Talk:1800s

"The period when Caledonia was made."

What's Caledonia, what year was it created exactly, and why is it notable? The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 02:07, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Requested move 13 May 2016

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

The result of the move request was: No consensus to move, keeping longstanding titles — JFG ^talk 10:44, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

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• 1800s → 1800s (disambiguation)
• 1700s → 1700s (disambiguation)
• 1600s → 1600s (disambiguation)
• 1500s → 1500s (disambiguation)
• 1400s → 1400s (disambiguation)
• 1300s → 1300s (disambiguation)
• 1200s → 1200s (disambiguation)
• 1100s → 1100s (disambiguation)

– Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. I suggest that practically no one looking for "1800s" is looking for the decade rather than the century, and any real ambiguity in this WP:TWODAB situation can be handled adequately with a hatnote, so 1800s can simply be a redirect to 19th century, or that article can be moved here. (Note that there was some discussion of the naming of this page and others like it at Talk:1800–1809 during 2008.) —BarrelProof (talk) 16:41, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

• Support as to all, per nom. The decade is a subset of the century anyway, and is as easily reached from the century page as from a disambiguation page. bd2412 T 22:36, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose: 1800s (etc) is so ambiguous that a link to it should be picked up as a link to a dab page, so that someone can check which of the two sense is intended. To me, "1800s" is the decade: the century would be called "19th century". This puts me in the asserted "practically no one" above. I don't think I'm so unusual. PamD 12:19, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

NB WP:MOSNUM at WP:CENTURY says "When using forms such as the 1700s ensure there is no ambiguity as to whether e.g. 1700–1709 or 1700–1799, is meant.", which acknowledges the ambiguity. PamD 14:42, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

And I do not suggest to change that recommendation, but I still suggest that the century is much more commonly intended than the decade when referring to "1800s". The question isn't whether linking to it or using of the term without clarification should be discouraged or not; it's whether the term has a primary meaning or not. Given your reaction, I wonder whether there could be an WP:ENGVAR issue here. I notice that you seem to be British. I arrived here by chance after tinkering with the article Susannah Mushatt Jones. When writing about her, USA Today (a quintessentially U.S.-based publication) referred to "the 1800s" (including in their headline) and felt no need to clarify what that meant, while the BBC (quintessentially British) referred to "the 19th Century" (with a capital 'C'). Personally, I dislike the term "the 19th century" for several reasons – e.g. because there were more than 18 centuries that preceded it, because it seems rather obviously Christian-centric by implying otherwise, and because it has off-by-one problems that make it confusing about both the leading digits (18 versus 19) and the trailing digits (whether it starts in the year 1800 or 1801). So in my own writing I would tend to refer to the 1800s rather than the 19th century, and I would not ordinarily feel the need to clarify whether I'm talking about a century or a decade (except in the very specific context of discussing the period in the immediate vicinity of the year 1800), although this may be influenced by my own cultural milieu. —BarrelProof (talk) 15:17, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

To me "1800s" is as ambiguous as a date like 2-3-2016 - which to me is the 2nd of March, to an American the third of February. I don't think the century is the primary topic, and I do think there's a lot to be gained by having 1800s link to a dab page, to ensure that any link is carefully chosen to be either to the century or the decade, rather than leaving a link to the century and the question "did the author really mean that?". Unfortunately my usual resource the Guardian Style Guide, while it discusses decades, doesn't mention this question! PamD 16:49, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

This RM is not about a question that an off-Wikipedia Style Guide would answer, as it is not about whether we should write articles without clarifying the term, and even if we choose to perform this move, we can consider it desirable to convert a link from "[[1800s]]" into "[[19th century|1800s]]" or "[[19th century]]". For example, Louisville, Kentucky, is considered a primary topic on Wikipedia for "Louisville" (despite the existence of Louisville, Colorado) and Wild turkey is considered a primary topic for "Wild Turkey" (despite the existence of Wild Turkey (bourbon)), even though Wikipedia's style guidelines discourage using either of those terms as a link in that manner. The RM is limited to the question of whether we can resolve this WP:TWODAB situation by linking the 19th century as the primary topic for "1800s" or we instead need to keep the "1800s" page as a dab page. —BarrelProof (talk) 18:38, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

I do not believe it is a WP:TWODABS situation, because I do not believe there is a Primary Topic. Therefore the dab page is necessary. PamD 20:08, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose per PamD above. --John (talk) 12:36, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose. PamD's arguments sum it up. Anarchyte (work | talk) 10:03, 24 May 2016 (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.