Talk:Ice Age

February 2009

Could a real expert solve the contradictory times for the beginning of the pleistocene here versus that in the special articles??HJJHolm (talk) 10:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Requested move 11 February 2020

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: no consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) —Nnadigoodluck🇳🇬 09:38, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

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Ice age (disambiguation) → Ice Age – Per WP:DABNAME, the title of the DAB page should reflect the majority of entries. In this case, all entries are capitalized/proper names except for mention of the common term ice age. Ice Age is currently a redirect to the common term, but really should not be used as such because of the ambiguity. -- Netoholic @ 20:19, 11 February 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. Steel1943 (talk) 21:08, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

• Support per WP:DIFFCAPS like Friendly Fire although there are a number of uses in the "Science" section none are simply "Ice age" so this allows the DAB to be at the simple name. Someone capitalizing "Age" could indeed be looking for the general concept but since its not a proper noun and there have been multiple anyway meaning people are likely to expect its a general lower case concept. As with Friendly Fire keep "Ice age" at the top with a MOS:DABPRIMARY so that readers can still locate it since by PT#2 it is arguably a dominant usage. By views[[1]] Ice age gets 49,353 but Ice Age (franchise) gets 34,037 and Ice Age (2002 film) gets 23,069 so its reasonable to assume someone typing a capital "A" is more likely looking for one of those. Both of those media are well known and have been around since 2002 so I don't think recentism is too much of an issue. Google results (which are not case sensitive) return a mixture of the general concept and media, Images mainly returns media so I don't think there's a clear primary topic for the Title Case version. We often redirect plural forms to the singular named article such as Cars and Parachutes but that's because plurals are commonly used for topics even though we use singulars for them while common nouns generally aren't written in Title Case except sometimes in titles. Note that Category:Ice Age is already a DAB. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:56, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. The name of the era is also commonly seen capitalised, so all this would be is ambiguous. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:12, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
• Support Per WP:DIFFCAPS like with Friendly Fire etc._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 12:46, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Necrothesp, diffcaps as a fading guideline is fading because of examples like this, which clearly should stay redirected to Ice age. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:51, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

  I don't think it is, DIFFCAPS has been used more often in recent years. While some might use upper case the media is always written in upper case and if anything its more likely someone is failing to capitalize when looking for a proper noun than overcapitalizing when looking for a generic one. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:27, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

  Many people object to DIFFCAPS based on the fact that 2 titles go to completely different articles that only differ by capitalization, this isn't the case since the upper case will go to a DAB not a completely different article like Red Meat and Attention Seeker did and readers are likely to click on these by mistake, this also is unlikely here since DAB pages don't feature prominently in the dropdowns. It was also noted in the Attention Seeker and Red Meat discussions that the proper noun topics are obscure, this also isn't the case since the media is also well known. Its also argued that many people don't worry about caps online, that generally means people use lower case or Sensitive case but usually not Title Case, I Doubt That Many People Would Capitalize Every Word When Typing Generic Terms. Also someone typing "ice age" or even "Ice age" is still taken to the scientific meaning, only those capitalizing the "A" are affected by this now per the page view stats and given the fact that its likely that more (possibly even far more) will shift up when looking for a specific than a generic one its likely that this will greatly improve things for readers. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:36, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

• Support. A pageview chart shows no clear primary topic for "Ice Age", although the movies taken as whole clearly compete with other uses, especially considering that those other uses are more often written in lower case or using a totally different title. On the down side, there are hundreds of incoming wikilinks that would need to be cleaned up if Ice Age became a dab page, most of which, at first glance, do appear to intend ice age, or at least some specific ice age. Station1 (talk) 07:10, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

  Special:WhatLinksHere/Ice_Age is exactly the concern I had which prompted this RM. Far too many of those uses are referring to a specific "Ice Age" (ex Last Glacial Period or Pleistocene), rather than the generic term. These incoming links have to be resolved, and more importantly avoided, and putting a DAB where will allow bots to alert editors that use "Ice Age" ambiguously. -- Netoholic @ 19:40, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

  That's a good point. Looking more closely, many if not most articles probably should link to a more specific ice age article, and even those that need to link to the generic ice age article should have their links changed to lower case. Station1 (talk) 09:16, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. The WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of the capitalised term "Ice Age" is clearly still the age, per long-term significance.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:43, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

  But clearly not by usage.... Listing the age at the top of the DAB is surely enough for the long-term significance for those that overcapitalize. Right now someone looking for one of the other uses by bothering to capitalize has to go age>DAB>intended article, if the DAB was at the base name those wanting to find the age would still find it easily. I think this is even clearer than Friendly Fire in that if you showed a person in the street a sign saying "Ice Age" and asked them to define what it meant, while many would say the age I'm pretty sure many would also say the films. Having the DAB at the base name would surely serve the reader far better then the current redirect. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:04, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

• Support. The uncaptitalised ice age is unambiguous. The capitalised Ice Age has no primary topic, and so that's where this DAB should be. Logically the link to ice age should be in a See also section or similar after the proposed move, but in this case I think we should IAR and leave it at the top as most helpful to readers. Andrewa (talk) 18:49, 21 February 2020 (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.

