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Talk:Mustang/Archive 2

< Talk:Mustang
Latest comment: 9 years ago by Jenks24 in topic Disambiguation hatnote
Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

Requested move (December 2013)

Latest comment: 10 years ago50 comments20 people in discussion
The following discussion is an archived 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: No move. There is no consensus that the horse is the primary topic of the term over some of the things named for it. Cúchullain t/c 15:12, 16 December 2013 (UTC)


– Clear primary topic for this word in English, the vast majority of the other pages are named after this animal. Check out the logos for the Ford Mustang (which is a popular article but is naturally disambiguated), Mustang Software, CalPoly Mustangs, etc. A Mustang (military officer) is being compared to the wild nature vs a thoroughbred, the Japanese album Mustang! (Dragon Ash album) has "cowboy" influenced cover art (see the hat and font). There are a couple of topics that were clearly not named after the animal, such as Mustang, Nepal and maybe MUSTANG (camera), but these pages are already disambiguated and not viewed very much. Most pages, like Mustang, Oklahoma and USS Mustang, we can't prove that the name was influenced by the animal, but it would be unreasonable to assume otherwise. It is unlikely that anything that was named "Mustang" in the US in the last 200-300 years was named after a region of Nepal and not the animal symbolic of the Old West. As far as I know nobody has ever referred to this animal as a "mustang horse", just a "mustang", and this seems to be thing readers will be most expecting to see at this title. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 19:11, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Another thing, is there any evidence that the horse is actually called mustang horse because if not the article should at the very least be moved to Mustang (horse)? I have my doubts since Mustang horse is not used anywhere in the article--174.93.163.194 (talk) 19:32, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Support. The horse is the primary topic. Moreover, the IP above me is correct to doubt that the type of horse known as a "mustang" is ever referred to as a "mustang horse"; I see no evidence that it is commonly called this. 168.12.253.66 (talk) 19:37, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose though weak oppose. This ain't broke, let's not try to fix it please. Reason #1: While JohnnyMrNinja is correct that this proposal would pass WP:PRIMARY, we already have a regular problem with people adding links to the article about cars, football teams and god-knows-what-else that belong at the dab, and if we make it primary, this will only get worse. Reason #2: This name is stable and has been for years, people can make one more click to get to the horse. Reason #3, while I do agree about WP:PRIMARY, if we got into a google hits discussion, the car would probably have more hits than the horse, and we really don't need that drama, either. And please no, let'sl not move it to (horse) - the longstanding consensus of WikiProject equine is that the parenthetical disambiguation (horse) is used mostly for named horse articles such as Secretariat (horse) or assorted non-horse breed articles (like bit (horse) that need a dab for miscellaneous reasons. We just finished cleaning up the last of these parenthetical names about a year ago and DO NOT want to start that all over again! Because many horse breeds already do have "horse " in their breed name, association name or registry title, (American Quarter Horse, for example,) "horse", lower case, without the parentheses is used for the many, many breeds that need disambiguation. We also have cases such as Salerno horse- the breed, and Salerno (horse)- the individual animal. (that might be the only one, but I'm not certain). Montanabw(talk) 20:34, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose I think that the pony car Ford Mustang is enough to dispute the primacy of the horse. -- 65.94.78.70 (talk) 09:07, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
Neither. Wikipedia makes do with the simplifying assumption that all widely used versions of English are English which mostly works well, given reasonable levels of mutual courtesy and reasonable understanding. In the USA a "Mustang" is a(n) horse, and if automobile enthusiasts are tempted to overlook the fact they can look at the badge on the front of a car. But for most English speakers outside of the US a "Mustang" is in the first (probably also second and third) place(s) a car, first popular in the 1960s and subjected to a series of reincarnations - some more convincing than others - subsequently. That applies in the UK. Plus: All over Europe, China, India and elsewhere there are people less monocultural than the anglo-americans who speak English perfectly well, but many of whom know the word Mustang only in the context of the car. I guess wikipedia in English is for those guys too. Or? On the other hand, "Mustang horse" looks plain silly. So how about "Mustang (horse)" Just as automobile pages for lesser known or more thoroughly forgotten brands that share their names with other things might be called "Hudson (automobile)". English is not the same even between New York and Baton Rouge, but since Baton Rouge doesn't have it's own army and navy we content ourselves with the notion that the two versions are different dialects of a single language. Well, maybe so. But the Brits do have their own army (albeit a shrinking one). And I submit that in many of those countries where they speak English as a second language, but fluently, folks are entitled not to find themselves gratuitously disconvovulated (?sp?) by locali[s/z]ed uses of English in English language wikipedia. Regards Charles01 (talk) 09:39, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
Comment: reinCARnation? LOL! I addressed the (horse) situation above, it's a separate issue from this Move request, but we really don't want to do that; we prefer to avoid getting the breed articles confused with the thousands of individual horse "biographies". Montanabw(talk) 21:23, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Oppose on grounds of Americocentricism, if that is a word. Most of the English speaking world does not call wild horses mustangs. As Charles01 (no relation) says the car model is better known. Mustang (horse) seems good to me.--Charles (talk) 10:01, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

