Talk:Halo (disambiguation)

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[edit] Order of precedence

[Moved from User talk:Mzajac. —Michael Z. 2005-07-31 07:07 Z]

Halo is one of the most popular video games series of all time...I would think it deserves precedence over the optical phenomenon (on Google, 'halo optical' generates 750k hits, 'halo game' generates 5.5 million hits)...it CERTAINLY deserves precedence over the medical device and the minor comic book character. However, since the optical phenomenon is so closely related to the original meaning of the word (glowing object around the head), I will concede it might be better snuggled up against Halo. I've changed the order now to Halo / Halo optical / Halo game...I hope you don't disagree. Btw thanks for your previous edit, it made the page better.

On a side note, that ugly Halo (Forerunner tech) article should probably be merged with the main Halo game article -- jiy 09:04, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I still disagree, but I don't think it's worth starting a revert war over.

Google tests don't prove much about encyclopedic significance of things on their own, and your contrived example even less so. Of course the game gets lots of hits because people are trying to make money by selling and promoting it on the Internet this week, and gamers discuss it on the Web. Look at which halos the Encyclopædia Britannica editors found significant.

The basic meaning of the word halo is a luminous ring or phenomenon resembling it (Halo (optical phenomenon)); all others, including the classical halo painted around the heads of ancient Greek and Christian holy figures are derived from it.

In my estimation, natural phenomena which exist independent of humanity, like galactic halos and nuclear halos, come next. Then important artifacts like medical halos which help save lives, and cultural constructs like the psychological halo effect, and even the halo automobile in marketing.

Finally, particular artifacts of popular culture, which have been around for a historically tiny period, effect a tiny demographic, and aren't really significant to anyone's quality of life. I'd argue that a comic book that has been around since the 1980s might take precedence over a recent Xbox and PC game, but whatever.

You could reconstruct the order of these things in a few different ways, but the video game neither came first nor is more important than any of the other meanings. It isn't economically as significant as a marketing scheme in a multi-billion-dollar automotive market, and it hasn't been around for long enough to prove itself an influential cultural icon. (P.S. I'm a fan of Halo and I'm looking forward for Halo 2 to be ported to the Mac so I can play it, too.) —Michael Z. 2005-07-31 07:07 Z

You make good points, but the issue is not encyclopedic significance or importance. To quote Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages), "...the primary purpose of the disambiguation page is to help people find the page they want quickly and easily." It is far more likely that someone who enters "Halo" into the search box is looking for the massively popular video game, not a spinal brace (which I personally had to create as a stub) or a defunct comic book character. Having it higher up in the list reflects the likelihood of a user desiring that article, not its humanistic importance. (P.S. I've never played the game) -- jiy 12:08, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

More to the point than the order of appearance here is the title of the article. If it is felt that "Halo" should go directly to the video game, then there is a mechanism in place for doing the Nimbus → Nimbus (disambiguation), Halo → Nimbus and Halo (video game series) → Halo moves. See Help:Renaming (moving) a page. Courtland 04:51, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dab cleanup

I've made an attempt at a Dab-cleanup/sectionizing, feel free to revert and redo if it's drastically wrong.

Also, there's a split suggestion at Halo that should be of interest to anyone watchlisting this. -Quiddity 01:30, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Are we meant to include images on Dab pages? --Quiddity·(talk) 18:11, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

This is such a lovely, lovely dab page. Just wanted to applaud your work. :) -- Natalya 22:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

thank you! :-) --Quiddity·(talk) 05:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)