Talk:Maus

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Requested move 11 February 2024

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: pages not moved to the proposed titles at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 10:42, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

---

• Maus → Maus (graphic novel)
• Maus (disambiguation) → Maus

– WP:NOPRIMARY situation. Panzer VIII Maus is often referred to as "Maus" and gets more page views. Comparative page views. page views (people with surname Maus) Schierbecker (talk) 17:25, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Germany has been notified of this discussion. Schierbecker (talk) 17:28, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Graphic novels has been notified of this discussion. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:03, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Jewish history has been notified of this discussion. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 01:10, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose as this is the only article called Maus, so no ambiguity arises. Your case is undermined by your decision to combine August Maus, Codey Maus, Guido Maus, Jacques Maus, John Maus, Julius Maus, Marcela Maus, Octave Maus and Rodger Maus into a single page view search.
  A disambiguation article is of the form name (alpha), name (beta), name (gamma), etc., so it would have just one entry and a large see also. The issue is readily resolved with a {{distinguish}}. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:53, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

  This is based on the premise that readers aren't looking for people named some way by looking up those names. This I'm afraid isn't verifiable - rather, we know that the average English reader habitually refers to people by their name without always using the naturally disambiguated form, and this is especially true for surnames. So these are not mere partial title matches, rather they indicate real-world ambiguity that our navigation should accomodate. We should rather ponder how common are all of these various uses, and how significant they are, per WP:PTOPIC. On usage, I don't like the daily view of statistics - let's take a longer, monthly view and look at the big items mainly, like this. The overall interest in the novel is comparable to Panzer and John alone, so that already puts in doubt the idea that there would be a primary topic by usage, because the standard is quite a bit higher than that. In turn, it would be interesting to see a comparison of the long-term significance of these topics. Does any of them stand out in a way that it's worth short-circuiting the readers to it rather than presenting the ambiguity? (On the same note, we should also ponder long-term significance of the long tail, too.) --Joy (talk) 09:07, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  More fundamentally, there are many many articles that have names that could be confused with other articles. That is precisely why we need and have the templates {{about}} and {{distinguish}}. This is exactly such a case. Thus, by (sensibly) improving the {{about}} hatnote to explicitly include the tank, Schierbecker has resolved the issue and made this debate moot (in the US sense). 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:56, 12 February 2024 (UTC) ... and the "long tail" is handled by otheruses in the {{about}} template. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:57, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  Well, I'm still not seeing a coherent rationale for why Maus: A Survivor's Tale needs to be at "Maus" and push the others back behind the hatnote. That's one possible solution, certainly, but it doesn't render the debate moot. --Joy (talk) 11:02, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  The title of the book is Maus. That's it. That is what is on the spine. A survivor's tale is a sub-title barely visible through the cover art and doesn't even appear on the fly-leaf. The volume titles (my father bleeds history and and here my troubles began) are far more evident. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:06, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  That part is understood already, the part I'm asking about is a comparison of the long-term significance of the subject matters. Why does the novel have substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term (WP:PTOPIC) such as the tank or the people like the musician? --Joy (talk) 13:13, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:00, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose -- this is clearly the page most people are looking for when they ask for the Maus page. How do we know? Because the views of the disambiguation page are less than 1/40th of the views of this page. If people were landing here when looking for some other Maus, then we would expect a much large percentage clicking through to disambiguation. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 21:06, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

1 in 40 people clicking through to the dab page is astronomical considering most readers don't have the patience to read dab pages. Schierbecker (talk) 21:34, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

We don't know that 1/40 are clicking through to disambiguation, as it's not the only way to reach the disambiguation page. We only know that it's less than 1/40, not how much less. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 00:11, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

With an organic interest of 42k incoming views per month for the novel, it's really impossible for any hatnote traffic comparison to look good, but that doesn't necessarily have to imply that the titles wouldn't work well the other way around. We know from experience that when we move even popular articles, their traffic largely moves along nicely with them. The real question should be - would showing ambiguity in a different way when someone just types in "Maus" in the search box be beneficial, would it astonish anyone, would it risk leading any readers astray etc. --Joy (talk) 08:57, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per User:JMF. While there obviously are other things named "Maus", this is the only thing only named "Maus", so the disambiguation is natural. JIP | Talk 22:20, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