And Mustangs aren't wild horses anyway, they are feral horses. (wink) Montanabw(talk) 21:23, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
    • As I mention below, this is not an article about wild horses, this is an article about a specific type of horse after which those American car that you mention (naturally disambiguated at Ford Mustang) was named. There are lots of different populations of feral horses in Category:Feral horses, this is about a specific kind in the US. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 05:00, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I don't agree that "Mustang" in English has a primary meaning of the horse variety. Yes, it's clear that almost all other meanings are derived from the name of the horse variety, but that doesn't matter. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC says nothing about a word's origins, only about its present meaning and usage, both short and long-term. Certainly, "Mustang" primarily referred to the horse variety before World War Two, and this probably was true even after the war despite the success of the fighter aircraft which also bore that name; fighter planes are only of interest to a select set of people. But now that it is also the name for a very popular and well-known automobile brand, the primary meaning of "Mustang" is no longer clear. Today our culture is far more automobile-oriented than horse-oriented. If you mention "Mustang" to random ordinary people, I'd bet more of them would think of the car first than the horse variety, and I suspect that will remain true for a long time to come. In a sense, the current situation is somewhat like what has happened to place names that are now associated with food and drink, such as "cheddar" and "champagne". --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 10:03, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose as an Americanism. For non-Americans (or at least Australians), a wild horse is a 'wild horse' and a Mustang is either the Ford Mustang or the P51 Mustang airplane. No need to fix what isn't broken.  Stepho  talk  13:26, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
    • This is not an article about wild horses, this is an article about a specific type of horse after which those American things you mention were named. Also the Australian word for Australian feral horses is "brumby", a word for which they are considered the primary topic. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 05:00, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Montanabw. The resulting confusion would increase, with common and casual links to Mustang being more wrong than before. Binksternet (talk) 15:28, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Support. Easily the primary topic. And I'm not American. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:19, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Support. Were it not for the feral horse, the fighter aircraft and the sporty coupé (and the motorcycle, and all those sports teams) would be named something else. Unless one speaks of a region of Nepal, or maybe a variety of grape, anything one calls a Mustang is named after the North American feral horse. (On a side note, it is hilarious to see people opposing the renaming as an Americanism when the two alternatives they propose as the primary topic are both American!) Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 23:34, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
All other places named Halifax, as in Halifax in Nova Scotia, are after Halifax in West Yorkshire but that does not make the original English town primary topic.--Charles (talk) 09:37, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
  • If this move isn't successful, it would definitely be a good idea to move this page to Mustang (horse) as suggested by the IP. "Mustang horse" is a very strange usage; the status quo is UNNATURAL disambiguation. --BDD (talk) 00:09, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
    Oh please dear god no! This will create an inconsistency that will screw up dozens of articles, possibly over a hundred, including all the articles about ponies. (Shetland pony, New Forest pony, [{Dartmoor pony]], etc....) This is NOT "strange" use -- many horse registries have the word "horse" in them (Arabian Horse Association, American Paint Horse Association, Appaloosa Horse Club, etc... and that's just the As...) it took us years to get these WP articles straightened out (there was even once a naming dispute over American Quarter Horse, for example. No one calls that breed an "American Quarter" ... =:-O ) -- plus the confusion it would cause with the named horse biographies, many of which (if not most) use (horse) as a disambiguator. I'd rather see the move request go through than this fate, and I think I speak for the members of WPEQ on this, as we have wrestled with this for years! Montanabw(talk) 05:03, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Shetland pony, etc. are normally called that, in UK anyway, so pony is part of the common name.--Charles (talk) 09:50, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
People speak of Arabian horses, people speak of quarter horses, people speak of Shetland ponies. People do *not* speak of "mustang horses". They speak of "mustangs". And as for an "Appaloosa horse" it sounds more like you, whether individually or as a special interest group, are trying to place your convention over general usage, because people don't speak of "Appaloosa horses" either.
Further to this, calling them "mustang horses" instead of "mustangs" might give the quite wrong idea that they're horses from Mustang in Nepal, just as Arabian horses are from Arabia and Shetland ponies are from the Shetland Islands. Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 12:06, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Baloney. Do we think the American Quarter Horse is named after a coin? Montanabw(talk) 18:26, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Absolutely agree. I've never seen one called a "mustang horse" either. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:00, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
It exists: https://www.google.com/#q=%22Mustang+horse%22 More to the point: the car owners also call their vehicles a "Mustang" at times. This is simple verbal shorthand. Here we are looking at wikipedia titling. As I stated earlier, I won't scream bloody murder if you must move to "Mustang" but I bet you won't do a damn thing to help with the massive cleanup that is going to be involved. And where have all of you been when WikiProject Equine has needed help with article content, given that you have such expertise in horse-related matters? As for the breed names where we don't append "horse" - it's usually because the word is rather unique, though note https://www.google.com/#q=Appaloosa%20horse, as an example. Seriously, we worked for over five years cleaning all this up, now you want to recreate the mess. Montanabw(talk) 18:26, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
Excuse me, but are you suggesting that only members of the WikiProject should be allowed to express an opinion here? That's what it looks like, although I sincerely hope that's not the case, as WikiProjects are unofficial and one is not required to be a member to comment on or edit an associated article. Not having a primary interest in a particular subject certainly does not mean an editor cannot work on any article they choose. Opinions of WikiProjects on article naming do not overrule general Wikipedia guidelines, which is to use WP:COMMONNAME, with a parenthetical disambiguator if necessary, not an artificial name that is rarely if ever used. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:47, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment: WP:NATURAL: allows for "natural" names, and prefers them OVER parenthetical disambiguation i.e. "Example: The word "English" commonly refers to either the people or the language. Because of the ambiguity, we use the alternative but still common titles, English languageand English people, allowing natural disambiguation. In a similar vein, mechanical fan and hand fan are preferable to fan (mechanical) and fan (implement)." Montanabw(talk) 18:43, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
    • Indeed. That would be fine if "mustang horse" was commonly seen, but it isn't. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:47, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose move (to either Mustang or Mustang (horse)). The former per previous arguments. The latter: Usages are different in different areas. Where I'm from, no-one says "Arabian horses", they just say "Arabians" (or "Arabs"). But this is secondary to the fact that we finally, finally have all of the horse/pony breed article titles standardized. If someone wants to go through and change all of them (and there are a lot) that need the "horse" disambiguation from "horse" to "(horse)" then I probably wouldn't fight too hard. But that should be after a larger discussion than one move on one page. And all of this back and forth needs to stop. We have articles that have been moved three or four or more times because no-one can agree where they're supposed to be - one admin moves them one place, then another decides that's not right and moves it back, then a third moves it again... I really don't care which style of disambiguation is used. I do care that article titles are consistent, at least within a certain area, and that article titles aren't in a state of constant movement. As I said above - start a wider discussion someplace more prominent, get consensus for your proposed disambiguation style, and be willing to do the moving and cleanup work on several hundred articles, and I really don't care what the articles are called. Dana boomer (talk) 18:38, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose move to Mustang because the added "horse" is unmistakable even for people not familiar with the topic, and strongly oppose move to Mustang (horse) because that would tell me it's about an individual horse named Mustang. I also share the reasoning of Dana boomer, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:33, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
IIRC, 'Mustang' is the proper name for the North American and Mexican wild horse, descended from the horses originally brought over by the Spanish, animals which got loose and over time became adapted to their new habitat and bred. All the other 'Mustang's are named after this breed of horse.
... so you don't actually need 'Mustang (horse)' as that is the proper name for a horse breed/type - just 'Mustang' - the others are all derivatives of the horse breed name, i.e., that is what they are all named after. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 19:33, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
comment I consider this current title "natural disambiguation" and it has been stable for some time, working for just about everyone. My oppose vote above is a relatively weak oppose, but I DO oppose moving a longstanding stable dab page to the WP:PRIMARY due to the reality that we already have a fairly steady drumbeat of people adding things about their sports teams and automobiles to THIS article, even with "horse" in the title. If we make it primary, we will have to have permanent semi=protection because it will become a target for spam and laundry lists. (big sigh...) Montanabw(talk) 21:58, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
Idiots adding rubbish to articles is sadly a hazard of Wikipedia. It's not a good reason to oppose a sensible move mandated by both naming guidelines and common sense. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:27, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
Unfortunately, Gerda, (horse) is already used inconsistently as a disambiguator. See, for example, Thrush (horse) and its RM. --BDD (talk) 19:31, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
There are also other articles that are not bios that use parenthetical disambiguation. The natural disambiguation concept applies primarily to the horse breed articles because of the problems already discussed. Montanabw(talk) 23:15, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
How about trying to get consistency at the other end, instead of making it worse here? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:04, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose a "Mustang" could refer to a highly popular car as well as a horse. So there is no WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:16, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
Even the makers of the car recognize that their product is secondary to the horse, hence the horse symbol on the front to tell everyone what their product is named for. It even inspired a horse naming theme for their products, including the Bronco and the Pinto. Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 14:35, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't think anybody has challenged the notion that the car and the plane were named after the horse - but that isn't the question. The question is what topic do people think of when given the word 'Mustang'? Those people interested in horses obviously think of the horse (possibly restricted to Americans). Those interesting in cars think of the car. Those interested in planes think of the plane. Those interested in ships think of the ships (possibly a small group of people). Those interested in Nepal think of Nepal. You get the picture - different people think of different things when they think of 'Mustang'. I would contend that the number of people thinking of the horse is a lot smaller than the number of people thinking of cars and planes - especially once we move out of America (which is why it has been pointed out as an Americanism). Since different people think of different topics and none of them overwhelm the others, it makes sense to leave 'Mustang' as a disambiguation page.  Stepho  talk  21:52, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
Well the horse is definitely an American feral type, no other feral horses anywhere else in the world can properly be called "Mustangs." Montanabw(talk) 23:15, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
And I would disagree. I'm British and the first thing that comes to mind is the horse. I'm aware of the plane and the car (which we don't have over here, incidentally), but they're certainly not the first things that spring to mind. Since all of those are American, I fail to see why only the horse would be regarded as an Americanism! -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:01, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
Which is why it is a trend, not an absolute. I'm going to make a guess that you are interested in horses (at least, more than you are interested in cars or planes).  Stepho  talk  22:30, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
Then you would guess wrong. I don't have an especial interest in any of them, although my general knowledge covers all of them. -- Necrothesp (talk) 00:58, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
I am also British, and for whatever reason I've only heard of the car, not the horse. The neutral approach is surely to assume that lots of readers may be interested in the car, and lots may be interested in the horse, therefore the least astonishing route is to disambiguate.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:07, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
People looking for the car will disappointed regardless, as it is at Ford Mustang. Why would it be more astonishing to see the animal it was named after (with a hatlink, obviously), the animal which is featured on the grille of every car, rather than a list of links? It is the same number of steps for some people, less for others. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 01:55, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
@Necrothesp: That's okay, my guess didn't really affect the result - 'Mustang' conjures up horses for you, cars for me, cars for Amakuru, etc. I did some google searches: mustang horse gives 2.8 million hits, mustang car gives 199 million hits and mustang plane gives 17 million hits. Google results should always be taken with a grain of salt (is it real interest, a very noisy crowd or babbling idiots?) but it does show that the horse is not an outright winner. All pointing toward disambiguation as the solution.  Stepho  talk  04:04, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
Have you considered that might be because a mustang is generally simply known as a mustang, without the word "horse" being associated with it? -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:46, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Support per nom and Necrothesp. Obviously the primary topic. Even to a Brit. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:35, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Oppose Not what non-Americans would think of first. Neljack (talk) 03:34, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
    • You clearly haven't read the comments from non-Americans above! -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:46, 16 December 2013 (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.

Requested move (July 2014)

Latest comment: 9 years ago115 comments33 people in discussion
The following discussion is an archived 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: moved to Mustang, dab page moved to Mustang (disambiguation). The consensus is that, in this particular case, the long-term significance criterion of primary topic is a more significant factor than the usage criterion. The argument that many of the other pages listed at the dab, including all the articles that had large page view stats, were already naturally disambiguated and would not have a Wikipedia title of simply "Mustang" even if the other topics had never existed was also widely supported and carried significant weight in this close. Jenks24 (talk) 10:53, 29 July 2014 (UTC)


Mustang horse → Mustang (horse) – Previous RM established this is not the primary topic for "Mustang". However, Mustang horse is not a natural disambiguation (in contrast with, for example, Shetland Pony which is natural) and leads to absurd and awkward sentences, like the lead sentence of this article: "The Mustang horse is a horse..." What's next? The Mustang car is a car? The Mustang airplane is an airplane? The effort for consistency with other breed titles is appreciated, but let's not do it when it leads to absurd titles like this one. В²C ☎ 00:40, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

