Talk:Cantor's first set theory article: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:27, 14 February 2016

Revision as of 00:45, 15 February 2016

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::# As to typing in the search box, it works for redirects too. Try it. There is in any case going to be a redirect from the current title, so I don't really see a problem.

::# I still strongly prefer "paper". To me a "paper" is more academic; an "article" is more likely to be for mass consumption. Also a "paper" is more likely to be a primary source, whereas an "article" is probably a secondary or tertiary source. Also the interference issue is real; the word "article" invites confusion with Wikipedia articles, whereas "paper" does not. But in any case we don't need to decide that in this RM as the proposed title does not contain either word. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] ([[User talk:Trovatore|talk]]) 21:46, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

I've looked more into "article" vs. "paper" and am I now neutral on the issue. But we can deal with this later. I do think it would be good to consult the readers to see if they think that a general change of "article" to "paper" throughout the entire Wikipedia article is a good idea. If they do, I'd be happy to make the change.

Let's talk about [[Wikipedia:Article titles]] and how your title compares to the existing title. Wikipedia says that: A good Wikipedia article title has the five following characteristics:

* '''Recognizability''' – ''The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize.'' Your suggested title '''''On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers''''' is unfortunately not recognizable even to students taking set theory unless they have read a historical work that discusses the reason for this strange name. '''Georg Cantor's first set theory article''' is recognizable because it's talking about Cantor's work and, in particular, his first article on set theory.

* '''Naturalness''' – ''The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such a title usually conveys what the subject is actually called in English.'' I don't think that readers will look or search for '''''On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers''''' while they will search for '''Cantor's first set theory article''' since they are likely to start typing "Cantor" and unlikely to start typing "On a Property." Also, since '''Cantor's first set theory article''' is a natural shortening of the current title, there is no need to boldface '''Cantor's first set theory article''' in the text.

* '''Precision''' – ''The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects.'' '''''On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers''''' does not even identify the property that is discussed in Cantor's article. It certainly doesn't capture the Wikipedia article's subject.

* '''Conciseness''' – ''The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects.'' '''Georg Cantor's first set theory article''' is shorter than '''''On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers'''''

* '''Consistency''' – ''The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles.'' There are other titles with "Cantor's ..." in it, while your title shares consistency with the Wikipedia article on the Gödel paper.

I also decided to see what effect your suggested title and a redirect would have on the lead. Here's the modified lead (I removed the refs):

'''''On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers''''' is '''Georg Cantor's first set theory article'''. It was published in 1874 and contains the first theorems of transfinite [[set theory]], which studies [[infinite set]]s and their properties. One of these theorems is "[[Georg Cantor|Cantor's]] revolutionary discovery" that the [[set (mathematics)|set]] of all [[real number]]s is [[uncountable set|uncountably]], rather than [[countable set|countably]], infinite. This theorem is proved using '''Cantor's first uncountability proof''', which differs from the more familiar proof using his [[Cantor's diagonal argument|diagonal argument]]. The title of the paper, "On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers," refers to its first theorem: the set of real [[algebraic numbers]] is countable.

One problem with your suggested title is that readers who are redirected from '''Cantor's first uncountability proof''' may get confused when redirected to a Wikipedia article titled '''''On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers'''''. The current redirect to '''Georg Cantor's first set theory article''' is less confusing because of the "Cantor's first" in the title and because the 2nd sentence in the current article talks about uncountably infinite and the next sentence has '''Cantor's first uncountability proof''' in it.

Also, the first sentence in the modified lead is only necessary because of the suggested title change, which also requires the boldfaced '''Georg Cantor's first set theory article''' to handle the redirect. I believe quicker leads are better because they entice users to read the article. Also, I wrote the original lead to relegate the obscure title of Cantor's paper to the bottom of the paragraph since the Wikipedia article doesn't devote much space on the countability of the real algebraic numbers. (I deal with the title more in the section "The influence of Weierstrass and Kronecker on Cantor's article.")

I guess my feeling is Cantor got stuck with a poor title for his paper. I don't think we need to get stuck with the same obscure title.--[[User:RJGray|RJGray]] ([[User talk:RJGray|talk]]) 00:43, 15 February 2016 (UTC)