• If the graphic novel did not exist, Panzer VIII Maus would probably be called Maus. I've rarely heard it called "Panzer VIII Maus" in literature. "Panzer VIII" serves as natural disambiguation. Also it's not necessary for a title to match completely for it to be considered ambiguous. Schierbecker (talk) 23:10, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

  Other works seem fine using the fuller name for their page on this, and I doubt the Tank Encyclopedia or The Warfare History Network, for example, is worried about having a separate name for the graphic novel. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 00:23, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

• Tank Encyclopedia is user generated. Warfarehistorynetwork doesn't seem particularly reliable. Richard Ogorkiewicz calls it the Maus, so does George Forty Armor magazine, the official magazine of the U.S Army. "Maus" is a perfectly acceptable way to name the tank at first mention. Panzer VIII Maus does not merely just contain the word Maus. Schierbecker (talk) 05:11, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

• On the contrary, I'm certain that if the graphic novel did not exist, the tank article would still be called Panzer VIII Maus and the nickname "Maus" would redirect to it, as would Panzer VIII (which, to no-one's astonishment, is exactly what does happen). --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 01:03, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom. No primary topic here. I'm a little baffled why people are rejecting the other topics based on them not having that exact title. The Panzer is certainly still a contender for being called Maus and seems to have equal or greater demand from readers and encyclopedic value.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:44, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

• There is only one topic whose proper name is Maus. There are thousands of cases on wikipedia of articles whose names happen to contain the name of another article somewhere in the string. Do we really want to open this floodgate? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 01:03, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think we're doing that, because that's already regulated by WP:PTM. We're only considering topics where there's actual ambiguity. --Joy (talk) 13:15, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose, justified primary topic. 162 etc. (talk) 03:56, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose I see no evidence the tank is usually referred to solely as "Maus". ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 10:07, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Zxcvbnm Schierbecker posted some of that sort of evidence above in the threaded comments. --Joy (talk) 11:05, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom. No primary topic by long-term significance. The tank is very definitely often referred to simply as the Maus. More commonly than not, in fact. Arguments that there is no ambiguity because this is the only article simply called Maus fail to understand Wikipedia disambiguation practices. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:20, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  if it comes to long term significance, the Holocaust will stand for a very long time in history and thus so will cultural icons such as this one that attempt to convey its horrors. Boys toys from 80 years ago will fade into history and not a moment too soon. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:11, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  The Holocaust itself, definitely, but this is an article about a specific novel about it, not all of Holocaust. Even if we're looking at a 'cultural icon', it's still a specific graphic novel from the 1980s that achieved extraordinary success in entering literary discourse for its genre, and has a featured article written about it, but didn't necessarily enter the general lexicon of the average English reader (that is customarily associated with primary topic status). It still seems sensible to compare it to a 1940s tank and a 2000s musician in a manner that is less off-the-cuff, as each of these seem to have some long-term significance, the latter also having a good article already. We should approach the analysis of long-term significance of all of this with a modicum of rigor. --Joy (talk) 13:26, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  Boys toys from 80 years ago will fade into history and not a moment too soon. Appears to show an entirely non-neutral POV. You're clearly interested in one thing and sneer at the other. But that's just your point of view. If the one is iconic because it deals with the Holocaust then the other is iconic because it's an aspect of WWII. Both have very clear long-term significance and both are of interest to different people (or maybe in some cases the same people!). Denigrating one is not helpful. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:06, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