  • Support per nom. It's not called a mustang horse; it's called a mustang. Calidum Talk To Me 03:31, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support per nom. It's a Mustang (horse) in the same manner as Mustang (motorcycle). Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:29, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment - I would like to hear what User:Montanabw says, in the capacity of an editor who does an enormous amount of work on horse articles. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:51, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Then you should notify him of the discussion on his talk page, not hint that consensus can't be formed without his magical input.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:14, 17 July 2014 (UTC) 
  • Sorry "magical" - doesn't bluelinking .e.g. User:SMcCandlish perform the same notification as @Montanabw:? I get pinged when others do that...
Oppose then, per Montanabw and consistency with the way WikiProject Horses handles other horses. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:43, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support as not a natural disambiguation, but a Wikipedia creation. Natural disambiguations must exist in reliable sources. However, note that the awkwardness of "The Mustang horse is a horse..." is not the problem. In such a construction, the first "horse" would be dropped, even if "mustang horse" were natural, and an entirely difference construction might be available and preferable. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:55, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Accept User:Montanabw's argument against reintroducing parenthetical disambiguation, which consistently is used for individual horses. As this is a difficult case, WP:Concise causing trouble, I suggest Mustang, North American feral horse. Not all mustangs are horses. Not all feral horses are mustangs. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:52, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Can you then register your vote above as oppose for ease of counting?  ;-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Montanabw (talk • contribs) 23:36, 17 July 2014‎
  • Perhaps you haven't noticed the convention to use the title of an article in the lead sentence of an article. This convention holds for titles that use natural disambiguation, but for titles that use parenthetic disambiguation the disambiguation is normally dropped in the lead. Thus we have...
The Ford Mustang is an automobile ...
The Mustang was a lightweight motorcycle ...
As long as Mustang horse remains the title of this article, the first horse in "The Mustang horse is a horse..." can't be dropped, which was my point. It demonstrates the problem with using unnatural disambiguation in titles. --В²C ☎ 17:30, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • You have trouble with conventions versus rules, don't you? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:52, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Of course it can; we fairly routinely do this. There is no requirement to repeat the full article title in the lead, it's just the most common approach. Everything on WP is moderated by WP:Use common sense.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:32, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Of course it can, we do this in every bio per WP:FULLNAME, every official building company or school name per WP:COMMONNAME. B2C this again highlights the problem of an editor who does not regularly contribute to article space spending all his/her time trying to change guidelines and policies for the editors who do. I'm sorry but more time with the hand on the plough in actual editing would have prevented making that comment/argument. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:52, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose The planned name would tell me that it is an individual horse named Mustang. Didn't I say so above already? Why again, seems a waste of time, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:01, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • It's not the planned name; it's the proposed title. And if you think Mustang (horse) denotes an individual horse named Mustang, you must be from another planet. Assigning that specific kind of meaning to parenthetic disambiguation is unreasonable. Parenthetic disambiguation is normally based on whatever is necessary to disambiguate the use in question from other uses of that name. Now, if there was a notable horse named Mustang with an article on Wikipedia, then we could talk about horse alone still being ambiguous, and we would have to add more precision (like Mustang (Derby winner) and Mustang (feral horse). But since no such notable horse exists (so far as I know), this is not an issue. --В²C ☎ 17:39, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Not on another planet, but right here, I see the individuals Parole (horse) and Damascus (horse) vs. the general Holsteiner horse, with an elegant unrepetitive intro line, - "horse" is only needed to distinguish from other Holsteiner, and find it when lookig for horses, - once in the article, you don't have to say it again. - If something is not broken, why try to change? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:18, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Mustangs are not a breed, they're a landrace of feral horses, but not everyone likes the term "feral" and many sources say "wild", but wild horse technically is another species entirely. Mustang horse really is the most elegant solution, clumsy as it may seem to some.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:32, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • That's more precise than necessary - the convention on using "(horse)" only for individual horses needs to be rejected. It's contrary to how we disambiguate on WP. See my comment just above. --В²C ☎ 17:39, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Trust me, we worked this out several years ago and it seems to get revisited every couple of years, with the same result? Can this go away, please? Montanabw(talk) 23:36, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose: The term "mustang horse[s]" is in fact attested in sources[1], and shot up rapidly after the WWII introduction of a fighter plane by the same name, but declined along with it. It is not an unnatural disambiguation, just not a terribly common one in 2014, since external sources have a reduced need to disambiguate the term in their own writing. The problem of "The mustang horse is a horse..." is an issue of bad writing, not an article naming problem. Tens of thousands of articles, at least, have names of the form <specific name> <general type> without this being an issue. Note also that not only does "Mustang (horse)" imply a specific individual horse named "Mustang", WP:EQUINE uses this format as an explicit convention for such cases, and that project's scope covers more individual-animal articles than any other (racehorses, notable examples of which swamp all other cases such as TV/movie dogs). Montantbw, whose input was solicited above, already spoke on this at WT:AT just yesterday: "WikiProject Equine [has] thousands of articles on individually named animals (mostly race horses) as well as several hundred breeds. Parenthetical disambiguation works well for the individually named animals, such as Salerno (horse), which needs to be distinguished from the breed, whose article is titled Salerno horse. We also have Hackney horse and Hackney pony." Finally, because "Mustang horse" is demonstrably not actually an unnatural disambiguation, just one that horse-related publications don't use because they have no need to disambiguate, there is no justification for the unecessarily excessive disambiguation of Mustang (feral horse), which is also perhaps a WP:NPOV problem, per the second sentence of the article: Mustangs are often referred to as wild horses, but there is debate over terminology. Clearly mustangs are not wild horses in the sense of never-domesticated subspecies, but not everyone agrees with the label "feral". [This is proven by the number of RS in that article that have "wild horse[s]" in their names/titles, but are about mustangs, not Przewalski's horse or other wild horse subspecies. The confusion is easy to understand since even the word "feral" is derived from Latin ferus, but "feral" and "wild" have only overlapping, not identical, meanings in English.] — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:27, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Well, then, let this proposal discussion double as a consensus check on the contrived convention to use horse parenthetic disambiguation exclusively to designate an individual horse name. For every other type of article on WP, what parenthetic disambiguation is used depends primarily on the particular other uses of the name in question. To be consistent with how we disambiguate other titles on WP, what that would mean for horses is that we could use horse in parentheses to disambiguate either an individual horse or a "breed" of horse, if no other uses of the particular name in question is any kind of horse, but we would use additional disambiguation if the name is used for an individual horse and a horse "breed". --В²C ☎ 18:00, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Why would we entertain the idea of misusing a straightforward RM that has nothing to do with individual animals as a platform for drama about those that do? Your argument assumes that using "(horse)" to disambiguate horse breeds is an accepted convention, when it clearly is not. This is the exact opposite of a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS issue: Not only is this not generally done and there's no rule calling for it, even the wikiproject you want to force it on opposes it, and they give sensible reasons for doing so. It's not that WP:EQUINE is insisting on only ever using parenthetical DAB for individuals, it's simply such a common usage for such animals that using it for landrace varieties (mustangs are not a breed, remember) or breeds would be unnecessarily confusing.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:52, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment: I am not a horse person by any means, but I agree with the nom that “mustang horse” sounds unnatural to my ear. But if reliable sources use it, I’m not going to oppose. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 19:00, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • The standard for establishing natural disambiguation is not merely finding some usage in reliable sources - but to show that the term in question is commonly used in RS to refer to the topic at issue. That has not been done here, because such basis does not exist.

    In contrast, consider Shetland Pony which obviously is commonly used in RS to refer to that topic. --В²C ☎ 19:53, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

  • Comment re: commonness of "mustang horse" as an option for natural disambiguation. See this ngram which compares "mustang" with "mustang horse(s)". Note that ngrams are case sensitive, so this graph excludes the car and the plane. The comparison shows that "mustang horse", while in existence, is certainly not common, as asked for in WP:NATURAL. Dohn joe (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Repeat: External sources have a reduced need to disambiguate the term in their own writing. It "sounds wrong" to a lot of horse people because they never bother disambiguating it, or need to. For the same reason, "Himalayan cat" sounds this way to cat people, many of whom will testily declare that construction to be annoying and redundant, meanwhile everyone else understands that it's perfectly fine to disambiguate this way, even when you wouldn't need to do that when writing in a cats-specific magazine or while talking to someone at a cat show. We all also understand that this is simply how English works; it's not limited to cats or any other particular narrow subject. Also, even cat people without thinking about it will in fact immediately say "Himalayan cat" any time they have to disambiguate (e.g. in a conversation about India in which the adjective could refer to any number of things). Similarly, WP:EQUINE (as an obviously more-germane-than-usual example) routinely uses precisely this style of disambiguation for its articles; they've already thought about whether this is "natural" enough to horse people or not. The argument here is a "special pleading" to exempt "mustang" for some reason, probably confusion of it with wild species like peccary, boar, onager, etc.

    Your ngram is mostly netting cases of "mustang" being used where no disambiguation could be needed because the topic under discussion is horses, or cowboys or ranching, and no one could possibly be confused that a car or warplane were meant. It thus tells us nothing useful at all about how to disambiguate or title an article here. Ngrams cannot be used to establish context, and failure to recognize this will produce totally useless ngram results, like the one you're relying on here. So: Show us that sources that are in fact disambiguating do so without using the construction "mustang horse[s]". What other construction are they using – "mustangs, in the sense of horses" - "a mustang (the horse kind)" - "the mustang (the equine namesake of the car)"? Can any of them possibly be more common than "mustang horse(s)"? Your reading of WP:NATURAL is falsely assuming that "common" in that context means "common compared to the non-disambiguated usage" when logically it can only mean "common compared to other disambiguations"; how often something needs to be disambiguated varies radically from topic to topic, and for mustang it's not very frequently, vs. a word like "Indian" as used by Americans. Actually, WP:NATURAL's own wording indicates it's not to be interpreted the way you're taking it; by "commonly used" it means "albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:52, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

  • No, WP:NATURAL pretty straightforwardly asks us to look at what a topic is called in reliable sources. If the most common name needs disambiguation, we look to natural disambiguation only if the naturally disambiguated name is also commonly found in sources. If it's not, we don't use it. My ngram shows that "mustang" outdoes "mustang horse(s)" by 200:1. The only question is whether that small fraction counts on its own as "common". I think it's too uncommonly used to use comfortably as natural disambiguation. Dohn joe (talk) 21:09, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • You're just not getting this. Your ngram shows only that "mustang" is usually not disambiguated, and shows nothing at all about how it is disambiguated when it's necessary in RS to do so. I've shown that a notable number of times this has been done by appending "horse" or "horses", and you've shown nothing about any alternative means of disambiguating in the sources.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:35, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Vehemently oppose: This issue has gone back and forth for YEARS and the current name has been stable (pardon the pun) for quite some time. It is natural disambiguation and this structure is used for ALL horse breed articles, particularly (but not only) because we have thousands of named individual horse articles too, all which use (horse) when a dab is needed. The consensus has repeatedly asserted that this name stays as is. We just cleaned out the last of the parenthetical dab messes in our 400 breed/type articles a year or so ago, and let's just NOT start this all up again! Montanabw(talk) 21:16, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment - While I supported the move this makes sense on a project-by-project basis. General guidelines simply don't cover everything and individual projects are much better equipped to handle the nuances of subjects they know better than most. We don't have to be a cookie-cutter encyclopedia, and in fact it's better if we aren't. If this styling has worked well for the project and has kept the infighting to a minimum, it may be best that it doesn't change. It's a minor issue in the scheme of things. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:51, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Sorry Montana, but I don't understand your objection, much less why it's vehement. No internal WP convention can be a valid excuse to use non-parenthetic disambiguation that is unnatural (unnatural because it is not commonly used in reliable sources to refer to the subject in question). The fact that it's used on occasion in a few reliable sources does not mean it's commonly used - which is the whole point of WP:NATURAL: We avoid unnatural contrived titles exactly like this.

    The fact that "(horse)" is commonly used to disambiguate individual horse names is no reason to not also use it disambiguate horse/breed article titles. --В²C ☎ 23:12, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

  • B2C, WP:NATURAL STATES: "choose an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title"..."The word "English" commonly refers to either the people or the language. Because of the ambiguity, we use the alternative but still common titles, English language and English people, allowing natural disambiguation. In a similar vein, mechanical fan and hand fan are preferable to fan (mechanical) and fan (implement). " Thus, Mustang horse. Montanabw(talk) 23:25, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Aye. Pretending that he's not already had this explained to him several times is WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. The vast majority of reliable sources never disambiguate this at all because they don't need to in the contexts in which they're writing. We do have proof from ngrams, however, that "mustang horse" and "mustang horses" are in fact used at least some of the time when they do need to disambiguate, and no one's shown any alternative that's used even more commonly. The end.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:35, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose Current naming system seems to work fine for its specific subject matter. No need to change. Intothatdarkness 21:36, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose for multiple reasons.

    First, on procedural grounds. I object to using this article talk page as a means to subvert the agreed upon naming policy for equines, be that policy memorialized or not. I believe the appropriate route would be to discuss changing the rule (or coming up with a written rule, as the case may be) and then implementing that new rule change to individual articles like this. Moreover, since it should be plain that this discussion would interest those over at WP:EQUINE, I find the fact that the proposer did not notify the wikiproject to be problematic.

    Second, I don't see the justification for the change. This is exacerbated by the dismissive attitude of a lot of the proposer's comments. For instance, the proposal says, "Previous RM established this is not the primary topic for "Mustang"." False. In fact the closer of the previous RM stated that there was not a consensus that Mustang was the primary topic. I can say with confidence that the proposer is aware of the subtle but substantial difference between the two. As another example, Greta Arendt and others pointed out that "Mustang (horse)" could imply that Mustang is the name of a particular individual horse, which is indeed a problem in light of Salerno (horse) vs Salerno horse, but instead of grapple with this issue the proposer stated "if you think Mustang (horse) denotes an individual horse named Mustang, you must be from another planet." That response is both totally nonresponsive and an entirely unwarranted personal attack. Additionally, there is no requirement that the first sentence include the verbatim title, which even a casual review of MOS:BOLDTITLE would easily show. ("If the article's title does not lend itself to being used easily and naturally in the opening sentence, the wording should not be distorted in an effort to include it...Instead, simply describe the subject in normal English, avoiding redundancy"). I think the current text of the first sentence is admirably clear.

