Talk:Heloise (disambiguation)

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Untitled

Yikes! There are two Heloises of note. The article deals mostly with the eleventh-century correspondent. I just added a paragraph about the twentieth-century columnist/author. Normally, confusing the two would be difficult, but seeing the 11th-century Heloise appear as a 1951 birth is a bit disconcerting. Any thoughts on how we could split this into two articles, and what they might be called? Ventura 23:12, 2004 Oct 6 (UTC)

Twelfth century (1100 = 12th c.) StarTigerJLN (talk) 01:03, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation, response

Note -- the other Heloise of note is in the disambiguation page. It's a distinct article already.

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was not moved. --BDD (talk) 16:36, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Heloise → Heloise (disambiguation) – Treat Héloïse d'Argenteuil as the primary meaning. She is an important and and well-known historical figure (look at the list of cultural references) even if for somewhat off-beat reasons, the other people seem rather obscure. PatGallacher (talk) 20:11, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose – more primary topic claiming nonsense. What would Heloise suggest? Take a hint... Dicklyon (talk) 01:26, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support. The nun is the encyclopedic meaning of "Heloise", the only one given in Britannica. She gets eight times more page views than the advise columnist, compare here and here. Warrior of Zen (talk) 04:51, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

  Reply Treating an advice columnist who I doubt if many people outside the US will have heard of as being of comparable importance to this important historical figure would be a clear example of recentism and US-centric systemic bias, see WP:RECENTISM and WP:BIAS. PatGallacher (talk) 12:15, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

User:Warrior of Zen's comment struck through as Sockpuppet, but also incorrect. Britannica does indeed have Héloïse (not Heloise) on the article, but Britannia search query on Heloise shows Héloïse (French nun). The mechanics of Britannicas dab system are not directly comparable to wikimedia mechanics, and Britannica are using both full diacritics and parenthetical to help readers find, so Britannica hardly supports the proposal. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:11, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

• I find it problematic to suggest that a topic may be unambiguous because "many people outside the US" will not have heard of it, in light of the fact that the U.S. is a country of 300,000,000 people, and represents a substantial proportion of the users of English-language Wikipedia. bd2412 T 12:49, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose, the usage of the abbess redirect here do not outpace the columnist, which IMO is the more relevant usage stat here. We are also not biased toward non-US topics or non-recent topics, so leaving neither at the base name would be the right result. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:57, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

  Reply If you consult the page hit counter [1] you will see that the article itself at Héloïse d'Argenteuil has 1979 hits in July 2013, considerably more than the mere 446 for Heloise (columnist). I also quote WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: "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." which I suggest carries some weight in this case. PatGallacher (talk) 20:50, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

  It makes no sense to compare a redirect like Heloise_(abbess) to an article title like Heloise (columnist). JHunter is comparing apples to oranges. Warrior of Zen (talk) 23:26, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

  Warrior of Ze, neither comparison is perfect, but that doesn't mean that they make "no sense". There are many articles that get more hits than either of these, but they are also not the primary topic for "Heloise", because they are not topics sought be readers entering "Heloise" in the search box. In the absence of an apples-to-apples comparison, checking the hits on the redirect that readers reaching this page would use may be more accurate. And in the absence of a clear primary (since neither measure is fully satisfactory), the disambiguation page is a better solution than a primary topic redirect. Another option would be to reformat the base name page as an article about the given name "Heloise" and move the disambiguation page to Heloise (disambiguation). -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:11, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose: two high-use senses of the word "Heloise", so the dab page is best at the base name. Also Oppos JHJ's suggestion that the given name should be the primary topic: no evidence that people are overwhelmingly more likely to want to know about the etymology, use, etc of the name, rather than the abbess or columnist, so we should leave the dab page at the base name and consider creating Heloise (name) if an article on the name is created. PamD 16:23, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support. The problem I see with the current disambiguation of this name is Héloïse d'Argenteuil. If I saw that name out of context, I would think it did NOT mean Abelard's Heloise, because I would assume that the d'Argenteuil was added to distinguish this Heloise from the famous one commonly known as a mononym. Not only are French diacriticals used in that article title, which doesn't strike me as "most common" in English, but I doubt many people would recognize the d'Argenteuil. I cheerfully confess that I did not, and I'm far from the least humanities-educated person who might be looking up something in Wikipedia. Evidently the article title Héloïse d'Argenteuil is so esoteric we even use a redirect title—Heloise (abbess)—on the dab page, contrary to usual practice. This is the best case I've seen where historical, long-term, encyclopedic significance makes sense as a guideline, particularly in conjunction with the principles of globalism and "most common" usage in naming, since adding awkward disambiguators to the Heloise-most-commonly-known-as-the-monoym is pedantic obfuscation. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:33, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