• Support first and alternative for second Considering those articles that are WP:RECOGNIZABLE by just the term Maus, I see there are three: the novel, the tank and the band. I do not see any argument that people with Maus as a surname are commonly recognised by their surname alone or are sufficiently notable that a comparatively significant number of people would be searching for them. Tanks are typically given a designation, a model and a model name such as Sherman or Abrams and in this case, Maus. Tanks are commonly referred to by just their model name - eg Sherman tank or just, a Sherman. Page views are telling us that there are near equal numbers landing at the page for the book and the tank and that these two articles are viewed three or more times than others. Page views are telling us that both the novel and the tank have similar views (ie the book is not the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the recognisable name for the tank). Unfortunately, page views do not tell us how readers arrived at the article: a google search, the quick search bar or a link. What we can say with confidence is that they did not arrive from the disambiguation page. The google search prominently points to both articles. The quick search bar is an index search and from the ten drop-down options after typing Maus only Maus appears, not Maus (disambiguation) and certainly not Panzer VIII Maus. The other nine options, such as Mauser or Mausoleum of Genghis Khan are clearly unrelated. Consequently readers using the quick search to find the tank are very likely to go via the novel's article and then use the hat-note there to land at the tank. Maus tank is a redirect but it is not revealed in the quick search until t is typed. Consequently the guidance and evidence would support the first move. However, once content has been vacated from Maus, I would propose to delete the page Maus. The rationale relates to the functioning of the quick search. Removing Maus as an option should result in Maus (graphic novel), Maus (disambiguation) and Maus tank to be revealed, without an impact on google searches (& like), the other common way of arriving at a page by a search. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:34, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think we should claim no argument that John Maus is sufficiently notable to be searched under his surname when we regularly observe thousands of monthly views there, including one month in recorded history when he got over 123 thousand views ([1]). It shouldn't be so inconceivable that all those hundreds of thousands of readers recognize the term Maus as ambiguous, even just their Wikipedia experience would have basically informed them of that.

  One thing I'd also point out is that trying to make complete conclusions based on the traffic patterns with the existing navigation layout is not necessarily a good idea. This is a lesson we've been learning over and over from examples like the recent one at Talk:Charlotte, where we observed an apparent 'flip' of reader interest once we changed our navigation, and the extent of this couldn't really be predicted from any confident reading of the previous layout's statistics.

  Most of the non-Wikipedia search engine traffic is supported by software that has more context information about the reader than our navigation does, and we know from numerous examples that it navigates them in a way that it tries to short-circuit. Even here, it's not likely that the 22k views identified as coming from search engines to the tank article ([2]) used the full name with the Roman numerals and whatnot for their search terms. It's quite different from the behavior of the Wikipedia search engine that you described. Because we can't really control or figure out a lot of these ways readers navigate, that's why a lot of ambiguous terms are disambiguation lists.

  Generally, having a list at the base term will be considered preferable to not having one and depending on the search engine, cf. WP:D2D. --Joy (talk) 11:11, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  We would not have no entry at the basename. That's just not how disambiguation works on Wikipedia. If there's no primary topic then Maus (disambiguation) should be moved to Maus. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:40, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per Nat Gertler. Really do not agree that a disambig page getting 1/40 of the views is a bad arugment - we see cases where the disambig page gets a solid quarter of the pageviews of the landing page not uncommonly when there's a truly misplaced primary topic. The partial title matches are... well, partial title matches, so only count so much here. SnowFire (talk) 18:27, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Where do we see such cases? I can't remember one in recent history, it's usually much less clear.

  Besides, the core of the problem is that the external search engines will adjust to our choice of navigation and drive traffic intended for different topics differently, and we can't distinguish it from the organic choices of readers. Let's just look at the classical example of ambiguity by usage, "apple": WikiNav for "Apple" for January '24 shows 3.42k clickstreams to the company over a total traffic of 86.8k, and that 4% or 1/25 seems pretty similar to the 2.5% or 1/40; at the same time WikiNav for "Apple Inc." says there were 587.3k incoming views, of which 381k are identifiable as coming from search engines. Even with a variety of redirects, it's unlikely that that mass of readers contains only those searching for something intricate. If anything, the possibility that in a mass of 587 there's something comparable to 86 who used the base term but did not mean the fruit is perfectly plausible (with 86 that ratio is <15%).