    Third, I am simply disappointed that none of these issues were grappled with before the proposal was made, because B2C is eminently capable of understanding complexities and because B2C also knows that a substantial portion of the community fundamentally disagrees with him on the question of whether it is acceptable to include more than the bare minimum amount of precision needed to disambiguate an article title if doing so promotes other titling goals like consistency and recognizability. That being the case, this proposal was doomed from the start without a much more convincing explanation, which is lacking. AgnosticAphid talk 23:49, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Further comment: I am aware that there are other sub-issues floating around, perhaps even un-mentioned ones! I can easily envision B2C arguing that "Mustang (horse)" is actually not ambiguous – even though casual readers easily could think it was the name of an individual horse – because readers familiar with the "topic area" of Mustangs would be aware that there is no wiki-famous horse named Mustang. (Less convoluted-ly, I don't believe that B2C thinks that we need to try to cater to people that aren't already relatively familiar with the article subject when we title our articles.) But once again we are wading into territory that everyone who's been around the article-titling block knows is controversial and not prone to consensus resolution. So no matter how you slice it I think the RM is misguided. AgnosticAphid talk 00:02, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I hadn't wanted to bring up B2c's User:Born2cycle/Concision razor essay, because of the amount of heat rather than light generated by it, but since you've mentioned it in passing people will want to know what you were referring to by "whether it is acceptable to include more than the bare minimum amount of precision needed to disambiguate an article title...".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:59, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • ....I thought B2C's Wikipedia:Concision razor had followed the WP:Yoghurt essay into User space, surprised to see it's still there. WP:UNDAB which B2C didn't start but after heavily rewriting consistently cites against the current consensus in WP:DAB should really follow Yoghurt and Concision Razor too. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:13, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support as per WP:NATURAL, since this current title is all but unused. Nobody would even call this a mustang horse. Red Slash 02:27, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • usually I favor parenthical disambiguation. Specially when natural disambiguation is not used commonly on sources, as shown by other editors above. I am convinced by the argument that there are many articles about individual horses I am not convinced by the argument that we need to unify all breed articles all accross wikipedia. I think it, s enough to keep.consistency inside a breed category (i.e. Category: horse breeds has one type of disambiguaton, Category: sheepnbreeds has a different type that meets their needs better). Count me as oppose for horse breeds. --Enric Naval (talk) 06:22, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Montanabw, Agnosticaphid. It's a mustang that happens to be a horse, it's not called a "mustang horse." Bearing in mind the failure of a previous RM I find it inappropriate to tack a alternative proposal on the back of this proposal to a title that has already been rejected. By all means wait and raise a separate RM afterwards if you wish.--Richhoncho (talk) 15:14, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Withdraw my comment on what the title should be. --Richhoncho (talk) 08:39, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  • If it's not called a "mustang horse," then why support "mustang horse"? Dohn joe (talk) 15:41, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Indeed. The fact that it's not called a "mustang horse" is exactly why the title should not be Mustang horse. Consider someone who is not as familiar with modern English usage as most of us are. Perhaps they're learning English. This title is misleading, especially to such a person. It incorrectly indicates that these animals are called Mustang horse. It's simply wrong. --В²C ☎ 17:49, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. For background, I'm an American, and I'm not a "horse person". When I first came across this dispute, my initial reaction to the title "Mustang horse" was: Gosh, that sounds awfully weird—surely "horse" should either be removed, or be placed in parentheses! But not wanting to jump to conclusions, I took the time to review all the arguments not only in this RM, but also in the December 2013 RM which is archived above. Having done so, the term "mustang horse" now sounds no more odd to me than, for example, "Himalayan cat". I am very sympathetic to Montanabw's tireless defense of the consensus-based standards developed through the lengthy and painstaking efforts of contributors to WikiProject Equine. I'm also impressed with, and moved by, the carefully-written and insightful reasoning of SMcCandlish. I also credit Agnosticaphid with a cogent critical analysis of the nominator's pattern of arguments. — Jaydiem (talk) 18:31, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose As explained, there are good reasons this article is named as it is. There are many articles like Vagrant (horse) which refer to an individual horse, and Mustang (horse) would unnecessarily add confusion. It would be hard to find anyone who could not work out what is meant by "I saw a Mustang horse". Johnuniq (talk) 07:05, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per detailed explanation and link provided by SMcCandlish that they are sometimes referred to as mustang horses. Additionally, as the convention is that "Something (horse)" titles designate individual horses, as several people have mentioned, we should remain consistent. Egsan Bacon (talk) 18:47, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Alternative proposal

The horse may or may not be the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "Mustang", though it probably fulfils the criterion "A topic is primary for a term, with respect to long-term significance, if it has substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term" (original bolding). But it is surely the primary candidate for that page title, as the potential rivals, the car and the aeroplane, are uncontentiously at other quite distinct titles.

The primary requirement for disambiguation, "It is not always possible to use the exact title that may be desired for an article, as that title may have other meanings, and therefore may have been already used for other articles" (my bolding), does not apply here.

At the moment no-one who types "Mustang" in the search box gets taken to the page they want; having the horse at that title, with suitable hatnotes, would mean that at least some get straight to the target, and that most others get there with one additional click, just as now. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:56, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

It should be noted that this alternative proposal is identical to the previous RM of December 2013, which is archived above. Therefore it seems appropriate to bring the present reincarnation of that proposal to the attention of all those who participated in the earlier discussion—JohnnyMrNinja, 174.93.163.194, 168.12.253.66, Montanabw, 65.94.78.70, Charles01, Charlesdrakew, Colin Douglas Howell, Stepho-wrs, Binksternet, Necrothesp, SamBlob, BDD, Dana boomer, Gerda Arendt, 80.7.147.13, Amakuru, Justlettersandnumbers, Neljack—and the closer of the previous RM, Cuchullain. (The preceding mentions will automatically "ping" the referenced editors.) — Jaydiem (talk) 19:44, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

  • Strong support for this alternative. I was about to suggest this myself. The type of horse is clearly the Primary topic for the term. With the exception of the relatively obscure place name in Nepal, every topic that includes "Mustang" in its name (the car, the motorcycle, the town in Texas, etc.) is derivative ... referring to the horse type. Blueboar (talk) 11:35, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. My view on Primary Topic has changed recently. Generally, I think it's better to have one use at the base name than a dab page at the base name. And if none of the uses meet the traditional criteria ("much more likely to be sought..."), but one does meet the long-term significance criteria, then that article should be at the base name. --В²C ☎ 15:51, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Weak Support Mustang as WP:PRIMARY. Because it is my opinion that it is primary, but I am so tired of these stupid RM wars that I wish this all would just. stop. now! That said, will this F---ing thing EVER end? I think that somewhere before my time, (as well as the 2013 one above) that battle was fought and lost due to opposition from the car, airplane and motorcycle people, even though theirs derived from the horse. But if you notify the people who monitor the dab page and let everyone huff and puff about it and consensus DOES move to Mustang as WP:PRIMARY, I would be happy about that - even though it will also mean permanent semi for the article to keep every kid in the USA from adding "Our sports team is the Mustangs" to the article on a weekly basis. Small price to pay! Montanabw(talk) 18:49, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • @Montanabw: Your support of this alternate RM piques my curiosity. Reviewing the discussion of the same proposal from last December, I see that although you felt that this article was the primary topic of the term "Mustang", you expressed a "weak oppose" to the RM because of concerns about potential nuisance editing and about changing a long-established stable title. What's changed since then? [note: edit conflict] — Jaydiem (talk) 20:05, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm so f--king exhausted with these stupid RMs over horse breed articles that I am ready to scream. Frankly, I don't give a flying Purple F--K (that's WP:DGAF x 10 = WP:DGAFPF ! ) if it's Mustang or Mustang horse so long as it is not Mustang (horse) - but can we just stop beating the poor thing? It took years to create natural disambiguation consistency on the 400 or so horse breed/type names and now people want to balkanize them all up again? Make it stop! Montanabw(talk) 20:19, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment: this makes sense, in theory. We worked on having a hymn the primary topic without disambiguation (formally "(chorale)"), everything derived (cantatas, preludes ...) with disambiguation. However, to move a highly frequented page like Mustang is not without trouble. I remember enough problems with making a church or a person a disambiguation, naturally without a redirect. We could just leave this as it is. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:14, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment: There can be no reasonable doubt that a particular type of American feral horse is semantically the primary topic of the term "Mustang", in that the names of the eponymous car, aircraft, etc., are derived from it. However, the determination of "primary topic" on Wikipedia is not based on etymology. Editors sometimes try to shoehorn semantic primacy into the "long-term significance" component of the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC policy—as was done recently in regard to the "Yesterday (Beatles song)" article, for example—but doing so is, I believe, misguided: the "enduring notability and educational value" of a topic is inherent in the topic itself, not in the word or name by which we refer to it. — Jaydiem (talk) 21:06, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong support as primary topic and for no other reason. This is not a "compromise", it's a way to get the best title. Avoiding this no-win discussion is the icing on the cake. Red Slash 22:14, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Please remember that, according to the guidelines for closing RM discussions, opinions or !votes stated without supporting evidence or reasoning are to be disregarded by the closer. In other words, merely saying "this is [or isn't] the primary topic" without substantiation isn't going to help your viewpoint carry the day. (If you've already given your reasoning or evidence elsewhere, I'd suggest that you move or copy it here.) — Jaydiem (talk) 07:01, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I think the horse cleanly and indubitably satisfies the long-term significance criterion for primary topic. Thanks for your comment. Red Slash 07:38, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose. I’m just not convinced that the horse is the primary topic over the car or the P-51. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 23:49, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. To those who support this proposal for the same reason, how about a little evidence? —  AjaxSmack  02:23, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Long-term educational significance? We'll have mustangs long after memory of the Mustangs has faded. Red Slash 03:09, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Suppose we stipulate that the statement "We'll have mustangs long after memory of the Mustangs has faded" is true. When, then, can we reasonably expect this to have a real possibility of happening? In fifty years? A century? To make such a claim is to indulge in unverifiable speculation, which is a no-no here at Wikipedia. In evaluating topics under the long-term significance criterion of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, we should only concern ourselves with whether a particular topic is likely to fade from significance in the foreseeable future, which I'd broadly estimate to be in the range of five years out, ten at the most. I think we can be certain that even if Ford were to stop making Mustang cars tomorrow and never make another ever again, it would take a great deal longer than five or ten years for the world's memory of them to fade. Therefore, the long-term significance criterion cannot be said to favor the mustang horse over other topics as being primary for the term "Mustang". — Jaydiem (talk) 06:47, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Perhaps you do not understand well the meaning of "long-term". A hundred years ago, it was the horse. Two hundred years ago, it was the horse. Three hundred years ago, it was the horse. Looking from the past until now, clearly the horse has far more long-term significance. As for the future? Alas, you have missed the point of WP:SPECULATION as well, which talks about how "articles about anticipated events must be verifiable, and the subject matter must be of sufficiently wide interest that it would merit an article if the event had already occurred." It says nothing about logical analysis of long-term significance, nor should it, since that would contradict WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, which is also policy. Red Slash 07:35, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Red, my friend: Your statement above is in two parts, respectively addressing significance and speculation. I will reply to each in turn.
⋮
I see that you're pivoting your argument from future significance to past significance. Very well. The explanation of long-term significance that you present above is one possible interpretation of the phrase, equivalent to "having previously been significant for a long time". But this is not the only valid interpretation; the other is "significant now and likely to continue to be significant for the foreseeable future". I believe that the latter interpretation is more appropriate for the purposes of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Consider the term computer. According to the OED its earliest known use in writing was in 1613. For centuries, computer denoted the role or profession of people who performed quantitative computations or calculations; it is only in recent decades that the term has come to primarily denote machines rather than people. If your interpretation of "long-term significance" were correct for WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, then we would designate the people topic as primary, move the current Computer article to "Electronic computer" or "Computer (device)", and move the "Human computer" article to its rightful place at "Computer". The fact that we don't do that—that, indeed, a proposal to do so would likely incur ridicule—demonstrates that your interpretation, while valid in a general linguistic sense, is not the correct one for WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Rather, long-term significance in that context should be interpreted to mean present and foreseeable future, not past, significance.
⋮
As for WP:SPECULATION: In my previous passing reference to that guideline, I was invoking not its letter, but its spirit and essential meaning: Unverifiable speculation in general should be avoided on Wikipedia.
— Jaydiem (talk) 21:38, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
  • That's a totally invalid comparison. The term "computer" being applied to human beings in the way you mean is archaic; virtually no one alive is familiar with this usage at all, and as a term it has essentially no long-term signfiicance at all (even though people doing math, of course, have). Even by the 1950s the term was qualified as "human computer" because the word by itself meant the machine to everyone. Today even that phrase no longer has the same meaning, but refers to mathematical savants. Second, speculation is something we avoid in writing article content; it is not necessarily something we avoid in the process of policy analysis, like how to apply WP:AT. On the whole, we do mostly still avoid it, but it's a circumstance that WP:SPECULATION was not written to address.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:58, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  • You have exactly proven my point, which is this: The fact that a certain meaning of a term was "primary" even for hundreds of years in the past has no bearing on whether it is "primary" today. The only thing that matters in evaluating the long-term significance component of the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC criteria is a topic's significance in the present and the foreseeable future. This is precisely the opposite of the argument that Red Slash made above:

A hundred years ago, it was the horse. Two hundred years ago, it was the horse. Three hundred years ago, it was the horse. Looking from the past until now, clearly the horse has far more long-term significance.
— User:Red Slash

Incidentally, "a person who performs calculations" as a definition of the word computer still appears in current English dictionaries—including Oxford, American Heritage, Collins, Wordsmyth, Random House, Webster's—without being marked as archaic; it's simply no longer the "primary" meaning (except in Webster's, where "a person who computes" is, in fact, the first definition). — Jaydiem (talk) 04:41, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Let's not be silly. A) "mMustang" in reference to the horse is not obsolete, so your "hundreds of years in the past" analysis is mistaken. B) Dictionaries all contain a large number of obsolete terms and definitions thereof, because literature is not ephemeral (generally), and readers of, say, Dickens and Shakespeare still need to look up what they meant, today; you can't use what appears in a dictionary as evidence of linguistic currency, as dictionaries simply don't work that way.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:18, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Perhaps we should change "Primary topic" then. If something comes first in time, and other things are derived from it, there should be some favour for the earlier. Back to my example above: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland would probably not be primary in terms of google hits etc, but a Bach cantata. But which one, BWV 61 or BWV 62? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:57, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure much weight should be given to this in primary topic debates. In many cases the derived term is clearly more notable than the original, for example Boston vs Boston, Lincolnshire. I'm also not keen on the "long term significance" argument, or at least its application in this case, because as Jaydiem says above, it requires a crystal ball. What was significant in the past may not necessarily be significant in the future.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:45, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
  • "It came first" is not a significant factor, per se, and this is by design, as many well-known things are named after littler-known things.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:58, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment Oppose. Looking at this discussion from a European perspective there seems to be a degree of US-centricism here. The contest rages between a Ford model which is little known around the rest of the world and feral horses which are probably slightly better known through cowboy movies, but not to a high degree. In terms of longevity the (former) kingdom of Mustang in Nepal wins hands down. I am not convinced there is any need for change, as Mustang horse seems perfectly usable as a title. Having reached the page it can just be referred to as Mustang. I am inclined to oppose this as not broken.Charles (talk) 10:03, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Charles, may I suggest that you change your bolded first word to "Oppose" so that it conveys your view more clearly at a glance? — Jaydiem (talk) 21:48, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I was willing to be convinced otherwise but on further consideration I am changing it. We have articles titled Shire horse and Clydesdale horse. The latter are usually just known as Clydesdales, which seems analogous to Mustangs. I really can not see what the problem is.Charles (talk) 22:45, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
  • The Clydesdale horse was bred in Clydesdale, and is named for the region, which is the primary topic. Mustangs are not from anywhere near the Mustang region. The Ford and the P-51, on the other hand, are named for the mustang. Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 11:13, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Strong support. First, except for the horse, all of the well-known topics on the "Mustang" disambiguation page are partial title matches, with the name incorporating the manufacturing company or some other term. The article on the Nepalese kingdom is titled Upper Mustang. Second, it can not be expressed strongly enough that all of the commercial variants, the cars and planes and ships, team names, American cities, are named after the horse. This is not merely a matter of common etymology, this is an intentional effort by those naming these things to make people think of the horse and associate the product or place with the characteristics of the horse. As with Jaguar and Eagle and Wolverine, this act of naming does not diminish the primacy of the original animal, but enhances it by highlighting it as an animal worth naming all of these other things for! bd2412 T 14:54, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
  • The WP:PTM (partial title matches) subpolicy deals only with which topics should be included on a disambiguation page; it is unrelated to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Even setting that aside, the claim that the mustang horse is the only "Mustang"-related topic to pass WP:PTM deserves the tough love of a friendly trout-slap. While I agree that there are many topics presently listed on the "Mustang" disambiguation page that arguably shouldn't be there, the eponymous sports cars and military aircraft that are routinely referred to as "Mustangs" are clearly not among them. — Jaydiem (talk) 05:44, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support "Mustang", the North American feral horse, as primary topic. Except for the relatively obscure Nepalese topics (important historically but obscure to the English speaking world and most places should be comma disambiguated by region, for recognizability, precision and consistency), all other uses appear to derive from the horse. Indeed, they appear to want to associate with certain qualities of the horse. Derivative use, alluding to the known use of the horse, amplifies the original use's claim for PrimaryTopic. The fact that "mustang horse" is not a normal phrase speaks to "mustang" meaning the horse in a general context. Wikipedia articles exist in the general context. In contrast, the car, the motorcycle and the plane are typically disambiguated in introductory text where the context is not already focused on cars, motorcycles or planes. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:30, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. The horse is the primary topic, as I have said above. Note that I am not American, and I still believe it's the primary topic. The Nepalese kingdom is very little known anywhere. The car and aircraft were both named after the horse and in an international context are not as well known as it is. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:18, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose as in the previous discussion on this topic. The horse is certainly not unambiguously a primary topic, and it is arguably not even the most commonly used usage of the term - I know this is not scientific, but from a very quick Google search, most results pertain to the car, and that matches my gut feeling on this matter. The current situation with a disambiguation page is perfect. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 12:19, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose per 174.141.182.82 and AjaxSmack. The problem is that specialisation in interests, means that "Mustang" can have primary meanings to different groups of people who are unaware of the other meanings. In other words "Mustang" fails "Recognizability – The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize." For example someone who is familiar with the World War II fighter (the subject) may not know it was named after a horse, so taking them to the horse page fails "Naturalness". -- PBS (talk) 14:48, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support, despite the previous identical RM's failure to carry the day. This really is clearly the primary topic. Google searches done have been faulty for pretty obvious reasons - the car (the Ford Mustang) vs the horse (the mustang, frequent improper capitalization notwithstanding) is going to be found any time you search for "mustang", even when it's actually given as "Ford Mustang", and no lower-case examples refer to the car, and Internet search results are overwhelmingly biased toward current pop-culture "hot topics" over all other, and the recent-ish resurgence of the Ford Mustang as a brand biases the results, and, and, and. There are probably a dozen reasons that the WP:GOOGLE test fails here. More to the point, virtually all English speakers, including non-Americans have some idea that mustangs are horses, and we pretty much all know that the car, aircraft, etc., are all named after the horse. Having the horse article not be at Mustang is like having Cherokee and Jaguar be disambiguation pages due to vehicles being named after them. The fact that this solution would also resolve the above other RM that's a clear no-move consensus by now is icing, and not part of my rationale here. For the same reasons that Siamese cat is a perfectly fine name, even if cat people just say "Siamese" and even non-cat people do when everyone already knows cats are the topic, there's nothing wrong with Mustang horse, but Mustang is clearly preferable. All other uses derive from the horse one, and it is not obscure in any way.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:16, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment: The identity of the term "Mustang" is so firmly tied to the horse that the term used for the style of car typified by the Ford Mustang is "pony car". It is doubtful that one can find a road test of a Ford Mustang without equine puns or references. The Ford Mustang, therefore, cannot be considered the primary topic over the Spanish-American feral horse, which reduces the number of contenders from three to two. There just might be people out there who think a Mustang is a natural electrical phenomenon, like lightning, or a thunderbolt. Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 04:52, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose, for reasons already stated. I find it hard to get terribly excited about this either way, but it really comes back to the nature of Wikipedia. If the purpose of Wikipedia is to spread knowledge as objectively as is possible (and no, I know it's not generally possible to be totally objective with anything) then you should try and avoid anything culturally specific to one corner of The Anglosphere. If you think Wikipedia is a device for spreading the American way of thinking .... well, back in the 1950s that was a popular thing to want to do in many parts of the world, but I think those times are long passed. (We may still love Hollywood, but the sheepish grin of the audience is no longer always one of uncritical admiration for the guy on the horse.) Even in the USA itself there are plenty of folks (probably not the ones reading this) who don't even see a horse - any horse - from one week to the next. Most English speakers do not live in North America. If you think Wikipedia is there to spread knowledge to those who don't have it - or rather to those who till now have managed to live with quite different bundles of knowledge - then maybe you should have a particular care for those in the world's most populous nation to whom English - even where they speak it very well - is a second language. Or those in the world's second most populous nation for many of whom even where English may be the language you use in public life, it still is not the language you habitually use with the folks back home. Back here in "old" Europe, lots of folks love horses, but making the leap from there to the idea that a "Mustang" is primarily a horse?... No. Henry's publicity machine did their job well back in the '60s (and, less consistently, but still they do it well sometimes ... since). Here in Europe, where quite a lot of us use English as a first or daily second language, a Mustang is a car. As in an American icon with lots of cylinders under the bonnet/hoot that makes a glorious noise and reminds you of a past when the future looked like a one way ticket to more of the same. Well, long live difference: it supports the growth in knowledge. Happy days Charles01 (talk) 07:30, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I find these sorts of comments very surprising, given that I'm English, have lived in England all my life (and thus most certainly come from "old" Europe), and have never even visited North America, and to me a mustang is most certainly primarily a horse. I do know a Mustang is a car, but it's a car in America, not here, and I haven't even got a clue what it looks like. So, given that the car and the horse are both American, why on earth would backing the horse as a primary topic be American-centric? That makes no sense whatsoever. I don't think it's anything to do with being American-centric, and far more to do with whether you're into cars or not! I'm not particularly, so I have no idea what a Ford Mustang is like, but I did like cowboy films when I was a kid, so the type of horse is familiar to me. I would hazard a guess that there are far more cowboy film fans than American car fans outside North America! "Here in Europe, where quite a lot of us use English as a first or daily second language, a Mustang is a car", you say. Sorry, but that's just your opinion, and in my (quintessentially English) opinion it's wrong. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:56, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  • The world is enriched by the fact that we each interpret a word differently. You, me and others. Don't knock it! But, as far as I can make out, the discussion here (and yes, it did start about a million years ago) is about whether an entry on the word "Mustang" should take you straight to a disambiguation page, or take you straight to a page about a particular kind of a horse. Do you have a view on that? And why? Regards Charles01 (talk) 09:40, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, I've already stated it five entries above yours! And in the previous discussion... -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:27, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  • The horse is a mustang, just a mustang, with no additions, not even a capital letter.
The car is a Ford Mustang.
The aircraft is a North American P-51 Mustang.