  We use the matching redirect Heloise (abbess) on the disambiguation page for the title "Heloise" in accordance with the usual practice (WP:DABREDIR), not contrary to it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:59, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

  If Héloïse d'Argenteuil is the correct article title, then why shouldn't the dab entry be "Héloïse d'Argenteuil, usually known in English as Heloise, abbess and lover of Abelard"? Using the redirect in the dab on the contrary indicates that her name will be more familiar in English as Heloise than Héloïse, and that users who type in "Heloise" are quite likely looking for the figure we've chosen to frenchly call Héloïse d'Argenteuil—which was my point about her current article title, and why I support the move proposal. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:46, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

  A reader reaching the "Heloise" disambiguation page is looking for a topic they associate with the title "Heloise". If the topic is titled something else but has a redirect of "Heloise (qualifier)", the usual practice is to use the redirect that matches the ambiguous title. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:58, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

  Precisely: the user is likely to type in "Heloise", not "Héloïse", let alone "Héloïse d'Argenteuil". That supports one premise of the move request, which is that "Heloise" is far more common in reference to the lover of Abelard than is the current article title "Héloïse d'Argenteuil". The advice columnist has a ready disambiguator as (columnist). Anyone looking up that Heloise will know she's a columnist; the disambiguator is actively useful, because it's a word inevitably found or implied in close proximity with the name in any likely context. But the most common and well-established and global use of "Heloise" as a monoym is the Heloise associated with Abelard. If she were only one of the thousands of abbesses who ever lived, she would not be notable, and many contexts in which readers encounter her name will not identify her as an abbess. A disambiguator shouldn't require prior knowledge on the reader's part; its purpose is to make it immediately evident that it's the one you're looking for. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:49, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

  I wanted to correct the claim that it was contrary to usual practice. I disagree with its presence here supporting the premise of the move request. Its presence here supports the conclusion that "Heloise" is ambiguous, but not that the abbess is the primary meaning. That topic B (e.g., a columnist) is also not primary does not indicate that topic A (e.g., an abbess) is primary. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:16, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

  I think there's a legitimate argument to make (whether it's ultimately accepted or not) that (a) the Heloise of Abelard meets the standard of primary topic based on long-term educational significance, and that (b) the disambiguators used supposedly to direct readers to Abelard's Heloise in fact don't help readers who arrive without knowledge, so they serve no purpose. The columnist is readily distinguished by being called a columnist. Since the other most (but less) likely target is Heloise (columnist), and other Heloises have surnames, the Heloise most commonly known by the mononym requires no disambiguation herself. Her article just needs an "other people" hatnote pointing to the dab. Cynwolfe (talk) 18:32, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

  There's a fundamental misunderstanding there. The "disambiguators" (or disambiguation tags, or qualifiers) do not exists to direct readers anywhere. Disambiguation tags or qualifiers exist because of the technical limitation that keeps two articles from having exactly the same title. Wikipedia naming conventions ask & answer "Here's a topic, what title should it have?" If that title is ambiguous, disambiguation guidelines ask & answer "for this title, is one of the topics primary?" For the non-primary topics, the conventions and guidelines combine to ask & answer "For the topic that we'd like to title X but can't because it's not primary for X, how should we qualify (or disambiguate) the title?" The qualifier is not there to direct readers. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:49, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

  I would compare George Washington, which has a hatnote like the one I propose for the article on Abelard's Heloise. We don't title the article George Washington of Mount Vernon or George Washington (president) even though George Washington University (21343 visits in May 2013) and George Washington Carver (61,480 visits) are also well-trafficked. George Washington (347,532 visits) receives about five to six times as many visits as George Washington Carver—a ratio that in other PT discussions I've seen hasn't been regarded as overwhelming. By the same rationale, Abelard's Heloise is most commonly known in English simply as Heloise, while other people by that name can be disambiguated in obvious, useful ways, as the columnist or by a surname, as GW Carver is readily distinguished from GW himself, or the U distinguished GWU. For some reason, we've given Heloise's article an obscure, foreign-language title (Héloïse d'Argenteuil) that nobody would be typing in, and likewise created a redirect that requires a user to know she was an abbess, when the simplest, most reader-friendly course is to treat Abelard's Heloise as the primary topic for the mononym, and disambiguate all the other uses. The style guidelines are supposed to serve the communicative goals of the encyclopedia; the content is not supposed to exist for the sake of exemplifying MOS. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:32, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