  Therefore, when we look at 42k for the novel, 42k for the tank and 8k for the person, it seems pretty sensible to say that there is a reasonable chance that we're short-circuiting in a way that leaves a substantial part of readers dependent on search engine short-circuiting logic rather than our navigation. Don't you think there's at least a risk of that? --Joy (talk) 19:25, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  If there was a topic foo, and "Foo" and "Foo (some disambiguator)" had equal hits and there were 10 minor other Foos, then yes, I'd agree that should probably be moved. But while the tank can be abbreviated as "Maus", I don't think the tank as a title is called that alone, rendering it closer to the partial title match case where there'd need to be a more overwhelming advantage in hits. SnowFire (talk) 13:42, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

  For the tank, "Maus" is not being used as and abbreviation. Tanks are commonly referred to by their name eg a Sherman, an Abrams, a Centurion, a Tiger etc. "Maus" is no different. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:20, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  Except that its name is "Panzer VIII". It is a "Panther" tank, not a "Mouse" tank. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 01:28, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  A full designation for a tank may include: a descriptor (either just "tank" or of a particular type eg "infantry tank"), an alphanumeric model and a model name, similar to models of cars. Hence, we have the M1 Abrams main battle tank (MBT). Panzer just means tank in German and Kampfpanzer means battle tank. These are captalised because German capitalises all nouns. Panzer is just a shortening of the fuller descriptor Kampfpanzer (eg Panzerkampfwagen IV or Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger). It is common to refer to a tank just by the model name (eg "He drove a Sherman") in the same way we would say, "He drove a Corolla". Appending tank after the model name is optional. Incidentally, panther is Panther in German and tiger is Tiger in german for the masculine form but mouse is Maus. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:09, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  Panzer not "Panther". Exactly. You get oddballs like MBT-80 which have a common name other their official designation "FV4601 MBT-80". U.S. combat vehicles have an official designation that differs from the name the Army normally uses. The 105 mm gun M1 Abrams is officially the "M1 Tank, Full-Tracked, 105 mm Gun, M1" (Supply catalogue number 2350-01-061-2445). There is agreement that pages like F16 should redirect to General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon despite there being other things named F16 (no hyphen). Schierbecker (talk) 16:31, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  That's a bit of an idealized case, because in real life topics are often naturally disambiguated, such as the tank naming schemes and indeed the human naming schemes. The trick is to identify how common is it for a topic to be referred to and searched for under the specific name, not as part of a partial match. Also, I believe the overall balance of criteria for primary topics needs to be in favor of there being a clear primary topic - if we have ambiguity with regard to which topics most significantly qualify as "Maus", and ambiguity with regard to whether any of them has the most long-term significance, then it seems most prudent to try resolving the ambiguity up front, as opposed to short-circuiting. Worst case, once we do that, we'll continue tracking the reader interest through statistics and can reconsider any bad decisions based on better data as soon as a new pattern forms after a few months. --Joy (talk) 09:22, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  I have broad support for that approach but how do we take book-banning events into account? (xref Streisand effect) The last time it happened, I think this [the graphic novel] article made the top ten for that week. I can't see the tank ever achieving that level of interest. I'll be surprised if another book-banning doesn't happen again, though perhaps not to this one. But when (say) some school bans Aquaman, the news articles will refer back to the Maus banning incident and readers will want to see what that was about. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:19, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  Per WP:CRYSTALBALL, an event described may or may not have an enduring effect but it is an hypothetical. The proposed move does not prevent either the book the tank or any other Maus being found with relative ease. It just doesn't place the book in front of all the other Mauses. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  No crystal ball is required to look backwards. It doesn't take deep OR to determine that the total hits ever on the novel are substantially more than those on the tank, if only because of the surge two years ago. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:23, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  Substantially? You are mistaken. The tank received 4,051,682 page views since 2015, the earliest we have record of. Maus has received 3,817,916.
  Schierbecker (talk) 16:45, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, these traffic spikes can happen, I noted above another event in recorded history (January '21) where John Maus' article received 15 times as many views as it does normally now. The January '22 spike at Maus was also 10 times. If we format the list with MOS:DABCOMMON, putting the most common meanings on top, even during a traffic spike the average reader should be able to quickly recognize the topic they're looking for. --Joy (talk) 06:23, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per JMF. 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 22:08, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:PT2. A Google Scholar search for maus -author:maus returns results exclusively for the book (and results in Google Books are first about the book and then various uses of the surname). The tank doesn't register in this test of long-term significance. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 22:09, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  When I do that search on Scholar, the first three results are actually Portuguese, then four about the novel, then one about the plural of the word Mau. It's interesting that you exclude authors named Maus from the Scholar search - when I tried without that, I got nothing about any of these topics, only people named Maus. This seems to reinforce the idea of the term being ambiguous, rather than point to a single clear primary topic by long-term significance. --Joy (talk) 22:29, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