Isn't that what hatnotes are for? "This article is about the North American feral horse. For the automobile, see Ford Mustang. For the fighter aircraft, see North American P-51 Mustang. For other uses, see Mustang (disambiguation)."
Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 13:41, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Information: Please see below a data table I've prepared. Methodology: I first created a list of "Mustang"-related article titles, beginning with "Mustang horse", and then adding all those listed under the "Aircraft" and "Land transportation" sections of the "Mustang" disambiguation page. For each title in the list, I then used this tool to find and record its view count for the 90-day period ending 2014-07-22. Then I assembled all the information into the table shown below. Counts for two pairs of very closely-related articles are combined. Articles with less than 5,000 views are excluded.
Pageviews of Mustang-related articles, counted during the 90-day period ending 2014-07-22
Article title Views Share Notes
 Ford Mustang
 Shelby Mustang		 408,515 63.5%  Combined total for both articles
 North American P-51 Mustang
 North American F-82 Twin Mustang		 167,031 26.0%  Combined total for both articles
 Mustang horse 44,620 6.94%
 Cessna Citation Mustang 23,026 3.58%
   Total 643,192 100%  Table excludes topics with <5,000 views
The pageview data above demonstrate that the sports car is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC with respect to usage. It seems to me that leaving the disambiguation page at the base title—where it has been for more than ten years—is a reasonable compromise to accommodate those who feel strongly that the horse is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC with respect to long-term significance. — Jaydiem (talk) 02:09, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Recentism at its most annoying, but statistics are a legitimate factor to consider. I think this proposal was to avoid the (horse) disambiguation argument. I really have gotten to the point where I DGAF as to WP:PRIMARY, I just wish fervently for this article to be left alone. Montanabw(talk) 04:04, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support per User:SamBlob and User:Necrothesp. I'm not American and know about the horse, the car and the plane only from general knowledge, but the horse 1) came first and is the eponym of all others and 2) is the only unqualified "mustang": even the hardest car fans and aviation fans don't expect to get to their item of interest by just typing "mustang", do they? We already have the established avatar, titanic, corvette and minesweeper praxis ((C) Victor falk) whereby we name the articles according to long-term significance, not merely page views (as the WP:AT stipulates). No such user (talk) 10:43, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support this alternative proposal, and let's tweak the guidelines to give the cultural significance a little more prominence. It's worth noting that those opposed to this alternative are generally quoting rules, while those supporting it are generally talking instead of reader experience. Reader experience, not conformity to any rule, is our bottom line, and that is policy. Andrewa (talk) 21:01, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
  • On the contrary! The whole point of WP's editing policies and guidelines is to create the best possible reader experience. If reader experience is the main criterion, then empirical proof of what the vast majority of our readers are or aren't seeking information about is of paramount importance. Forcing a topic with a paltry 7% viewshare to a basename position merely because its use of the base term has existed for a longer time than the other, far-more-sought-after uses is manifestly backward, and places abstract suppositions about semantics above reader experience as a priority. The bottom line is that when it's clear what readers want, we should give it to them. The disambiguation page at "Mustang" has served its purpose well for over ten years, and should be left where it is. — Jaydiem (talk) 22:02, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Glad you agree with me about reader experience, but disagree with your logic on several points. Empirical proof is a contradiction of terms, good rhetoric perhaps but not a good start. Forcing a topic... etc. is a straw man, I'm not arguing what you suggest at all. The question is, are these statistics a good indicator of what will give the best reader experience overall? In this case, they don't seem to be. There could be many reasons for this. Andrewa (talk) 01:48, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Indeed; I already listed quite a few of them, and some of them are borne out by later comments (e.g. on non-American perception). The Google test dismally fails in this case.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:13, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
  • @Andrewa: What you wrote above is quite baffling. "Empirical proof" is a contradiction in terms? Really? It's impossible for proof of something to be based on empirical evidence? Gee, guess we better warn the scientists. And moving the "Mustang horse" topic to the base title of "Mustang" is not a "straw man", it's precisely what the alternative proposal explicitly states. The bottom line is, the pageview statistics make it very plain that the sports-car articles are being viewed at least nine times as often as the horse article. If you have a plausible interpretation of that fact other than that our readers are nine times more interested in reading about the cars than the horse, I'd love to know what that is. — Jaydiem (talk) 19:42, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
(Replying to User:Jaydiem 19:42, 27 July 2014 and rebelling against the bullet points, please all see WP:THREAD)
I'm fairly confident that the reason you find it baffling is that you argue in such a careless manner (or perhaps just in such a style but it's much the same thing). Of course it's possible to base valid arguments on emperical evidence. That's just another straw man, it's not what I said at all.
moving the "Mustang horse" topic to the base title of "Mustang" is not a "straw man"... No, and again nobody said it was. That is itself another straw man. You are replying to an argument that you yourself made up, not the one that was made in the post to which you are replying. That's no reply at all, is it? Again, perhaps good rhetoric, but not logical.
A plausible interpretation has been made before, many times, in this discussion and others. That's why our guideline doesn't make page stats the ultimate criterion of primary meaning. If you want to change that, propose the change on the appropriate forum. Otherwise, get over it. Andrewa (talk) 21:02, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
  • User:Jaydiem makes a compelling argument, but for me it ultimately fails at the end. How does having all readers searching for "Mustang" landing on the dab page serve them better than having them land on the article about the horse? I have favored making Corvette a dab page in the past, following similar reasoning. But now I think having a use, the traditional use, at the base name, is better than having a dab page there. Same with this case. --В²C ☎ 14:08, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
  • @Born2cycle: Thanks for the hat-tip. I understand the point you're making here, which is basically that if the title "Mustang" goes directly to a topic page, rather than to a disambiguation page, then at least some of our readers get where they want to go without any further clicks. That's not unreasonable, but consider: if that's the motivation, wouldn't it make more sense to put the most-often-sought topic at the base title, rather than the sought-only-7%-of-the-time topic? In other words, wouldn't we put the sports car at "Mustang" and leave a hatnote to the horse article? That is one of the only two courses of action that make sense, the other one being to leave the disambiguation page at "Mustang" as a compromise position in light of the primary topics by usage and by long-term significance arguably being different. — Jaydiem (talk) 19:52, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
  • @Jaydiem: Likewise! I strongly opposed the addition of "long-term significance" to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and I'll support its removal today. I think it creates a lot of drama at great cost, without improving the reader experience one iota. However, I recognize consensus favors it, at least for now. It's favored in the general case, manifested in the wording at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and in specific cases, like the strong opposition to putting the car at the base name here. Given that reality, that the car article cannot be at the base name, I think readers are better served with the horse article at the base name, than the dab page, especially if keeping the dab page means leaving this article at its misleading current title. I don't think a compromise among disparate philosophies is necessarily how we arrive at decisions that serve the readers the best. Such a compromise is likely to be worse than going with either favored approach. In other words, I think leaving the dab page at the base name is the fourth best option - having either the car, the horse or even the plane at the base name would be better. --В²C ☎ 00:15, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
  • @Born2cycle: OK, tell you what. Although it's not my most-preferred choice, I can frame an argument in favor of the alternative proposal that I could live with. That argument goes basically like this: Although it's true that the "Mustang" horse topic is not as frequently sought as the "Mustang" car or aircraft topics, the horse topic is still current (as opposed to being an obsolete use of the word), and no one disagrees that the latter usages are derivative semantically from the horse topic. Importantly, there's more: the thorny issue of what exactly to title the horse article if it's not at the base title "Mustang". The current title "Mustang horse" has been around for a while, but many who see it for the first time find it awkward and redundant; yet "Mustang (horse)" also has its problems, as the lengthy discussions above show. There is significant benefit to solving the problem of what to title the horse article. Though the horse is clearly not the primary topic by usage, it has a strong case for being the primary topic by long-term significance; if this is combined with the additional benefit of finding a clear and straightforward title for the horse topic, the overall benefit of moving the horse topic to the base name "Mustang", while not a perfect solution, is the most beneficial of several imperfect options. Therefore the alternative proposal should be implemented.
⋮
I will support this resolution if, when the horse article is moved to the base title "Mustang", it begins with the following hatnote:
This article is about the American feral horse.
For the eponymous sports car, see Ford Mustang and Shelby Mustang.
For the eponymous WWII military aircraft, see P-51 Mustang and F-82 Twin Mustang.
For other uses of "Mustang", see Mustang (disambiguation).
If that works for you, it works for me. — Jaydiem (talk) 03:01, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I oppose this solution. It looks pretty much like putting the disambig page at the top of the horse article, which doesn't exactly help readers of that article either. Disambiguation pages are good, we've always used them in cases with no clear primary topic, and I see no reason to start changing that policy now.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:05, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
  • @Amakuru: Keeping the disambiguation page at the base title "Mustang" is my preferred solution as well. However, there appears to be a substantial number of editors who, rightly or wrongly, feel that not just WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, but just the long-term significance component of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC alone, trumps a disambiguation page. I'm just trying to be flexible, within reason, in the interest of seeking a consensus solution. In this special case, finding a non-awkward name for the horse article could be viewed as providing just enough extra mojo to justify displacing the disambiguation page. — Jaydiem (talk) 17:37, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
  • @Born2cycle: you've said one good thing and one questionable thing in your comment above. I agree that "long term significance" is a bad selector for primary topic. It is subjective, difficult to bear out through reliable sources, and also crystal ballish in the sense of assuming that because something was more significant 100 years ago it will be more significant 100 years hence. However, you then go on to say that we should almost arbitrarily assign something to the primary topic, which is almost what "long term significance" seemed to be aimed at doing in the first place, i.e. reducing the number of dab pages. I completely disagree with that. Disambiguation pages (particularly those which group the most popular topics at the top) are good, both for readers, who get more information in making their choices than a mere hatnote can ever provide, and they are also good for us editors because we don't need to sit there making value judgements about what is more significant than what else. So neither the horse nor the car should be primary topic, and that's the best thing for the 'pedia.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:56, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
  • @Amakuru: I understand your perspective, and I do not strongly disagree. It was my view until fairly recently. But I just don't think that dab pages should be at plain base names, period. In my view, while putting the most likely to be sought article for a given title at the base name is ideal, putting any reasonable use of the name at the base name is preferable to having everyone land on a dab page. For example, I think the planet or element should be at Mercury, not the dab page. In other words, if there were no other uses but one, then that one would have the base name as its title. So why does one have to meet the primary topic criteria to have the title? I think the primary topic criteria is useful for deciding which of the uses should be at the base name, but I don't see the point in not putting any uses of the name at the base name just because none meet the criteria. I say, loosen the criteria until one meets it.

