Talk:Shinola (retail company)/Archive 1

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.

First title: moved to Shinola Detroit – second title: not moved. See general agreement to rename this page as well as to not move the dab page. Since adequate notice was given at Talk:Shinola (shoe polish), its subject page will be moved to the base name, Shinola. Have a Great Day and Happy Publishing! (nac by page mover)  Painius  ^put'r there  23:55, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

• Shinola → Shinola (retail brand)
• Shinola (disambiguation) → Shinola

– Seems vaguely WP:PROMO-ish to have this as the primary topic. I don't see how a recent luxury-goods brand could have more "enduring notability and educational value" than the historic brand of shoe polish, which in addition to inspiring the phrase know shit from Shinola, is also the origin of the modern brand's name. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:21, 13 May 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. Bradv 16:10, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• As noted below, this article was originally about the shoe polish, and has apparently been stealthily converted to an entirely different article over the last several years. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 14:37, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure I would characterize "320 intermediate revisions by 95 users" over 5 years as stealthy. Station1 (talk) 16:09, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
    • "Creeping and insidious", then, like an invasive weed. In any case, the original article was gradually filled up with more info about the modern brand until the topic was changed outright in 2015; the present article was more or less in place by then. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:24, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
      • The essence and strength of Wikipedia is the gradual improvement of articles by large numbers of independent editors. It never works perfectly, but it does work overall, and I think it worked well in this case. Station1 (talk) 22:48, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose and instead move Shinola → Shinola Detroit and Shinola (shoe polish) to primary - So many (all?) of the items on the disambiguation page take their name from the shoe polish (or the related idiom), and that demonstrates that it is the proper primary topic due to long-term significance. Google Ngram] shows that general use of the term arose directly as a result of the shoe polish company founding (1907). Since we're talking about two companies - the original and the new one - we need some additional disambiguation. Shinola (Detroit company) might be another option. -- Netoholic @ 17:56, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I'd also support this move. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 18:09, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose, but possibly merge. Pageviews indicate most WP readers are looking for this article, even if we were to assume that every single view of Shinola (shoe polish) came through the hatnote. And, although it's a matter of opinion, I'm not sure old shoe polish is of more educational value than modern watches. If that's not clear cut, we should not force the majority of readers to a dab page or article they are not looking for. In any case, the current company bought the old company name and also markets shoe polish. That could be enough of a connection to merge the much shorter shoe polish article into this one. Station1 (talk) 19:53, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
  • These are two distinct topics, a shoe polish made up until 1960... and a specialty goods store which started in 2011. To my dismay, I have to point out that the article currently at Shinola was originally only about the shoe polish up to about 2013. Since then, in what I can only describe as a complete usurpation of the topic, it has been transformed into an article about the 2011 Detroit company. I think this proves a merge won't work because every vestige of the original content has been removed and Shinola (shoe polish) had to be recreated from scratch in 2015. -- Netoholic @ 20:11, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
    • They are two distinct topics, but not totally unrelated. Each article references the other. It's not a clear case for a merger, just a possibility if we want more people to read more about the shoe polish. The shoe polish was the only topic before 2013, and so took the undisputed title, but things change and sometime between then and now the Detroit company became primary. This reminds me of discussions at Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare's wife was the primary topic for almost 400 years, but now more people expect and are interested in an article about someone else who came along. Station1 (talk) 20:54, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
      • No one is saying they are "totally unrelated", come on. Neither is anyone here saying "we want more people to read" about the polish - what we're here deciding is a WP:PRIMARYTOPIC based on both usage and long-term significance. You say it "became primary" and what I see is that a article was fundamentally and incrementally changed from one topic to another. This is just as if we had an article on apple and people started including more and more references to a computer company in it, until after a couple years nothing was left of the original topic but a line or two. That's not "becoming primary" - that usurpation without discussion. The new company isn't so sought after as to dwarf all other topics, and yet the shoe polish clearly has the long-term significance (since even the new company pays homage to it as its namesake). -- Netoholic @ 21:07, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
        • I wasn't implying anyone said they were totally unrelated; I was just reiterating my original point that there is some relationship that might support a merger if you or others think that might be useful to readers. I'm not pushing for a merger. Usage clearly favors the modern company; it is significantly more than all other topics. Long-term significance is a matter of opinion, but, as I said, when it's not clear cut, usage should be the deciding factor because it's a disservice to force readers where we think they should go over where they demonstrably want to go. Station1 (talk) 21:29, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
          • Users won't be "forced" to one page or another. Search engines use context and keywords and largely ignore what our particular title is. The key with long-term significance is more like - if you had to cut one article or the other from the encyclopedia completely, which would go? We'd keep the article about the original shoe polish, its history, and its usage as an idiom in pop culture. It seem to me that the usurpation of this article has tainted the page views. I suspect most people just come here looking for a quick answer for what the word "Shinola" means in the idiom. From that perspective, we are severely misinforming them by presenting this 2011 company. We've made Wikipedia a pawn to their marketing and search engine optimization. -- Netoholic @ 21:50, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
            • It's absolutely true that article titles affect only a small portion of searchers, often under 5%. But in the case of Shinola, that could still be 10 people a day who would be forced elsewhere. As to what most people are looking for, statistics indicate most are looking for the current company, and I see no reason to suspect otherwise. The phrase today is simply not as popular as the company, but we can always add a few sentences about the phrase to take care of those readers if we don't merge articles (there's already a wiktionary link). Station1 (talk) 23:01, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
          • As Netoholic suggests, we don't know how many page visitors to Shinola are just looking for an explanation of the common phrase shit from Shinola, so page-view statistics probably aren't that helpful here. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:00, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
            • If we examine how many visitors move on to the shoe polish article or dab page after visiting here, we can deduce that a minority might be looking for the phrase, but a majority are not. Station1 (talk) 23:01, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
              • We don't have data for specific instances of readers that "move on" from one page to another. You can't make that assumption. Its just as likely they don't move on because they believe they've gotten the answer from the current article. -- Netoholic @ 02:31, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
                • We do have data, and using that data is the precise opposite of making assumptions. We know approximately 219 people per day view Shinola, 77 view Shinola (shoe polish) and only 8 view Shinola (disambiguation). That means that at most 85 people, a minority, "move on". Of course, as you correctly pointed out above, most people get to the article they expect no matter what the title, so the real number of people who move on is probably much closer to 8 than 85, but estimating that would be an assumption. As to people who believe they have gotten the answer they want from Shinola, either they have, in which case there's no problem, or they haven't, in which case we can improve the article without changing the title. Station1 (talk) 05:02, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
                  • That makes no sense. Most visitors come here via search engines, which could land them on any of those 3 pages depending on context and keywords. They don't come here and "filter through" Shinola to other articles. The visitors might also be on any other article and be clicking links directly to one of those 3. I'm sorry, but there is no way you can make any conclusion like that. -- Netoholic @ 06:06, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
                    • We've already agreed that most visitors arrive via search engines and are unaffected by the title. Very few people "filter through" to other pages. That's the point. The large majority do wind up at the article they want. The article title makes little to no difference to the majority of searchers, mostly to those few who type "Shinola" directly into the search box and Enter. But objectively, most of those people want the modern company, based on pageviews and google results, and by that definition the modern company is the primary topic. That will not change no matter what we title each article. Station1 (talk) 16:09, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
                      • Page traffic is one tool to determine a primary topic, but is not the only (or necessarily most important) one, as in Apple vs. Apple Inc. Usage in independent, published sources is another tool. A GBooks search for Shinola shoe polish returns 3,430 results; Shinola Detroit 1,940 results, and Shinola watch 2,390 results. That seems awfully close for a supposedly clear primary topic, even assuming no overlap between the latter two. It's also some indication of the long-term significance of the shoe polish brand, which seems obvious given that the modern brand name is in fact derived from it. Add to that the fact that this page was originally about the shoe polish, and I'm not convinced that the modern brand should be primary. I doubt any readers will be WP:ASTONISHed to land at either the shoe polish or the DAB page. Frankly, I'm more concerned with keeping the encyclopedia from becoming an extension of the brand's marketing strategy; see WP:NOTADVERTISING. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:54, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
                        • Not Advertising is a valid concern but that's really about article content. I don't think changing the title from Shinola to Shinola Detroit makes any significant difference in that regard. Station1 (talk) 22:48, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support neither the shoe polish nor the homage watch brand are primary. There is no absolute subject here. In ictu oculi (talk) 21:15, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
• The Shoe Polish came first, and created the framework, reputation and nomenclature in which the new organization exists. That latter is an appendix to the former, now existing in its own right. However that cuts... 7&6=thirteen (☎) 21:43, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
• I concur with Netoholic that the shoe polish should be primary. Nine Zulu queens (talk) 06:09, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• Shoe polish to primary, per discussion and common name. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:11, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• Shoe polish to primary as above. Clear primary topic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:57, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support as proposed. The brand only receives 63% of the article traffic, despite being at the base name. That, combined with a number of mislinks I can see, suggests it is not the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. However, there's no evidence the shoe polish is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC either - it receives a fraction of traffic of this article. It's better to have the dab page at the base name.--Cúchullain ^t/c 16:00, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

