Talk:Frederick William III

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Frederick William IV of Prussia which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 23:03, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Current Main Image is terrible

It should not have been changed. This current one is simply awful. 2A01:B340:65:E2D8:AF81:F51B:8FD7:D550 (talk) 15:09, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 29 November 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Thanks, 1isall (he/him) (talk | contribs) 01:11, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

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Frederick William III of Prussia → Frederick William III – Per WP:CONCISE, WP:NCROY and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC; or the redirect should be retargeted to Frederick William (disambiguation). estar8806 (talk) ★ 00:43, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose and retarget to Frederick William III (disambiguation) There were four different Frederick William IIIs. In addition Frederick III, German Emperor was known as Frederick William before his very brief reign to the point that many assume that was his regnal title. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:11, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose and support moving Frederick William III (disambiguation) to the base name. At the German Wikipedia, only Frederick William IV is the primary topic, but there is no need to disrupt the pattern just for Frederic William IV. Note how book and thesis titles typically mention Prussia:

  Robert Ergan, The Potsdam Führer: Frederick William I, Father of Prussian Militarism (Columbia University Press, 2019)

  Reinhold August Dorwart, The Administrative Reforms of Frederick William I of Prussia (Harvard University Press, 1953)

  Derek Mckay, The Great Elector: Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia (Routledge, 2017)

  Robert Baird Armeson, Frederick William IV and the Constitutional Question in Prussia, 1848 (University of California, Berkeley, 1959)

  David E. Barclay, Frederick William IV and the Prussian Monarchy, 1840–1861 (Clarendon Press, 1995)

  Charles Edmund Maurice, Life of Frederick William: The Great Elector of Brandenburg (Allen & Unwin, 1926)

Not also that the first Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia was not Frederick William I. This is a good reason to leave them as is. "Frederick William [I/II/III/IV] of Prussia" is much more clearly a numbering of Prussian kings (as it is) than the bare names and numbers. Srnec (talk) 14:47, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Follow-up and confusion, following above RM

Pinging everyone involved in this saga: @Estar8806, 1isall, Timrollpickering, Srnec, Surtsicna, and TarnishedPath:

Hi all

I'm starting a discussion, because there seems to be some confusion regarding the consensus and outcome of the above RM.

To summarise what happened, 1isall closed the discussion with a summary of "not moved", but that close did not mention anything about moving the disambiguation page Frederick William III (disambiguation) to the base name Frederick William III, or indeed about changing the primary topic situation. It's also not clear if "not moved" was intended to denote a change of primary topic or simply a "no consensus" given that there was one supporter and two opposers.

Since then, Srnec and Timrollpickering, editors who opposed the RM above, have both done what appear to me to be WP:BOLD moves of the disambiguation page, which I have reverted twice, and requested a third reversion at WP:RM/TR, because the disambiguation page move was not explicitly part of the close above (as required by WP:EXPLICIT) and, as noted, not mentioned in the RM close. I don't think it's legitimate to move the page based on the above discussion, a month later, without the closer having explicitly said that was the intention.

It seems to me we have several options for how to proceed.

1. Leave everything as it currently is and move on. Then the status quo is as it was before all this began - Frederick William III is a primary redirect to Frederick William III of Prussia, and Frederick William III (disambiguation) is the dab page.
2. Reopen and relist the RM, and explicitly mention that the disambiguation page might be moved, while also allowing that the original request for Frederick William III of Prussia to be moved to the base name is still on the table.
3. 1isall could revise their close to make it more explicit what the intention was. That might include the assertion that they he genuinely intended for Frederick William III (disambiguation) to be moved to the base name, or a fuller clarification of their close.

Personally I would probably choose #2 as the cleanest way forward - I missed the original RM and would like the opportunity to support it myself, and really the primary topic is abundantly clear based on page views so I think that the move proposed should go ahead. If, on the other hand, 1isall indicates that #3 is the way forward, and that they he saw a consensus to move the disambiguation page and change the primary topic, then I will probably start a move review for that, as such a change of PTOPIC is not at all supported by the page views or long-term significance of Frederick William III of Prussia.

Thanks, and looking forward to your responses and hopefully clearing this up properly and avoiding further move wars.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:20, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

FYI, I go by he/him and not they/them pronouns. Thanks, 1isall (talk | contribs) . . (he/him) 12:21, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Noted, and amended. FWIW the intention wasn't to assign a nonbinary gender to you, simply that it's conventional on Wikipedia to say they/them as a sort of default... Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 12:29, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

I do believe that the king is the primary topic, but I do not think that we get to overturn the outcome of a proper discussion on a whim. The consensus reached above is that the king is not the primary topic and if he is not the primary topic, then–in accordance with WP:PRIMARYTOPIC–Frederick William III should not redirect here. That can change through a new move discussion. Surtsicna (talk) 14:42, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Amakuru makes the argument that the closer didn't find any consensus and more importantly WP:EXPLICIT, that the dis amb page wasn't included in the move request. I'm thinking a new move discussion may be needed. TarnishedPath^talk 15:07, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

A new RM would be fine from my end. As I see it, there are three main options that !voters would have to choose between:

• (a) Status quo – Frederick William III redirects to Frederick William III of Prussia, and Frederick William III (disambiguation) remains as is.
• (b) Move to concise primary topic (original proposal above) - Frederick William III of Prussia moved to Frederick William III, Frederick William III (disambiguation) remains as is.
• (c) No primary topic, move Frederick William III (disambiguation) to Frederick William III

The move request should explicitly name both the affected pages, even though in either (b) or (c) only one of the two pages would be moved.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:20, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Just move the disambiguation page and then leave the whole matter. The Requested Move above did include the alternative option of retargetting the base name and this was supported by every respondent; it makes no sense to include "(disambuation)" if the base name redirects there and it is pointless bureaucracy to insist on an RM for that specifically. It's unfortunate this wasn't spotted immediately at the time as it was a busy period but it should be fixed and would be but for one user opposing it. It's rather hard to argue a closer misread an RM when all the responses were unanimous. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:46, 19 January 2026 (UTC)