    Anyway, regarding your objection to User:Jaydiem's hatnote suggestion, that's hardly "like putting the disambig page at the top of the horse article". The dab page is almost two pages long; this hatnote would be much smaller. That's so normal we even have a template for it:

I have no objection to doing that. It's a far cry from placing the entire dab page in the hatnote. --В²C ☎ 20:07, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
I support this solution. I apologize if this statement is redundant. Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 00:45, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - If it wasn't for the Horse what would the Ford car be named or the plane for that matter ? Mlpearc (open channel) 20:05, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
  • @Cuchullain: As it was you who closed the previous RM of last December, I'd like to invite you now to close this lengthy debate on the new RM and alternative proposal, which seems to have run its course. Godspeed, sir! — Jaydiem (talk) 03:21, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Some might consider a previous closer to be WP:INVOLVED. They might be perceived as biased to their previous close.
Some might also consider it improper for a partisan participant to invite a specific closer. There are many closers, all with their own style, except any without style, and a participant might skilfully invite a closer with a style matching their own bias. Some of the hyper-sceptical might think you are trying to preclude the invitee from closing.
If you think this RM has been open too long, consider closing other RMs in the backlog. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:32, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I only thought Cuchullain would be the natural choice since he's dealt with this same issue before. I assure you I have no ulterior motives. If you feel strongly that my invitation is inappropriate, please accept my apologies, and I won't be offended if you erase it. — Jaydiem (talk) 05:59, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Cuchullain is an excellent closer, and I imagine absolutely no ulterior motives. However, its better to not invite specific closers, and better for different closers to close repeated RMs. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:12, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - This proposal is the best of the available compromises, both from the perspective of natural usage, as well as common sense. It also has the advantage of avoiding the arguably redundant parenthetical disambiguator and the unnatural, inaccurate and unfortunate "Mustang horse" construction. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:53, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
    Which is all lovely, if you're just considering what happens to this article, about the horse. But that's not the issue here, the issue is WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and nobody in any of the support votes above has given a clear and convincing reason why this article about the horse is primary over the car, with respect to either long term significance or common usage. Long term significance is not the same things as "came first and the other thing was named after it", you need clear evidence that the horse will be an enduring primary topic, while the car is just some flash in the pan that will be gone in 50 years. I doubt that's the case.  — Amakuru (talk) 07:56, 29 July 2014 (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.

Inaccuracy in lede

Latest comment: 9 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion

The lede contains the following misrepresentation:

In 1971, the United States Congress recognized Mustangs as "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West, which continue to contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people." This implies the the Congress specifically recognized Mustangs. I tried to fix it but was reverted.

The actual quote from the references doesn't imply that Congress recognized Mustangs and doesn't use the word "Mustangs" at all. It says "That Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within theNation and enrich the lives of the American people; and that these horses and burros are fast disappearing from the American scene."

I don't think it's right to misrepresent a quote like that. It makes it sound like Congress said something specifically about Mustangs when they didn't. Parabolooidal (talk) 20:16, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

...and what, exactly, is a mustang if it is not a "wild, free-roaming horse"? Sincerely, SamBlob (talk) 23:21, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
In 1971 there was no DNA testing, so Congress used a broader term- since when are politicians scientists? There may be some free-roaming bands of horses in the west that aren't Mustangs, but I've not heard of any.
I don't know. There's no definition of a "mustang" in the article. Just a lot of assumptions. Are there DNA findings, like there are for some species of animals? Where is a reliable source for "mustang". Most of the articles given as sources don't even mention "mustangs". Even Article: When Is "Wild" Actually "Feral"? from the American Museum of Natural History (used as a source) doesn't agree with this article: "When animals escaped from an expedition north from Mexico led by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in 1543—accounts of the exact date and number of horses vary—they formed the basis of the continent's first feral horse population. These became known as “mustangs,” from the Spanish word “mesteño,” meaning “wild.” Not exactly what the wikipedia article says. And certainly not the basis for using the capital "Mustang" as if it's an actual breed. So you mean "mustang" is just another word for "feral horses" that could be a mixture of breeds that escaped into the wild? Parabolooidal (talk) 23:41, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
DNA testing exists. And yes, there were multiple breeds involved in some areas, but that does not mean there is not a distinct "breed" - many have been bred in isolated "pure" gene pools for more generations than a lot of the pedigreed Warmblood "breeds" of today. (In horse -raising, the definition of a "breed" is very fuzzy and in some dispute) I am not sure if every band out there has been tested, but the Pryors and the Kigers have. The "there is no definition" statement is a red herring. "Breeds" as we define them today really didn't have studbooks and such until around the 18th century. There were some clear-cut breed types, and a few had written pedigrees, but the Colonial Spanish Horses were not animals with a "pure" pedigree or studbook as we would use today. Montanabw(talk) 07:22, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Question: Are there sources that show that "mustang" was reliably capitalized as "Mustang" before it was used as a car brand or other commercial uses? This articles seems to tiptoe around the whole issue by saying "feral horses = mustangs", and never actually says what a mustang is in a scientific sense, rather than just a pop culture word for "feral horse". Parabolooidal (talk) 23:53, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
    • By consensus, that capitalization discussion has been put on the back burner until everything else here settles out. As for the rest, it's a little tough to organize the research for a GA push when we are constantly being sidetracked by stupid dramas about parenthetical disambiguation.  :-P But the Mustang is one type of feral horse - there are many others, see feral horse. Montanabw(talk) 07:22, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Inaccuracy in lede, Part Two

Latest comment: 9 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

The wikipedia article Horse Protection Act of 1970 doesn't even mention "mustangs". So how can the lede of this article claim that Congress specifically covered "Mustangs" in that act? Parabolooidal (talk) 00:02, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

This isn't even worth my time answering. The Horse Protection Act was about soring Tennessee Walking Horses and has nothing to do with free-roaming horses. Totally different statute. Montanabw(talk) 07:07, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Disambiguation hatnote

Latest comment: 9 years ago34 comments9 people in discussion

It was discussed a little in the RM and of those who commented I think everyone agreed that it would be best to have a pretty detailed hatnote, with links to several articles, in addition to the standard dab page link. In fact, I just copied B2C's suggestion into the article, but have been reverted (diff) so may as well take it here to discussion. Any thoughts? Jenks24 (talk) 13:37, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

  • LOL. I just saw the minimal About and expanded to what I had proposed in the discussion above, before I realized there was this disagreement about it. But obviously I agree with you. We have a standard template that supports doing this. Four is "too many"? Why? Who or what is harmed by this? --В²C ☎ 16:47, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
I would add that this article is now a special case. The special case is when the article at the base name is not the article most likely to be sought by that name. In such a case, we should be sure to list the more likely to be sought uses in the hatnote. I think it's also useful to know that there are two vehicles and two aircraft commonly known as "Mustang", and unharmful to list all of them in the hatnote. --В²C ☎ 16:52, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

  • Gentlemen (Jenks & B2C): I would like to reiterate my recommendation for the format of the hatnote that I initially presented late in the RM debate, which was as follows:
This article is about the American feral horse.
For the eponymous sports car, see Ford Mustang and Shelby Mustang.
For the eponymous WWII military aircraft, see P-51 Mustang and F-82 Twin Mustang.
For other uses of "Mustang", see Mustang (disambiguation).
The separation of the four cases—(1) the horse; (2) the car; (3) the aircraft; (4) all else—each onto a separate line is intended to improve ease of readability, as compared with mashing all four cases into a single run-on paragraph. The use of the shortened titles "P-51 Mustang" and "F-82 Twin Mustang" (without the lengthy and superfluous descriptor "North American") is also deliberate for the sake of readability. The inclusion of the descriptor "WWII" adds very useful additional context helpful in interpreting "military aircraft" in the space of a mere four characters. The application of "eponymous" explicitly to cases 2 and 3 is also deliberate, as is the "other uses of 'Mustang'" rather than the bare-bones "other uses". In every way, this version of the hatnote is optimized for reader ease-of-use. And this is particularly important here, as (please remember) the car topics are sought nine times as often as the horse topic, and the aircraft topics about four times as often. This hatnote is going to be used by an unusually large number of readers, so I feel it's exceptionally important that we engineer it to be as optimally user-friendly as possible. — Jaydiem (talk) 19:13, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Please strike "Gentlemen." It sounds quite civil, but it excludes half the population at large (if not half the population of WP editors). Unintentional, I know, but these little things can matter. Thanks. Dohn joe (talk) 19:57, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
  • @Dohn joe: I totally understand what you're saying here; it's just that in this case—as might be discerned from the indentation level I applied to my comment—I was addressing Jenks24 and Born2cycle specifically, not all of Wikidom. In the latter case I would've used either "Ladies and gentlemen", "Gentlefolk", "Fellow editors", or some other gender-neutral term of address. (I am, of course, assuming that the two editors addressed self-identify as male; I hope they will correct me if I'm wrong!) — Jaydiem (talk) 00:16, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
  • OK, I added an inline clarification as to whom I was addressing, just to be sure. — Jaydiem (talk) 00:23, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