  Some titles have primary topics. Some titles don't have a primary topic. It would be just as simple to treat the columnist as the primary topic and disambiguate all other uses. Since the criteria for selecting a primary topic don't clearly indicate either, thought, it would be just as simple to have the disambiguation page at the base name and disambiguate all uses. It sounds like you also have an issue with the title selected for Abelard's Heloise; that discussion on what to better title the article should take place at Talk:Héloïse d'Argenteuil, and/or you could boldly create an additional redirect such as Abelard's Heloise or Heloise (Abelard) or whatever. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:39, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, the move proposal is based on the assumption that Heloise is the PT, because long-term usage has established her as the mononym, and would therefore be preliminary to locating Abelard's Heloise at Heloise. The current title seems to reflect a strenuous effort to call her something other than the most common name in English from the time at least of Chaucer, which is Heloise (the monoym is spelled differently in Middle English, but it's still a mononym), hence the move proposal per long-term educational significance. And I think I've already demonstrated that while the other Heloises are easily distinguished by aspect of notability (columnist) or surname, the ways to disambiguate Abelard's Heloise are all either not-common-knowledge or unnecessarily clumsy. I resort to calling her "Abelard's Heloise" for the very reason that she's just "Heloise", not Heloise the columnist or Heloise Whatever. I'm unclear about why the type of hatnote at George Washington wouldn't work for the woman known for hundreds of years in English simply as Heloise, or how calling Heloise the columnist simply Heloise (columnist) isn't useful, since it's a pen name for the purpose of writing the column. I'm not following why GW's inarguably the PT even though several other well-trafficked articles have GW at the beginning of the article name, while Abelard's Heloise is supposed to be self-evidently not the PT, despite having been known for centuries by the mononym in English, not to mention in other literatures and cultures who have never heard of the American columnist, who has no language links. "The" Heloise is an international figure, not localized to the United States, and that's one reason she's the PT in an encyclopedia meant for everybody who reads English. The columnist is easily identified as such. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:39, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

The distinction is actually pretty simple. The president GW is the only person one would think of for the name George Washington. But with Heloise, different readers are going to think of different people. I'm sorry to be so ignorant of international literary stuff, but to me Heloise refers to author of "Hints from Heloise"; a lot of us over here are that provincial, sadly. Dicklyon (talk) 20:46, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Cynwolfe, yes, the move proposal is proposing to make the abbess the primary topic. We do not have to assume that the proposer is correct just because they made the proposal. As far as I can tell, there is no such consensus. As for your assumption that the current title of the article about the abbess is do to some strain or other, it's irrelevant unless the abbess is the primary topic; "primary topicness" is not an award for having a hard-to-otherwise-title topic. Again, propose a better name and/or qualifier at Talk:Héloïse d'Argenteuil if you do not think the current title is suitable for the encyclopedia. Also, "having [title] at the beginning of the article name" is also not one of the criteria for primary topic. The columnist is easily identified as such (and is). The abbess is easily identified as such (and is). The disambiguation page can link to both of them (and does). -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:05, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not wanting to beat this poor dead equine any longer, but this seems like a perfect example of 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. Heloise, of Abelard fame, has been known by that mononym in English since at least the 14th century; that is the nominator's point about the long list of cultural references (which could easily be quadrupled in length with an afternoon's research). Heloise the columnist is a 20th-century advice columnist, known mainly to Americans. I read Hints from Heloise in my grandpa's newspaper, long before I knew about Abelard losing his, ahem, head for the other Heloise, and WP helpfully labels her article as about Heloise the columnist. The woman known for centuries under the mononym is found under a foreign-language title (Héloïse d'Argenteuil) contrary to both MOS:Ety and MOS:FOREIGN, as well as being contrary to WP:UCN. The purpose of disambiguation is to avoid confusion of titles. But if in this case we follow the usual principles of naming, including the recognition of substantially greater enduring notability and educational value, and if Heloise becomes the title of the article on Abelard's lover, in keeping with centuries of English usage of this mononym, and if we place an "other people" hatnote at the top of the ur-Heloise's article, then all will be less confusing and ambiguous. So it is simple, but only if we call Abelard's lover by her usual, simple, English name and don't muck it up with pedantic obfuscation. And since I find myself repeating a ridiculous phrase I've already used once, I will sign off and give you gents the last word, with a sincere thank-you for the rigorous but extremely courteous discussion. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:33, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

