Talk:William Pittenger

Requested move 25 October 2020

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

Moved as proposed. BD2412 T 02:45, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

• William Pittenger (soldier) → William Pittenger
• William Pittenger → (delete to make room for move)

– There is WP:NOPRIMARYTOPIC, but also no reason for one entry to be parenthetically disambiguated as "(soldier)" when a brief hatnote atop the soldier's entry — For the politician, see William Alvin Pittenger — would suffice. All references, as well as the appended photo, confirm that the politician was known either as William A. Pittenger or as William Alvin Pittenger, not as simply William Pittenger. — Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 05:25, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• I see William Pittenger being used for both the soldier and the congressman in Gbooks. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:39, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support. It is better for more readers to have one of the topics at the base name rather than a 2-entry disambiguation page. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 14:06, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

To expand on that point, If both entries of a two-person disambiguation page use parenthetical qualifiers, then positioning one of them as the base name, automatically creates a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC since there would be no direct method of accessing the second person (short of typing the second person's name with the parenthetical qualifier) other than through the hatnote at the first person's base name.

However, when one entry simply uses the given name and the surname, while the other entry uses an additional name, an initial, a prefix of some type or a generational suffix then, then for those who already know the exact name, the other entry would be accessible through typing its full form, without having to go through the first entry. For all other users, there would be, of course, the hatnote atop the entry for the plain name. In such cases, neither entry is obviously positioned as primary and users can avoid having to go through the disambiguation page. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 15:11, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. No clear primary topic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:50, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support. WP:NOPRIMARYTOPIC is an odd rationale for suggesting a move to primary topic, but in this case there is a primary topic, and it's the soldier.[1] -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:38, 3 November 2020 (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. No further edits should be made to this section.