Talk:That's My Boy (1981 TV series)

Requested move 23 March 2018

 * 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. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: move the 1981 series to That's My Boy (1981 TV series) and the American series to That's My Boy (1954 TV series), and not move the 1963 series, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 22:54, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

– Due to the presence of 1954's That's My Boy (U.S. TV series), both British series need to be analogously disambiguated with "UK" as well as with the year of initial production. Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 02:56, 23 March 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. — usernamekiran (talk)  06:04, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * That's My Boy (UK TV series) → That's My Boy (1981 UK TV series)
 * That's My Boy (1963 TV series) → That's My Boy (1963 UK TV series)
 * Comment The US TV series calls it "largely forgotten", is it really notable? If it's not then a move to that level of disambiguation wouldn't necessarily be needed. May need to put this on hold until that much is proven.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 04:26, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment the "largely forgotten" comment was unsourced and has since been deleted. 37 episodes in primetime (9 pm) on CBS in the relatively early years of television seems like a lot to forget, although since it was 63 years ago, the people who watched it are now old enough that many of them have indeed forgotten a lot, are no longer with us, or aren't using the internet to edit Wikipedia. —BarrelProof (talk) 04:59, 23 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Support - (year country TV series) is precise application of WP:NCTVUK. I don't believe this is controversial, and can probably be completed and closed early. -- Netoholic @ 05:48, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 * No, it definitely is controversial – see below. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:14, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Support, uncontroversial per WP:NCTVUK pretty well a technical move. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:10, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose – that's not how "double disambiguation works": please see User:IJBall/NCTV and double disambiguation. All that is needed here is for the UK TV series articles to be at That's My Boy (1963 TV series) and That's My Boy (1981 TV series) – additional disambiguation "by country" is wholly unnecessary here. The U.S. TV series can either stay at That's My Boy (U.S. TV series), or can be moved to That's My Boy (1954 TV series). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:14, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
 * From what I read, you consider years to be somewhat primary over country in disambiguation, and so consider that we would only need to add country if two series aired the same year. I don't think that's how most readers would expect us to split them. Most series are of strong regional interest only, and so if two series differ by both year and country, generally, country is the more natural split.  Here, we have 1 US series and 2 UK ones that all seem to be of only regional interest, and the US series need to be distinguished from either/both of the UK ones, which using "1954" for that one doesn't accomplish. Consider if there was only one UK series - we'd easily use just "U.S." and "UK" to disambiguate, not year.  After that consideration, since there are two in the UK, adding year to those alone is appropriate. -- Netoholic @  06:13, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Let me quote NCTV to you (and I believe you wrote this!): "Prefix the year of release or program debut – (1997 TV series). Generally used when there are shows with the same title within the same region and/or across multiple regions." (emphasis mine) That's it. It's right there in the guideline. We do not "preemptively disambiguate" on Wikipedia. Disambiguation "by country" is completely unnecessary here – simple disambiguation by year is sufficient. If people want to create redirects with R from unnecessary disambiguation, more power to them. But in this case, there is zero need for "double disambiguation" for the articles themselves here, and the articles should not reside at such titles – as User:IJBall/NCTV and double disambiguation shows, that is only necessary when you have two TV shows with the same title premiering within the same year in 2 different countries along with one or more additional TV shows with that same title in one of those two regions (that premiered in a different year): that is a very rare scenario indeed (and is not the case here). So, again, I oppose the current proposal as it is proposing unnecessary disambiguation. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 14:35, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * : and/or across multiple regions: The intent of that phrase is for those shows that have very strong cross-regional appeal or production ties (such as an international co-production like Lexx) and so using country would be confusing to fans. If another TV series were to be created with the same title, it would be odd to try to assign a country to it, so year is better. If you read the "country of broadcast" bullet which is intentionally presented before the year one, it says "Generally used when shows are distinct primarily due to region". Obviously, which disambig applies depends strongly on particulars of the various shows which are in conflict, which is why we have RMs I suppose. -- Netoholic @  14:55, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * My simple answer to that is that titles should use the minimum disambiguation required (i.e. no "unnecessary disambiguation), and guiding readers to the correct location is what (additional) redirects are for. I don't have a problem with redirects at That's My Boy (1963 UK TV series) and That's My Boy (1981 UK TV series) (or even at That's My Boy (1954 U.S. TV series)). But none of these articles should reside at those titles – in all 3 of those examples, the extra disambiguation is strictly unnecessary. In this case, simple "by year" disambiguation will distinguish the three articles – including the "by country" on top of that is incidental and is strictly unnecessary. (IOW, none of these three articles requires "double disambiguation" to be distinguished from one another...) --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:03, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * My answer to that is that this isn't "unnecessary" because our readers expect us to differentiate shows of interest mainly to a single region by disambiguating them with a regional identifier. Someone looking for the US show should not have to know the year it was made to feel confident. -- Netoholic @ 15:46, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Asked, and answered – that's what redirects are for. Also, the double disambiguation you are suggesting is actually likely to make it harder for readers to find what they are looking for... Also, the U.S. show is going to be found either way (again, thanks to redirects...) --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:36, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * - I don't put a lot of stock in the merits of redirects as if they alone are a good response to ambiguity concerns. Certainly, redirects help prevent duplicate articles and are an aid to editors, but for readers they are largely useless except for the extremely rare occasion when someone manually types a URL. The key benefit for readers when we put into practice unambiguous articles titles is in how the page is presented in the browser. The title is used for the hyperlink on a 3rd party search engine, its the name when someone bookmarks a page, and its the header when a student prints a page. In all these cases, our responsibility is to be as clear as possible and to use disambiguation methods that are of most benefit to the reader.  