  Interesting, (in the US) I don't get anything non-comic book until page four (plural of Mau Maus, then surname). I use -author because Scholar strongly tends to favor author matches in searches generally. Hameltion (talk | contribs) 23:42, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

  This suggests Google tunes the Scholar algorithm differenty depending on location. We could say that the novel is the primary topic in America, therefore it might as well be in the whole world. But the people named Maus are also mostly American - the results I got on the first page were Stefan from CO; Gabriela from NY; Marcela from MA; Katharine from VA; Erika from IL; and then Joachim and Ingeborg from Germany. If this is indicative of what our average American reader with a scientific background might be acquainted with, they will by and large recognize the term as ambiguous. With regard to books, we can have a look at Google Books Ngrams which seem to show mentions of the term throughout recorded history, with a recent growth possibly related to the novel. --Joy (talk) 13:43, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

  and just using plain old google search, the first two pages consist of links to pages about the novel, apart from just one reference to the tank (because it is our Panzer article – positioned third; the first response is our novel article) and one B movie on IMDB. Of course Google gives different responses depending on who asks, so your mileage may vary. Scholar may do likewise? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:59, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

  Yep, who knows. FWIW, for me, trying to turn off personal web search with https://www.google.com/search?q=maus&pws=0 I get 4 pictures from the novel and 2 pictures of the tank on top; on the right hand side is information about the novel; and below that it's novel, novel, three videos about the novel, one normal item about the tank, six more normal links about the novel, then the box of 8 related searches containing 6 items about tanks and 2 about novels, then another normal item about the novel, then an item about the film The Maus, then some more about the novel, and so forth, it's an infinite scroll these days. Some of the items seem to be obviously influenced by my location, like links to local bookstores. All in all, I don't like trying to analyze the general search output too much because it appears to be trying to get me to buy something, which doesn't seem like something compatible with pondering encyclopedia navigation. --Joy (talk) 19:47, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

• Strong Support, there is no justification for this graphic novel monopolizing the term of "Maus" simply because that is what it is named, especially while there are other notable subjects with the same name. Readers will be able to find this highly notable graphic novel with ease, both with its disambiguated name "Maus (graphic novel)" as well as from the disambiguation page newly created. This is a no brainer per nom and per MOS:DAB.Iljhgtn (talk) 01:59, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose The graphic novel is clearly the primary topic, not requiring disambiguation. The tank nickname is a specialty topic. As for basing renames on pageviews, another weapon, North American P-51 Mustang, gets 101,000 views/month, while the actual horse Mustang gets 22,000. I don't think anybody would rename on that basis. And while it's not germane from a purely Wikipedia style point of view, am I the only one who finds it disturbing to have a weapon used to further a genocidal war set over the book that describes the horrors of that regime? Acroterion (talk) 20:19, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Acroterion is it more disturbing than to have an innocent surname, one worn by of a number of notable people, overshadowed by an unrelated work of fiction as well as weapons of war? These comparisons are not really useful. I think we should rather focus on making a positive argument why exactly there's a benefit in short-circuiting readers to the article about the novel, something that we're not really seeing yet. --Joy (talk) 15:07, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

  I disagree. There is no pejorative association with the book at the primary topic. This is an FA and a vital article. It's about an extremely influential book that should take priority over the other topics. The primary topic is clear-cut. I don't see a "positive argument," I see flattening everything like that as something that looks from any distance like tone deafness. If you have concerns about surnames being associated with German mice, we often set surnames apart, which would be a good idea. Acroterion (talk) 15:43, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you, that is indeed what I thought when I said a positive argument should be made. It would be nice to hear more about how extremely influential the book is, beyond the assertions.