• If this move is successful, could an admin please HISTMERGE at least the edits before this edit in 2013 (that began the creeping conversion of the article) or at most somewhere in 2015 or 2016 (when the new shoe polish article was broken out) with wherever the shoe polish article ends up? —  AjaxSmack  21:19, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

There is no need to histmerge things except for attribution purposes; this would in fact break attribution for the the current article on the brand. Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:26, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

​The comment below by User:Netoholic is the reason and its done pretty routinely (see here and here for similar cases). It would not break attribution for the current brand article since the part of the history to be merged does not include text on the current brand. —  AjaxSmack  01:28, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

This article takeover really puts a pit in my stomach, and it sucks that the history of one of our early articles (2005) is buried forever under a promo piece for a 2011 company. Wish we could throw WP:TNT on it. --Netoholic @ 20:41, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

• Relisting comment: At this point there is a consensus for moving, but it's not clear whether the base article should be Shinola (shoe polish) or Shinola (disambiguation). Bradv 16:10, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
• Shoe polish, and if you disagree you don't know sh, ah, never mind. The only other significant disambiguation listing is the company that honors the shoe polish. According to its page: "Founded in 2011, its name is a nod to the defunct Shinola shoe polish company that operated in the early- and mid-20th century". The primary should go to the primary, the shoe polish, per historical significance. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:36, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support per nom. I'm still not entirely sure there's a clear primary topic, but at least most of us can agree that the retail brand isn't the primary topic. Paintspot Infez (talk) 04:37, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Having initially proposed to put the base title at Shinola (disambiguation), I'm more inclined at this point to put it at Shinola (shoe polish). To me long-term significance wins out over popularity, and usage by independent sources doesn't clearly favor one or the other. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:10, 28 May 2018 (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.