  • Yes, hatnote needed. If you type "Mustang" or "mustang" into Google, the only horse article that comes up is "Mustang horse" (the wikipedia article) and even Ford Mustang comes up before Mustang horse. Only a few links to horse articles come up in the first 10 pages of Google. Parabolooidal (talk) 19:18, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I hadn't seen the long page move dispute and am willing to retract most of my objections. There is one exception and one quibble however. I think that the Twin Mustang is both a partial match and not well enough known to merit its inclusion. Also, WWII should be expanded to World War II and unlinked. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:40, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Per the apparent consensus above with a smattering of Bold guessing/tweaking, I modified the hatnote to be the following:
This article is about the American feral horse.
For the eponymous sports cars, see Ford Mustang and Shelby Mustang.
For the eponymous World War II military aircraft, see P-51 Mustang.
For other uses of "Mustang", see Mustang (disambiguation).
I went mostly with User:Jaydiem's suggestion, incorporated User:Clarityfiend's tweaks, including omitting the Twin, and also pluralized cars. I'm personally ambivalent about all these relatively minor tweaks so am just trying to read and guess consensus as objectively as I can. --В²C ☎ 23:20, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't want to make a big hairy deal out of the minutia of the hatnote, buuuut.... I don't think the base Ford Mustang and the souped-up "Shelby" version of the same car are sufficiently different to be referred to as if they were unrelated to each other ("cars") rather than two flavors of the same candy ("car"). I would also like to point out that according to the pageview statistics I gathered, the F-82 Twin Mustang article counted separately gets nearly as many pageviews as the horse article does (79.2% as much, to be exact); therefore I think it deserves to be mentioned alongside the P-51. — Jaydiem (talk) 00:35, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Seeing as how Jaydiem proposed the longer hatnote but was the person who inserted the smaller one in the article, I restored his version (I think, so many changes). The multi-line one is poor formatting and eats the lead. Frankly, I'd just prefer the "otheruses" tag, but I'm not going to fight about it. JMO. Montanabw(talk) 05:23, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I think the hatnote should be a single paragraph. Currently, I see two. I don't how to fix it. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:40, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Neither do I, but if I figure it out, I will. Montanabw(talk) 07:11, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Again, I personally don't care which version of the hatnote we use, as long as it provides links to at least Ford Mustang, P-51 Mustang and the dab page. However, I do care that we decide which version to use through consensus. So please work out differences here.

    That said, does anyone besides Jaydiem support the long multi-line format vs the short/compact one? --В²C ☎ 17:47, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

  • Yes. I'll support most anything shorter, as a matter of fact does the Shelby link really need to be included ? Mlpearc (open channel) 18:08, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
  • This would be my choice:
This article is about the American feral horse.
For the eponymous sport car, see Ford Mustang.
For the eponymous military aircraft, see P-51 Mustang.
For other uses of "Mustang", see Mustang (disambiguation).
Mlpearc (open channel) 18:17, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
  • You prefer that to current single compact line?
This page is about the horse. For the cars, see Ford Mustang and Shelby Mustang. For the World War II aircraft, see P-51 Mustang. For additional aircraft, motorcycles, sports teams and other uses, see Mustang/Archive 2 (disambiguation).
--В²C ☎ 18:43, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
  • The single-line version quoted by B2C above was inserted recently by Montanabw. I would like to think that Montana did it as a joke, but alas, I can't be sure… — Jaydiem (talk) 19:12, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Gentle fellow editors: Please see below a supplemental table of pageview data that I originally collected a week ago in connection with the RM. The table shows all "Mustang"-related articles with at least 5,000 views during the 90-day sampling period. Note that each article's views are counted separately (in contrast to the original table, in which the counts for the two closely-related pairs were combined.)
Pageviews of Mustang-related articles, counted during the 90-day period ending 2014-07-22
Article title Views Relative share Notes
 Ford Mustang 265,270 5.945  Separate count for this article only
 Shelby Mustang 143,245 3.210  Separate count for this article only
 North American P-51 Mustang 131,678 2.951  Separate count for this article only
 Mustang horse 44,620 –1.00–  Baseline for comparison
 North American F-82 Twin Mustang 35,353 0.792  Separate count for this article only
 Mustang Ranch 19,223 0.431  Brothel in Nevada
Any separate article that gets more views than the article at the base title (which is now the horse article) should certainly be included in the disambiguation hatnote; and the F-82 article is very close behind the horse article (about 80%) and, being very closely related to the P-51 article, I feel it ought to be included as well. The "Mustang Ranch" article is included in the table for perspective.
⋮
I still feel that the each-case-on-its-own-line format is easier for readers to interpret, provided that all four alternative articles are going to be included. However, upon reflection, I would be willing to accept the following single-paragraph rendition…
This page is about the American feral horse. For the sports car, see Ford Mustang. For the military aircraft, see P-51 Mustang. For other uses, see Mustang/Archive 2 (disambiguation).
…on the condition that the "Ford Mustang" article is modified to offer more prominent internal linkage to either the "Shelby Mustang" article or the "Ford Mustang variants" article. — Jaydiem (talk) 19:15, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
  • If anyone's uncomfortable with using the term "sports car" here, I'd be fine with "automobile" instead. — Jaydiem (talk) 19:22, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
Why can't the Ford Mustang page have a hatnote to the Shelby ? Automobile does sound more encyclopedic. Mlpearc (open channel) 20:09, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
I changed "cars" to "automobile". I also removed "eponymous" because that's unnecessary. But while the Ford Mustang page can of course have a hatnote to the Shelby, I resist removing that link because the Shelby article itself generates so many views. --В²C ☎ 21:01, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

This is what we have right now:

This page is about the horse. For the automobile, see Ford Mustang and Shelby Mustang. For the World War II aircraft, see P-51 Mustang. For additional aircraft, motorcycles, sports teams and other uses, see Mustang/Archive 2 (disambiguation).

Notes:

  1. One compact line because that seems to be preferred or at least accepted by consensus here. It's also the standard style on Wikipedia.
  2. Just "the horse" rather than "American feral horse" because "American feral" is unnecessary and is clarified just below anyway.
  3. "Eponymous" removed - unnecessary
  4. "the automobile" rather than "car" or "cars" - more encyclopedic
  5. Shelby Mustang link included because it gets so many views.
  6. P-51 Mustang referred to as "World War II aircraft" to distinguish from other "mustang"-named aircraft that are not from WWII
  7. "additional aircraft, motorcycles, sports teams and other uses" rather than just "other uses" to give an idea of what those other uses might be. Why not? This was originally introduced by Montanabw, I believe.

--В²C ☎ 21:12, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

This is good, however, your rational for excluding "American feral" would also be true for "World War II", for a shorter version if needed. Mlpearc (open channel) 21:47, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
The rationale for including World War II does not apply to "American feral". There are no other horses named "Mustang", so specifying "American feral" is superfluous. However, there are other aircraft named "Mustang", but none from the WWII era. So specifying that clarifies to which aircraft name Mustang we're referring. --В²C ☎ 00:13, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
I added "the horse" , which should be simple enough. As for the rest, you can hash out the specifics, but I like having it as compact as possible. If I were to vote, it wold be for merely the "other uses" template, but I'm also fine with the general structure in there as of now. What I didn't like was so many lines that it looked like a dab page itself. ;-) Carry on. Montanabw(talk) 05:19, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm going to quote each of B2C's seven "Notes" below, more-or-less separately, and respond to each.

1.   One compact line because that seems to be preferred or at least accepted by consensus here. It's also the standard style on Wikipedia.

If we're trying to favor shorter-and-more-concise over longer-and-more-detailed, then yes, I agree that the single-paragraph style is preferable.

2.   Just "the horse" rather than "American feral horse" because "American feral" is unnecessary and is clarified just below anyway.

7.   "additional aircraft, motorcycles, sports teams and other uses" rather than just "other uses" to give an idea of what those other uses might be. Why not?

Now let me get this straight. Two words to concisely describe the subject of the primary topic article, at the base title, more specifically than merely by the single word "horse", is too unnecessary and superfluous to be included… but a list of conceivable categories of other things that might use the name "Mustang" in some way is so much more helpful than the usual "other uses" that we can't think of a reason not to include it, despite its ungainly length and awkward, unencyclopedic appearance?—Think about that for a minute, folks, and ask yourself whether it truly makes any sense.

3.   "Eponymous" removed - unnecessary

4.   "the automobile" rather than "car" or "cars" - more encyclopedic

Glad we agree on these.  

5.   Shelby Mustang link included because it gets so many views.

I previously argued in favor of this, but as I come to understand more about the relationship of the "Shelby Mustang" topic (and other articles about particular versions or variations of the Ford Mustang) to the "Ford Mustang" topic, the more inclined I am to change my mind. I'll examine this question more closely soon.

6.   P-51 Mustang referred to as "World War II aircraft" to distinguish from other "mustang"-named aircraft that are not from WWII

The previous descriptor, "military aircraft", disambiguated the P-51 more succinctly and concisely than "World War II aircraft" does, especially in light of the fact that the P-51 and F-82 were used in other armed conflicts than just WWII (e.g., the Korean War).
— Jaydiem (talk) 06:23, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Okay, per the above, I've now updated the hatnote to be this:

This page is about the horse. For the automobile, see Ford Mustang and Shelby Mustang. For the military aircraft, see P-51 Mustang. For other uses, see Mustang/Archive 2 (disambiguation).

Notes:

  1. One compact line because that seems to be preferred or at least accepted by consensus here. It's also the standard style on Wikipedia.
  2. Just "the horse" rather than "American feral horse" because "American feral" is unnecessary and is clarified just below anyway.
  3. "Eponymous" removed - unnecessary
  4. "the automobile" rather than "car" or "cars" - more encyclopedic
  5. Shelby Mustang link included because it gets so many views, even though it's a variant of the Ford Mustang - it's a popular and likely-to-be-sought as "Mustang" article.
  6. P-51 Mustang referred to as "military aircraft" to distinguish from other "mustang"-named aircraft that are all non-military (and military is more concise than "World War II")
  7. replaced lengthy summary of (actual, not "conceivable", BTW) other uses with standard "other uses" wording.

--В²C ☎ 17:13, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

At this point, I DGAF about which other articles are on the list so long as it is as concise as can be agreed to here. I'm good with it now. Montanabw(talk) 23:54, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
Agree, I support this final version. I'm outta here. Cheers Mlpearc (open channel) 23:58, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
Like the others I don't feel too strongly about this, but this most recent version is fine with me. Jenks24 (talk) 11:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
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