The following discussion is an archived discussion 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.

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:45, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Eidos Interactive → Eidos – While the word "Eidos" refers to a portion of the Theory of Forms, this is only refers to a fraction of it, mentioned only once in a list of similar words. While Theory of Forms gets more page views, traffic from the redirect Eidos is clearly more in line with traffic of Eidos Interactive. Meaning, although more people are looking at Theory of Forms in general, people that go to Eidos are expecting Eidos Interactive. There is no need to prevent this article from being at the proper name, just so we can keep a redirect to a page where that word is barely featured. That is what hatnote links are for. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 23:00, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose I would suggest Eidos becomes a disambiguation page instead. MrMarmite (talk) 03:14, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Wikipedia is not an English dictionary nor a Greek-English dictionary. The readers will be best served by getting to the sought article from Eidos. -- JHunterJ (talk) 03:32, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - eidos is not a candidate name for Theory of Forms and no alternative article presents itself for this title; thus Eidos Interactive is the primary topic and the page should be moved there, or Eidos redirected to Eidos Interactive (either of these schemes is equally acceptable to me). --MegaSloth (talk) 03:41, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Weak Support - The rename of this page to Eidos ; Support the redirection of Eidos to Eidos Interactive, the primary topic. Salvidrim! 05:03, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  I went ahead and modified Eidos to redirect to the intended primary topic. Salvidrim! 05:26, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  And someone went ahead and reverted that non-consensual edit in the midst of a discussion, Salvidrim. Quite correctly. Noetica^Tea? 22:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pardon me. This discussion is about a RM, not where the Eidos redirect points, and I did not expect opposition. I was bold, reverted, now we're discussing. That's the plan, no? :) Salvidrim! 23:04, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fine. Thanks for noting your edit here, too. Noetica^Tea? 23:54, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• I see no evidence that Eidos Interactive is the name of this company (though it may have been in the past). The website simply refers to "Eidos" and Square Enix Europe. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 05:32, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  While it is not incorrect to say that recently, the public use of the name has been a simple Eidos, I have found evidence from 2009 that a joint press release refers to the company as Eidos Interactive (itself a shortened version of the full Eidos Interactive Ltd.. I have found no reliable source indicating that the full name has changed, despite the widespread use of the shortened form. If you do find such a source, I will be happy to revise my position. In the meantime, I cannot support a RM that seems to be based on synthesis of the "public" name used to refer to the company. Salvidrim! 10:02, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  FWIW, Hoover's has it listed as "Eidos plc" and notes that SCi Entertainment changed its name from "Eidos Interactive" to "Eidos plc" in December 2008, but Hoover's primarily refers to the company simply as "Eidos". US Fed News in November 2010 noted that the owner of the Kane & Lynch 2 Dog Days trademark is "Eidos Interactive Limited". The LA Times called them "Eidos Interactive" in a photo credit in September 2010. "Eidos" is probably best as WP:COMMONNAME, and the others can be redirects. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:22, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Modified my position after reading through WP:COMMONNAME. Please note that moving the redirect Eidos to redirect to Eidos Interactive was reverted by an editor claiming Theory of Forms is the primary topic. The editor is surely unaware of this discussion, but let this be a forewarning -- there may be opposition amongst those following the Philosophy article (but not the video game article). Salvidrim! 22:10, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  I added a note at Talk:Eidos, since that redirect could be affected by the discussion here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:16, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. The term eidos ("form, shape", but meaning far more than that in philosophy) is of fundamental importance in Western philosophy since ancient times. It is connected with such universal notions as "idea". It is ludicrous to suggest that a computer game company [amended; see below] should supplant such an ageless topic; it would, in fact, risk bringing Wikipedia into disrepute. If I were a journalist wanting to lampoon Wikipedia as representing the stupidity rather than the wisdom of crowds, I would be delighted if this RM were successful.

