, but for WP:THE, the distinction brought up isn't relevant – but you make a very good point that the proposed redirects would 'invert' WP:PTOPIC. --AVNOJ1989 (talk) 20:57, 11 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Goodnight Moon, not Goodnight the Moon. Marsbar8 (talk) 02:40, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Support: see my arguments above. YorkshireExpat (talk) 12:03, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose: expected and canonical example of where a commonly used definite article is omitted for an encyclopedia article title, à la Universe, Russian Revolution, etc. Remsense  诉  15:42, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Remsense and others, though I could probably get behind the alternative suggestion of moving Natural satellite to Moons per WP:PLURALPT. Rosbif73 (talk) 15:46, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yep, I like that too. YorkshireExpat (talk) 18:26, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I don’t think that’s such a great idea— most non-proper noun article titles are usually in the singular— Human and not Humans, Refrigerator and not Refrigerators, Banana not Bananas, etc. Dronebogus (talk) 20:55, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * 'Most' being the operative word. YorkshireExpat (talk) 16:42, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * can you provide an example of one that isn’t? Dronebogus (talk) 13:55, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * You wrote most. If you think it's 'all', write 'all'. YorkshireExpat (talk) 18:35, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * RGB color spaces. YorkshireExpat (talk) 18:42, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I know you were specifically asked for a single example, but a peek at Category:Color space may disappoint as concerns how convincing it is. Remsense  诉  19:19, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Hepatic veins is another one. YorkshireExpat (talk) 19:54, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * these examples seem to be talking about categorical types of things— an analogue would be “frum moons” with frum being a specific type of moon. Dronebogus (talk) 06:02, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose. It should be at Moon like with Sun, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way, White House etc. Fish567 (talk) 23:24, 12 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose, per comments above. Alexeyevitch (talk) 04:54, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Trovatore. Dawid2009 (talk) 21:42, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Basically, from what I learnt in journalism, titles of articles should omit determiners. Moon is fine and adding "the" is just unnecessary. rektz (talk) 07:17, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That's great, but WP:NOTNP. YorkshireExpat (talk) 18:36, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That essay has nothing at all to do with the problem being discussed as far as I can tell. Remsense  诉  19:18, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose per above. Earth's moon is the primary topic for Moon, and its common name is not The Moon. Walsh90210 (talk) 20:46, 16 June 2024 (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.

moon
30 times diameter of earth yet next paragraph its one quarter the size of earth???? also isnt the sun a natural orbit of earth as wel as te moon..yet you say the moon is the only natural orbit.81.170.66.75 (talk) 07:58, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The Moon's orbit is about 30 times Earth's diameter. The Moon's diameter is about 1/4 of Earth's diameter. And no, the Sun does not rotate around Earth so it is not a natural satellite of the Earth. Meters (talk) 08:23, 16 July 2024 (UTC)
 * got it, thanks 81.170.66.75 (talk) 21:59, 16 July 2024 (UTC)