Talk:How a bill becomes a law

How a Bill Becomes a Law

Now that deletion is no longer on the table, following the recent discussion, I would like to reopen the question of where this redirect should be targeted.

The fact is that this is a {{R from miscapitalisation}} carbon-copy of How a Bill Becomes a Law, a television series episode. I suggest retargeting it, and adding a hatnote at the new target pointing to Bill (law)#Enactment and after, thereby ensuring searchers of either topic can find their desired article. Under the status quo, someone searching for this search string has no straightforward way to navigate to the episode. The other option would be to add a hatnote at Bill (law)#Enactment and after, but that approach would give undue emphasis to just one among multiple possible search phrases (e.g. "how a bill becomes a law", "how a bill becomes law", "how bills become law", etc.).

For transparency, I am pinging all registered participants in the discussion (Deryck Chan, El cid, el campeador, Roy17, Thryduulf, UnnamedUser) and the closer (Dmehus), who received advance notice of this discussion. Thanks, -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 04:38, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose retargetting. As established in the very recent RfD, Bill (law)#Enactment and after is the primary topic for the search term. A hatnote simply does not give undue emphasis to a search term, whether this one or another, it's there solely as a navigation aid for ambiguous search terms. That said there should be a hatnote, so I've gone ahead and added it. Thryduulf (talk) 10:02, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

  Thryduulf, Thanks. A hatnote could be useful. Did you add it to the #Enactment and after section, or to the top of the article? I suppose it doesn't really matter where the hatnote goes. Doug Mehus T·C 01:54, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

  It does matter where a hatnote goes - it should always be placed at the top of the section someone will arrive at when they use the search term it references, otherwise it doesn't actually help them. In most cases redirects target a page, so the hatnote is placed at the top of the page but, as here, where a lower section is targetted the hatnote needs to go at the top of that section. Thryduulf (talk) 11:39, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

  Thryduulf, Yes, I agree with you that it does matter, but was trying to be agreeable in that if it had been placed at the top of the article, I would be OK with that as well. I am glad that you placed it at the top of the section. That's where I would've placed it. Doug Mehus T·C 16:59, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

• Support retargetting as having search engine terms as redirects goes against every bit of common sense I have and keeping redirects like this is, in my opinion, opening Pandora's box (this was termed by another voter at the RfD), I would support redirecting to the TV episode, which is actually called this. ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia ^ᐐT₳LKᐬ 19:20, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
  • @El cid, el campeador: "Pandora's box" is a very misleading term because redirects are judged on their own merits, not because of whether a different redirect exists or not. Even if it wasn't, I don't understand how on earth it could be at all relevant to this discussion (which probably should be at RfD anyway, given that it seeks to change the consensus arrived at there)? Thryduulf (talk) 21:43, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
• special:permalink/849474286 should be renamed to How a Bill Becomes a Law (Parks and Recreation) just like Sex Education (Parks and Recreation). Then How a Bill Becomes a Law should redirect to Bill (law)#Enactment and after too.--Roy17 (talk) 13:21, 10 December 2019 (UTC)
  • I'd support that. It would probably require an RM, definitely at least a notification at Talk:How a Bill Becomes a Law. Thryduulf (talk) 17:41, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

  Roy17, Yeah, that's what I recommended to Black Falcon as an alternative. I would oppose retargeting per Thryduulf above. No indication an NBC television sitcom (is it even still airing!?) is primary topic, especially in a global encyclopedia. Doug Mehus T·C 01:52, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

• No need to harmonise. I think this is a plausible application of WP:DIFFCAPS. I wasn't aware How a Bill Becomes a Law was an article about a TV episode. Now that I'm aware of that, I lean weakly towards retargeting. But Diffcaps is also a feasible solution. Deryck C. 14:47, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

  Deryck Chan, Thanks for your comment. Using the Archer script that MJL, I think, told me about, I added the rcat "other capitalisation." Is that the one for WP:DIFFCAPS? Also, given the general worldwide usage of the process by which a bill becomes law, in terms of retargeting, wouldn't you say a stronger case could be made towards moving How a Bill Becomes a Law to How a Bill Becomes a Law (Parks and Recreation) and then retargeting How a Bill Becomes a Law to Bill#Enactment and after as well, or is that what you meant? Doug Mehus T·C 19:49, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

  I added a hatnote at How a Bill Becomes a Law for now. Of course, it will become unnecessary if the article is renamed to add a parenthetical disambiguator, but I would prefer to avoid that. Looking through Category:Parks and Recreation episodes, there are many other examples of titles that, with alternative capitalization, could have a different meaning. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 03:29, 15 January 2020 (UTC)