Noetica^Tea? 22:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Not a computer game -- a commercially successful company. And we're not undermining the historical importance of the term, we're saying readers accessing Eidos are, at the present time, more likely to be seeking information about the company than the Theory of Forms. Also please refrain from personal attack, as you seem to have implied people in favor of this demonstrate "stupidity rather than wisdom". Salvidrim! 23:00, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks for the correction, Salvidrim. And no personal attack intended; I speak the truth as I see it, and I regard this is as a most counterproductive move. I refer to how the media might represent Wikipedia, not to the stupidity of anyone here. For your point about historical significance, you might like to review Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Is there a primary topic?, where the matter is dealt with. (Not that I'm a fan of "primary topic" talk at all.)

  Noetica^Tea? 23:54, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  The supposed (and remote) risk of disrepute of Wikipedia for serving its readership is a counterproductive argument here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:57, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. I'm the one who reverted at Eidos. I didn't agree with Salvidrim's edit there, but I thank Salvidrim for pointing out to me that a discussion is taking place here. I believe a good argument can be made for Theory of Forms as the primary referent of "eidos." I believe that in some cases like this one, we have to remember that we're writing an encyclopedia, not taking a census of the Google-able words that have been blathered. What I mean by this is that a good research library has shelves of books on the concept of eidos in Greek philosophy, but not so much on Eidos Interactive. Wikipedia presents the world of knowledge, and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC addresses this when it states, "A topic is primary for a term, with respect to historical significance, if it has significantly greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with that term."

  Now, don't get me wrong. I agree with whoever above has said that Eidos should be a disambiguation page. That, at the same time, sidesteps any controversy and provides maximal help to the real information-seeking readers of the encyclopedia, in the full range of their interests. Wareh (talk) 00:05, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  As justification for the above, let me point out that one university library catalog I consult (Harvard) has 252 items with eidos in the title. No more than 5 of these are in Greek, which to my mind speaks against JHunterJ's application of the "not a dictionary" point: this is the word to which scholars in English (and the world's languages generally) resort to discuss a set of concepts, and the record of their having done so is as long and important a knowledge-topic as the company. (As to the legitimacy of the topic eidos, let me further note that I'm the one who killed the attempt to make it an article, but I did so not because it's not a notable topic--it is--but because it was done poorly and against sound Wikipedia principles; whether the encyclopedia eventually should have a good article on eidos is another question altogether.) Wareh (talk) 00:12, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  (e/c) I don't think this would be the same discussion if we had an article on Eidos. As mentioned above, the article it links to doesn't even mention the word more than once, and it is not even a potential name for the article. Disambiguation is necessary so that readers can find the article on Wikipedia that they are looking for. I think that it is pretty clear that the page-views for Eidos correlate to the pageviews for Eidos Interactive, as that is what readers are looking for. Why on Earth is a disambiguation page needed between three articles, when one is not what readers are looking for, and wouldn't even provide coverage of that topic if they were looking for it? How would a hatnote diminish Wikipedia? How does it make us look more respectable to say "You weren't looking for this topic, but this topic is what you should have been looking for, even though we don't have coverage of this topic, so now click this link to go to the page that you shouldn't have been looking for"? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 00:30, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  Wareh, I'd hazard that none of those Harvard entries are Wikipedia articles. See also WP:PTM for "things that have X in the title" -- they are not ambiguous, and so are not particularly useful in determining what the primary topic for a title might be. Scholars should look up words in dictionaries, and topics in encyclopedias. The primary topic for the title "Eidos" in the encyclopedia of all the world's knowledge, including knowledge that you might deem less scholarly, is the tech company, not the philosophical term. The former "article" was rightly killed because it was an overblown dictionary entry. As I've said elsewhere, Wikipedia is not a schoolmarm serving to teach readers what they ought to have been looking for, but a reference serving to give readers the information there were looking for. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:57, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We may have to agree to disagree a bit about the ideal version of the encyclopedia. To me, it would give good general accounts of most everything in the Harvard University Library, plus all the sort of topics that people have only gotten around to documenting in more ephemeral media (like Eidos Interactive). I don't know, maybe 75%/25% respectively. Yes, I realize that our job will be to disambiguate eidos in the Wikipedia we have, not the Wikipedia we want. But I think you're not fully considering that we do already have as much about what English-speaking writers about philosophy call "eidos" as about the company, in articles on subjects ranging from potentiality and actuality to Theory of Forms to predicables to Jungian archetypes to Platonic realism to Alcinous (philosopher). This eidos has a larger "footprint," both in the map of knowledge offered by the existing Wikipedia, and in the ideal Wikipedia.

