Talk:Spenser (character)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. 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.

The result of the debate was move. —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 09:22, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

• Spenser → Spenser (fictional detective) … Rationale: I believe Spenser ought to redirect to the canonical English poet Edmund Spenser, not to a fictional character of a detective novel who happens to have been named "Spenser" with no first name. --Ryan Heuser 20:27, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support - Nat Krause^(Talk!) 20:35, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
• Suport _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 21:32, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
• Support. But the current page should become a DAB and not a redirect. Vegaswikian 23:52, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
• Support, but disambiguate Spenser. -Sean Curtin 00:40, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Support but add dab header to Edmund Spenser.

Septentrionalis 03:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

• Support. I suppose Edmund Spenser is far more notable than the current Spenser. Skinnyweed 16:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments

[edit] Spenser has a first name ...

Spenser has a first name, according to Stardust as quoted at [1], so it's more accurate to say that he never reveals it. --JerryFriedman 17:36, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Am I the only one appalled?

Am I the only one appalled that "Spenser" points to a fictional character of some detective novels rather than to one of the greatest poets of Western literature?! --Ryan Heuser 02:48, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Spenser could be a redirect to Edmund Spenser with the current content of Spenser moved to something like Spenser (fictional detective) (and a disambiguation link added to Edmund Spenser pointing to the detective's article). The current Spenser article has a disambiguation link pointing to the poet, which strikes me as not significantly different. I'd guess the Spenser detective is currently much more widely known than the poet. In 50 years perhaps the situation will flip. Appalling? No. Permanent state of affairs? Also, probably not. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:20, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

An argument from popularity does not seem intuitive to me. Of course a 20th-century popular novel character is more widely "known" than a 16th-century poet. The issue remains: I don't think it's in the best interest of WP to let popular fictional characters trump canonical writers. And I think the situation you described (Spenser->Edmund Spenser, and a Spenser (fictional detective)) would be very satisfactory. --Ryan Heuser 11:45, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. 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.