Requested move 9 February 2022

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: moved. Consensus the term "Ice Age" is ambiguous in a scientific context. Notable film franchise with the same name further supports the move. (closed by non-admin page mover) Vpab15 (talk) 22:04, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

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Ice age (disambiguation) → Ice Age – I do not believe the clear primary topic for the proper noun form of "Ice Age" is the natural phenomenon. If anything it is either the Last Glacial Period (commonly referred to as "The Ice Age") or the franchise named after it. If I were searching for the Last Glacial Period you could even argue it would be WP:SURPRISE to send me to an article about the phenomenon of ice ages in general. In the absence of a true primary topic, the disambiguation page should be moved to it, as Ice age is the only potential topic not referred to with a proper noun. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 01:44, 9 February 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. Vpab15 (talk) 21:35, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. Last Glacial Period is an example of an Ice age, while the franchise has no claim to long term significance. BilledMammal (talk) 02:07, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Redirect Ice Age to Last Glacial Period. The most common usage of "the Ice Age" is as a colloquial term for the Last Glacial Period. Rreagan007 (talk) 06:03, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per BilledMammal—blindlynx 15:36, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support clearly no primary topic for the capitalized term, the general concept, Last Glacial Period and franchise have strong claims so lets give readers why capitalize the choice. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:10, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
• Move Ice Age (franchise) to Ice Age. Proper name. Showiecz (talk) 20:05, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Disambiguation has been notified of this discussion. Vpab15 (talk) 21:35, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support as proposed, because there seems to be no clear primary topic. "Ice Age" is a reasonable capitalisation for either all freezes or the most recent, by analogy with Bronze Age etc. Moving the franchise to the base name would not be an improvement; it's far less notable than the Last Glacial Period or ice ages in general. 760 articles have links to change, but many of those already have the wrong destination. Certes (talk) 22:23, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support. No clear primary topic. We can argue that one is slightly more primary in usage than others, but none of them are a more likely intended destination than all the other topics combined. For long-term significance, it's hard to make a clear argument that either the general concept or the Last Glacial Period have more enduring value. I would say, by the way, that the franchise has differing relevance for different age groups. I was at the exact target age for the Ice Age movies, so any time it's in title case, that's what I (and my peers) often assume is being referred to. Now, I wouldn't expect that to be the norm outside of select age groups, but it does make the disambiguation less straightforward because it illustrates that different groups will have substantially different assumptions. As supported by the variety of strong opinions expressed here. In which case, having a dab page is the most appropriate.
• Support between the generic concept of an "ice age", the "ice age" that occurred around 10k years ago, and the movie franchise titled "Ice Age", there is no primary topic. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 02:09, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support. As others have noticed, the status quo is not working, given that Ice Age is accumulating tons of mistargeted links. We have 4 participants here who say there's a primary topic, but their views on which topic is primary are split among three different options. That in itself is a pretty clear indication that there is WP:NOPT. Colin M (talk) 22:33, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per long-term significance. Primary topics are not what first comes to your mind. Ice Age is clearly a {{R from alternate capitalisation}} for Ice age, the scientific phenomenon. The name of the franchisee and the Last glacial period itself is dependent on the name of the scientific phenomenon, the latter only one specific example of this phenomenon. The franchisee name might've been something else if the phenomenon were called, say, Freeze age. Until very recently, November 2021, the phenomenon and franchisee had competitive pageviews. For whatever reason, franchisee's pageviews shot up but is now slowing down. That itself is not determinative that they're all equally important, because of long-term significance. For example, Gravity & Gravity (2013 film) have competitive pageviews. Yet we haven't moved Gravity to Gravity (phenomenon) or Gravity (disambiguation) to Gravity because the phenomenon has significant long-term significance over some random film or franchisee. ---CX Zoom(^he/_him) (^{let's talk}|_contribs) 06:02, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

  The scientific phenomenon is the primary topic for "Ice age" but the film is "Ice Age" and many readers capitalizing the "A" will be looking for that or the Last Glacial Period. With single words like Gravity its not possible. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:04, 5 March 2022 (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.

Update all Ice Age links to Last Glacial Period

Following the move, there are 761 articles that link to this disambiguation page (see [2]). As far as I can see, most of them refer to "the" ice age, meaning the Last Glacial Period. Since going through the links one by one seems like too much, I suggest updating all links to Last Glacial Period through a bot or AWB. Any thoughts on that? Vpab15 (talk) 22:17, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Most, but not all. I think these need to be fixed by hand. Also, consider that a lot of these wikilinks are in a context like "as sea levels rose after the last [[Ice Age]]". Rather than just changing the link target, I think these would be clearer/more correct if the link was expanded to something like "as sea levels rose after the [[Last Glacial Period|last ice age]]". (In fact, since last ice age is a redirect to that article, we could even avoid the need for any piping.) FYI, there are some fine editors with a lot of experience fixing dab links who keep an eye on Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links. If nothing else happens, this'll get picked up in next month's report, but you could also drop a notice at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation pages with links or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation. Colin M (talk) 14:08, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I have done the change from "last Ice Age" to "last ice age" for around 250 of the links. Still quite a few remaining. Vpab15 (talk) 18:58, 7 March 2022 (UTC)