  The argument that the word is ambiguous might not be especially positive, but it is at least neutral. Indeed I'd say that that the claim that acknowledging the ambiguity would be 'tone deaf' strikes me as excessive. An encyclopedia is a compendium of human knowledge - in this case some of it is about novels, some about tanks, some about biographies, some about whatever else is in the long tail. Navigation that takes into account the whole spread of reader interests should not be taken as a value judgement. Otherwise, WP:AT would look quite a bit different than it does. --Joy (talk) 11:33, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

  Also, a quick skim of the list of comparable vital articles also includes Pogo (comic strip), The Sandman (comic book), Bleach (manga), which have disambiguated titles, so there doesn't seem to be a strict relationship between primary topic and vital article status. --Joy (talk) 11:37, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

  Since the discussion started with an equivalency between a failed prototype weapon and the novel, it was worth pointing out that things like tanks and airplanes are self-disambiguating by reference to designations, rather than nicknames. I don't think the example of bleach is a good parallel - the common household product is unambiguously a primary topic compared to a manga, however popular it is. The trouble people are having is that it's a non-English word, which makes things less clear in comparison to, say, "mouse." My main point is a more meta argument, that we need to look outside the encyclopedia processes for perspective, which to me appears to be missing. Acroterion (talk) 13:24, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, and on that note, a 'native' English thing about "Maus" is native English-speaking people with that surname, and our processes don't formally account for that well, either. I keep having to explain over and over that there is an identifiable contingent of readers that like to navigate to and read biographies based on non-exact name lookups. We also seem to often have trouble with organizing navigation with regard to singular/plurals as well as non-nouns. --Joy (talk) 19:54, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Joy:, each of those names is used a number of topics, making disambiguation essential; there is only one topic uniquely called Maus. No ambiguity arises. The examples you cite are irrelevant. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:25, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

  The trouble people are having is that it's a non-English word... No, I don't think people are having trouble with that at all. ...things like tanks and airplanes are self-disambiguating by reference to designations, rather than nicknames. We never give articles that may need parenthetical disambiguation priority over articles that have natural disambiguation. Both of these things are commonly referred to as Maus, whether one has natural disambiguation or not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:29, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

  I beg to differ. I'm sure someone could make an argument along the lines of - Pogo the work of art is mainly just called Pogo, and the stick is mainly called a pogo stick and the dance is mainly called the pogo dance. --Joy (talk) 20:02, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  You see, I would have said the graphic novel is also a speciality topic. Different people have different interests and different perceptions of what is primary. There's nothing clear about it. Your mustang example is obvious. This is not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:44, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

  I didn't want to dwell on the mustang comparison before since the article about the mustang horses demonstrates long-term significance of the topic by describing several centuries of source coverage, which coincides with the timeline of the exploration of the Americas by Europeans - so it's a bit of an unfair comparison to the popular Maus topics which happen to be inherently restricted to the last century.

  At the same time, that article has a big hatnote which immediately struck me as unwieldy. The all-time pageview stats and recent clickstreams both indicate that there is quite a bit of a potential to examine the perennial significance vs. usage situation there, too. And of course as soon as I went to check, I found a fair bit of discussion about this (1, 2).

  So I'd just say that this is a good example of how some things are obvious to one set of editors, not obvious to another, and we probably have no real idea how obvious it is to the readers. --Joy (talk) 19:41, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per JMF. The novel won a Pulitzer Prize while the tank was a couple of prototypes that were never used in combat. Cullen328 (talk) 20:12, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

  This isn't just a comparison of two topics named Maus, it's about all of them, because the same term is useful to navigate readers to biographies of an art critic, a cancer researcher, a submarine commander, a popular TV series art director, etc. --Joy (talk) 20:17, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  Joy, that was your 21st comment in this rather short thread. I think you’re quite deep in WP:BLUDGEON territory here. - SchroCat (talk) 22:32, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  @SchroCat surely you have to recognize a bit of irony in how I get to be lectured about doing the WP:DISCUSSCONSENSUS process wrong, after having engaged in no discussion and posting a bland WP:!VOTE. Just a little bit? :) --Joy (talk) 07:59, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

  I have no idea what went on before, but you've now made 22 comments and there have only been 19 !votes. I think the closer of this will be aware of your opinion by the time they get through it all. - SchroCat (talk) 09:05, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per JMF and others. - SchroCat (talk) 09:05, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per JMF's rationale. Garion96 (talk) 21:16, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per rationale of JMF, NatGertler and others. A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 00:14, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Oppose per JMF and various others. Generalissima (talk) 01:33, 1 March 2024 (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.