This is only meant as commentary on the notability of philosphical eidos in comparison to Eidos Interactive. It's not meant as a prescription on how to write the disambiguation page. For that, we only want to direct the reader to the clearest account that will most probably illuminate them (Theory of Forms is probably the most important), and I agree the job is not as easy as it should or could be if we had a better structure (and better articles) in place.

Anyway, "Eidos Plato" edges out "Eidos Interactive" on Google Books. My point is not that Eidos Interactive is definitely not the primary topic, but that the matter is complicated and two-sided enough that making the reader go through an extra click disambiguating philosophical and corporate-nomenclature uses is not a burden. It's not that I want to wag my schoolmarm-finger and tell people they should care more about Greek philosophy; but it is an important area of knowledge, and there's a real case that the encyclopedia should unfold equally in both directions on this word. My position is clear enough by now, so I'll avoid needlessly adding to these comments, even though I can anticipate how they won't equally satisfy all.

I want to stress, again, my agreement on the point that Eidos should not redirect to a philosophy page (but should instead, in my view, be a dab page). Wareh (talk) 01:22, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

At the risk of sounding flippant, I will confide that my ideal encyclopedia doesn't have detailed articles on the types of aliens people believe have abducted them. My ideal encyclopedia wouldn't encourage every passerby to continuously add information to the article on Aaron Burr, as if new factoids on him is popping up by the minute. This may have started out as an academic website, but now it is an unreliable pop-culture juggernaut, and we can only do our best to steer it away from the cliffs. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 01:35, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Disclosure -- I know absolutely nothing about the philosophical concept, its significance or history of Eidos). Salvidrim!

I also believe a hatnote on an Eidos article about the company would be sufficient. Noetica's argument lies with how the "outside", or the public/media might view Wikipedia if Eidos is an article about a company, and not a redirect to the philosophical concept. I am not sure whether Wikipedia's goal should be to "avoid disrepute in the media". WP:PRIMARYTOPIC speaks of the usage AND the historical significance -- in this case, I believe arguments for both are solid. I'm afraid my lack of insight into the philosophical weight of Eidos prevents me from forming a clear opinion on whether it should be primary topic instead of the company. However, would that tend to indicate a majority of readers would be unaware of the historical significance of the term? In that case, most readers would be, by searching for Eidos, looking for info on the company -- not the philosophical concept. Salvidrim! 01:10, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No Salvidrim, my argument is not founded on how stupid Wikipedia might look if this RM went through. That was just a way of expressing the trenchancy of the thing, and true enough in fact. More particularly, if you confess your "lack of insight", you might also like to step back and take note when others with more insight into the relevant meanings have their say. I think I now have a clear grasp of your preferred meaning; and I still dismiss it as ephemeral in the extreme, compared to the enduring significance of "eidos" in Western thought. I think I am not alone in favouring the forms over such flickerings on the cave wall.

Noetica^Tea? 01:23, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• No hurry: This was just mentioned on the WikiProject Philosophy talk page; let's wait for feedback from project members before making any decisions. CRGreathouse (t | c) 06:29, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. Leave Eidos Interactive where it is, as that is the full and unambiguous name. However, in absence of an article on the philosophical concept, the most obvious referent for "Eidos" extant on Wikipedia is "Eidos Interactive", so for the present, change the redirect Eidos → Eidos Interactive, with a hatnote on the target reading:
  "Eidos" redirects here. For the philosophical concept, see Theory of Forms.
  If there ever is a page on the philosophical concept, then Eidos should become a disambiguation. For now, I don't think Eidos (disambiguation) needs to exist. --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:31, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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