You, too, Cynwolfe! The long-term significance is the best argument for the move, although I personally don't think it's clear-cut enough based on both criteria to !vote that way. -- JHunterJ (talk)

• Mild oppose - Héloïse with the accents already directs to the French nun Héloïse d'Argenteuil so French-typing/linking users are served. But Anglicised as Heloise in English the name is simply ambiguous, and needs disambiguating. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:11, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. I suspect the primary meaning even with the H is Eloise (Paul Ryan song). The navigation between the various related DABs needs work but this isn't a move in the right direction. Andrewa (talk) 10:08, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

SEE CONTINUING DISCUSSION

Disambiguation

I adjusted the disambiguation to work more like Abelard's redirect to Peter Abelard with a reference back to the [[Abelard (disambiguation)]. The disambiguation page for Heloise is important, but had unnecessarily been named "Heloise" to default as a primary article rather than a disambiguation. As other articles about women named Heloise are not solely titled "Heloise" but "Heloise (columnist)" or "Heloise (surname)", there is no need for the Heloise disambiguation page to be the bearer of the redirect from "Heloise". To aid scholarship, I renamed the disambigation page "Heloise (disambiguation)" and redirected Heloise to Héloïse. The diacritics are not universally used in scholarship and a redirect is necessary to "Heloise" if the surname D'Argenteuil is dropped. StarTigerJLN (talk) 01:00, 8 February 2021 (UTC) (Reverted, move request initiated)StarTigerJLN (talk) 01:00, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 7 February 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: There is consensus that Héloïse is the primary topic of "Heloise", so this page should be moved to (disambiguation). Note: this move does not imply any consensus to move Héloïse. (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 22:03, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

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Heloise → Heloise (disambiguation) – Heloise the scholar should have her own page without diacritics. Her disambiguation page should resemble Abelard to Peter Abelard's redirect and reference back to the disambig. She is a prominent 12th century philosopher and writer and the current setup inhibits scholarship. It's somehat disturbing that a prominent thinker's name redirects to a page mostly trying to sort her out from a household hints provider. StarTigerJLN (talk) 21:03, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Note: See Talk:Héloïse#Requested move 7 February 2021 for alternative to redirect HeloiseHéloïse if this request is granted. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 00:40, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support. Per page views, it seems pretty clear that the historical figure is the primary topic. older ≠ wiser 21:18, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

• Clarify -- I support this proposal as presently framed to move the disambiguation and make Heloise a WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT to Héloïse. The move discussion at Talk:Héloïse#Requested move 7 February 2021 was raised separately from this one, although they really should have been clubbed together older ≠ wiser 21:40, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
• Strong oppose WP:FRMOS says that Héloïse stays at Héloïse. If you want to move dab page out and make Heloise a WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT to Héloïse fine. But what's that reason for stripping a French name? She wasn't British or American. In ictu oculi (talk) 21:33, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
• Clarify -- ^ strong opposition above linked to alternate discussion in re: moving Héloïse; see inline support for making Heloise a redirect to Héloïse 2001:48F8:9021:472:F91F:302D:ECC:B731 (talk) 00:56, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

• Initiatior: I myself prefer the primary redirect solution rather than moving Héloïse. However, the diacritics were not standard in medieval French or Latin (as her name was typically rendered), thus increasing the need for a redirect from Heloise without diacritics. StarTigerJLN (talk) 22:43, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support moving Heloise to Heloise (disambiguation) and redirecting Heloise to Héloïse. The medieval figure is clearly the primary topic. No comment on renaming Héloïse; both spellings are currently in wide use in scholarship, as a quick JSTOR search shows. blameless 23:41, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support making the French nun primary topic, per Blameless. The diacritics are a separate issue. 5440orSleep (talk) 09:17, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support redirecting Heloise to Héloïse and moving this page to Heloise (disambiguation). Clear primary redirect. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:56, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support primary redirect as proposed. Diacritics can be dealt with separately. Srnec (talk) 01:17, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment. Suggest closure of this discussion and primary redirect to Héloïse. Refraining from closing since I initiated the conversation. StarTigerJLN (talk) 20:46, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

• Gentle reminder that move requests run for at least seven days. Since there has been some objection, this request should stay open for now. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 00:16, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

See also

Closed discussion in re: moving the Heloise (abbess) article. (Will redirect "Heloise" to "Héloïse" if "Heloise" moves to "Heloise (disambiguation)")