In the case of television series, year doesn't communicate as clearly as country does when the series are of separate regional interest. Year is useful when a reader might get confused between series of the same name in their country. And year+country does the best when we have situations like this were there is both separate regional interest and, within one of those regions, further ambiguity which is resolvable by year. -- Netoholic @  12:13, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * To be clear, I also support the alternate proposal from Woodensuperman – i.e. move That's My Boy (UK TV series) to That's My Boy (1981 UK TV series), and redirect That's My Boy (UK TV series) back to That's My Boy (the disambig. page), but leave That's My Boy (1963 TV series) (and That's My Boy (U.S. TV series)) where it currently is. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:16, 30 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose, but support alternative disambiguation. We should be disambiguating by year only in these circumstances, country is superfluous.  Articles should be moved to That's My Boy (1963 TV series) and That's My Boy (1981 TV series) per second method at WP:NCTV. -- wooden  superman  15:17, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment. Films have the opportunity of being seen around the world and disambiguation by year, regardless of national origin, has been Wikipedia's standard method, except where further distinction is needed. TV series, on the other hand, have had such wide ranging audiences less frequently and are mostly regionally oriented. As a result, indication of origin is more specific to TV than to works bound for the cinema.
 * As for details specific to this nomination, a bit of history may put those into perspective. The first so-named entry to be created, on 10 June 2006, was the 1981 British sitcom That's My Boy. None of the seven other titles currently at the dab page had entries at the time and the dab page itself was not created until July 2009, when the 1932 and 1951 films as well as the 1981 sitcom, which was moved at that point to That's My Boy (TV series), made up the new dab page's initial entries.
 * On March 12, 2011, the entry for the US series was created as That's My Boy (1954 TV series) and, in January 2012, the two series were moved to analogous headers, That's My Boy (American TV series) and That's My Boy (British TV series).
 * On 21 May 2014, the entry for the second UK series was created as That's My Boy (1963 TV series). Earlier that month, on the 5th, the headers of the other two series had been moved to That's My Boy (UK TV series) and That's My Boy (U.S. TV series),
 * Thus it has remained for nearly four years, through today, and will remain so if there is no consensus. The nomination was submitted in the hope of finding an analogous form for all three TV titles.   Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 15:04, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I would say that there actually is consensus currently demonstrated in favor of moving the articles to That's My Boy (1963 TV series) and That's My Boy (1981 TV series). (Meanwhile, That's My Boy (U.S. TV series) can probably stay where it is...) Where there is not consensus is for the "double disambiguated" titles as per your original proposal, which I believe I have shown above is simply not necessary in this case... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:43, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * In effect, the sole move you are actually proposing is That's My Boy (UK TV series) → That's My Boy (1981 TV series), while keeping the headers of the other two That's My Boy TV series unchanged. Under my proposal all three same-named TV series could be listed on the That's My Boy dab page using only the links to their main headers — no other details needed. But under your proposal, two of the series would be disambiguated by the year of initial production, while the third series would be disambiguated — for no discernible reason (unless additional explanatory text is appended) — by its national origin. The allowance, in your initial posting, that all three series may be disambiguated by year, at least had consistency, but I do not see consensus for that form, either.   Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 18:46, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Effectively, yes. While all three could be disambiguated by year (and I would not oppose that), it's arguable that That's My Boy (U.S. TV series) needs to be moved from its current title (there is already a redirect at That's My Boy (1954 TV series), so while it could be moved to that title, I really don't see the point...). With the two UK shows, we're stuck – That's My Boy (UK TV series) will have to point back to the disambig. page no matter what. At that point, those two articles just need to be (minimally) disambiguated from each other, and so the "by year" solution comes in to play. But there is no need for "double disambiguation" in this case, and doing so would lead to unnecessary disambiguation which is avoided on Wikipedia. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:52, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Note: Announcement of this discussion appears at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television, Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television) and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation. Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 21:43, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The one detail with which everyone will agree is that That's My Boy (UK TV series) does indeed qualify as incomplete disambiguation and has to become a redirect. As for the parenthetical forms, I am posting notices at the talk pages of three WikiProjects in the hope of additional input.   Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 21:43, 30 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose but support alternative - Per 's proposal, articles should be moved to That's My Boy (1963 TV series) and That's My Boy (1981 TV series). Note that WP:NCTVUK says "When there are two or more television productions of the same type and name, use one of the following methods:" (emphasis added). We don't need to include the country just because there is a U.S. program with the same name. -- Aussie Legend  ( ✉ ) 20:10, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose – Move all of them to That's My Boy ([year] TV series); seems pretty simple. —Joeyconnick (talk) 20:41, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose – Move all to That's My Boy ([year] TV series). Nick Number (talk) 21:34, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose but support alternative per Woodensuperman. WP:NCTVUK prominently suggests distinguishing by country (doesn't work here) or year (works here). It then mentions in passing country + year, which I read as a last resort not needed here and deprecated by WP:CONCISE.  That leads us to (1963 TV series) and (1981 TV series).  As discussed above, we could move the U.S. show to (1954 TV series), but as the redirect already exists I'd let that sleeping dog lie.  (UK TV series) should redirect to the dab. Certes (talk) 22:58, 30 March 2018 (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.