Talk:Hard Times

Requested move 25 May 2017

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: pages moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) —Guanaco 06:39, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

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• Hard Times (disambiguation) → Hard Times
• Hard Times → Hard Times (novel)

– Is the Charles Dickens novel really the primary topic? The disambiguation page chronicles dozens of other pages containing this term, including the iconic American song pbp 00:04, 25 May 2017 (UTC) --Relisting. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 00:34, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

The Dickens novel article is in fact more popular than the song. I had initially presumed that the the reason for this proposal was because the song got many visits, but this isn't the case. But if there are other reasons for making this change this seems a minor matter. Rwood128 (talk) 11:39, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

The traffic stats may be misleading because people may end up at the Dickens novel when looking for other stuff. pbp 23:00, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose fuck WP:RECENTISM. Charles Dickens is Charles Dickens, and long-term significance is long-term significance. (And the cited song's title isn't simply "Hard Times".) Ribbet32 (talk) 00:14, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

@Ribbet32:@AjaxSmack: You know that the song "Hard Times Come Again No More" was written by Stephen Foster, who's roughly contemporaneous with Dickens, right? It's not a recent song by any stretch of the imagination. pbp 13:55, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. Yes. —  AjaxSmack  02:38, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm confused. If this change is made wouldn't someone looking for the famous "Hard Times" song still have to navigate the disambiguation page? I certainly don't see why this song should be the primary page, especially as it is only ""(sometimes, "Hard Times") . But I'm not American and have never heard of the song. Is there another disambiguation solution for dealing with this? Rwood128 (talk) 14:19, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but that's an improvement over now, where when looking for the song by typing in "Hard Times", they are first sent to the novel, then they have to go to the disambiguation page. The other alternative would be to include "Hard Times Come Again No More" in the hatnote at Hard Times (the novel) pbp 17:58, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

When I now type in "Hard Times" I get several other suggestions, in addition to the novel, including Hard Times (Paramore song). Would changing the song's page to "Hard Times (Foster song)" be acceptable? Rwood128 (talk) 18:12, 26 May 2017 (UTC) Wouldn't there be a much better chance that this would take most searchers directly to the page? Rwood128 (talk) 18:15, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure it'd be advisable, but I created Hard Times (Stephen Foster song) as a redirect. pbp 00:26, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't appear in the check list when I use "Search WP"., so presumably the title would have to be changed. Rwood128 (talk) 11:54, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

The lede for the song begins: '"Hard Times Come Again No More" (sometimes, "Hard Times") is an American parlor song written by Stephen Foster'. If this is correct the song is only sometimes called "Hard Times". GeoffreyT2000 cannot some other way be found to help those looking for Foster's song. If "sometimes" is wrong, why not remove it, and retitle the song? The current list of possibilities, for the search term "Hard Times", has Hard Times (Paramore song) as the second possibility. Isn't this a reasonable solution. Rwood128 (talk) 18:47, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

This Paramore song appears to be far more popular than Foster's, if statistics are important to you? Rwood128 (talk) 18:54, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support reluctantly - It's not just the recent song. The 1975 film has decent numbers. Statistics say so. Also, per MOS:LEAD, most readers would rather read an intro and just move on to another article. Even when Dickens is well known, I'm not convinced that Dickens' prominence and significance would make the novel primary. Also, the title is too generic to associate with Dickens primarily. It should be disambiguated; the dabpage should take over. --George Ho (talk) 05:27, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

There's no need to go to the disambiguation page for the film and that should be possible also for Hard Times (Foster Song). The article states that the Foster song is only sometimes abbreviated to "Hard Times". Wouldn't Hard Times (Foster Song) be more helpful to searchers than the bare "Hard Times." It really doesn't make sense to list the Foster song simply as "Hard Times" – or am I confused. Rwood128 (talk) 20:30, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

What do you mean? Do you mean the proposed setup or the current setup? George Ho (talk) 05:05, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support. There's no WP:PRIMARYTOPIC here. The page views, even when excluding the recent Paramore song but including Hard Times Come Again No More (also known as "Hard Times"), the novel doesn't get a significant number more page views than all other topics combined.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:24, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support. This is a pretty generic title, and there's not enough evidence that points to the novel being so overwhelmingly well-known and significant that it overrides the fact that it doesn't meet the pageview criteria. Nohomersryan (talk) 05:01, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose "Hard Times is" in books only refers to the Dickens novel. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:55, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose per IIO's book results, and clear long-term significance over other topics.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:16, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

My "book results" are entirely different. On the first page of my Google Books search, 5 of the 10 hits are for other topics. 3 are for Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression,[1][2][3] one is a play,[4] and the fifth is a book by Alice Walker.[5] The five hits for the Dickens novel are just different versions of it, which isn't surprising as it's in the public domain. On page 2, only one of the results are for the novel, and the rest are other uses of the ambiguous phrase "hard times".[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:17, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support. This is a generic phrase with many articles that may be the intended topic. I could not reproduce results claimed by IIO. My book search showed results for several other books. older ≠ wiser 17:48, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support – With other songs, movies, and TV shows with the same name, I see why this would not be appropriate as the primary topic. 2601:8C:4001:DCB9:1821:1A4C:90DF:6E20 (talk) 19:27, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support - the primary topic of the phrase would be a difficult economic period, for which the book (and other concepts) are named. bd2412 T 17:00, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

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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.

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Hard Times which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 06:31, 18 June 2017 (UTC)