Talk:The Dictator

Requested move 9 July 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: moved. Although it was conclusively shown that the 2012 film dwarfs the pageviews of all other topics titled "The Dictator", participants were split as to whether the 2012 film met the "long-term significance" criterion of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Opponents of the proposal primarily argued that, based on significance grounds, no topic sufficiently surpassed the significance of any other to become a primary topic. A small number of users did also argue for the 2012 film holding greater long-term significance due to factors like its high volume of reviews and its being the subject of scholarly analysis. Reviewing these stances, it appears that the major camps under discussion were that the 2012 film holds the greatest long-term significance, or that none of the topics do; no argument was made that any exact title match other than the 2012 film held the greatest amount of long-term significance. (One argument was made for The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia holding PT2, but based on comments such as Erik's and Zxcvbnm's, I see the discussion as generally leaning toward the idea that "The Dictators" should be considered a separate title for purposes of primary topic determination.)

If long-term significance were the only criterion for determining a primary topic, the discussion would likely have resulted in no consensus emerging. However, the primary topic guideline directs us to account for both usage (WP:PT1) and significance (WP:PT2) in determining which topic (if any) is primary. The discussion resulted in no significant dispute that the 2012 film met PT1. (Raladic noted the existence of some other title matches that had not been previously considered, though many of them were plural titles.) Meanwhile, participants were split on whether the 2012 film met PT2, and no individual title-matching topics were considered to have surpassed the 2012 film. Accordingly, I don't believe the PT2 analysis gives us cause to override the findings regarding PT1, leading me to find an overall consensus to move the articles as proposed. (closed by non-admin page mover) ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:45, 14 August 2025 (UTC)

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• The Dictator (2012 film) → The Dictator
• The Dictator → The Dictator (disambiguation)

– Clear primary topic Thepharoah17 (talk) 22:13, 9 July 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. CoconutOctopus talk 12:16, 17 July 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. Frost 02:45, 25 July 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. Cactus🌵 ^{spiky ouch} 04:25, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

• Support WikiNav outgoing pageviews also indicate that the vast majority of readers are looking for The Dictator (2012 film). Pineapple Storage (talk) 06:54, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

• Support. Bearian (talk) 08:27, 11 July 2025 (UTC)
• Weak oppose – Basing topic primacy solely on Wikipedia traffic might result in some unintended recency bias. I also see no benefit to making the Wikipedia article title of the 2012 film less specific and more ambiguous. Yue🌙 19:39, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. The pageview stats linked in the nomination show the four films are in perfect descending order by age. This indicates recency bias more than it does a primary topic. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 19:54, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
• Support per WP:PT1 as the 2012 film is much more likely than any other topic titled The Dictator to be sought by readers. Even when setting the pageviews analysis for 1/1/2021 onward (after the traffic spikes that may skew results), the 2012 film has 1,961 daily average views, much more than the rest combined. (I would not even count The Dictators for page views -- nobody would type The Whos or The Cures looking for the bands.) WP:PT2 does not apply since none of these others have competing "enduring notability and educational value", and it actually seems like the 2012 film has numerous results in Google Scholar. I cannot find the recency argument to be applicable since the film came out about 12-13 years ago. That's quite a while ago! It may not be the most tasteful film, but again, we have no true competition in terms of page views or enduring notability/educational value. It's totally fine to let the vast majority of readers where they want to go, the 2012 film, and for the few that don't, they can access the disambiguation page. Erik (talk | contrib) 20:58, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
• Support per the WikiNav findings and other comments above – Despite the weak oppose concern that we should not solely rely on WP traffic, WP:PT1 clearly states, "A topic is primary...if it is highly likely to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term." So even if it the sole reason, that is a perfectly acceptable reason, but Erik has provided additional reasons. --GoneIn60 (talk) 13:29, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

  One other side note...

  The only other real contender on the DAB page is the 1935 film, but that was released in the US as Loves of a Dictator (the article needs to be updated to reflect this: source), so the long-term significance or occurrence in English-based sources containing The Dictator (referring to the 1935 film) will be even further reduced. -- GoneIn60 (talk) 19:57, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

• Support Per WP:SMALLDETAILS as the clear apparent primary topic, with the condition that a hatnote is added to prevent confusion with The Great Dictator. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 05:59, 23 July 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. No primary topic by long-term significance or clarity. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:35, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

  Per WP:PTOPIC, "the topic that is primary with respect to usage is also primary with respect to long-term significance; in many other cases, only one sense of primacy is relevant". We have established that it meets usage criteria as defined in WP:PT1, which as our guidance states, is fine in "many" cases. You seem to be implying it must meet both. -- GoneIn60 (talk) 17:13, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

  In most cases, the topic that is primary with respect to usage is also primary with respect to long-term significance... But not in all cases. And not in this case. Obviously a film made during the internet era is going to have more hits. That doesn't mean anything. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:29, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

  All due respect, and not to drag out the debate, but I think that is a misconception of the purpose behind long-term significance. When usage and LTS are in conflict, then it would make sense for us to default to a DAB page and avoid selecting a PT. But when LTS is simply unclear but usage is clear, then we shouldn't hesitate to designate the PT. The scales are tipped in favor of a selection here, but I respect your opinion. -- GoneIn60 (talk) 19:50, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Spain, WikiProject Comedy, WikiProject Film, and WikiProject New York City have been notified of this discussion. ASUKITE 16:45, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose, per Necrothesp, as there doesn't seem to be a primary when long-term significance is considered (and it should be). If there were a primary then Chaplin's The Great Dictator would be a candidate, a close enough name that many film-knowledgeable readers may think of when reading the title The Dictator, which would also have the long-term significance. Here is the chart linked above with The Great Dictator added. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:11, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

  No, The Great Dictator does not qualify as a partial title match, unless it can be shown that it is commonly referred to as The Dictator in reliable sources. We wouldn't list The Incredible Journey at The Journey (disambiguation) for the same reasons we wouldn't list Harry J. Lincoln at Lincoln (disambiguation). DAB pages are not search indexes. -- GoneIn60 (talk) 08:58, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

• Support I am persuaded by the arguments that this is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (in terms of usage, specifically), and I do not find the counterarguments convincing. I don't think The Great Dictator should be taken into account for the reason outlined above, but even if it were included this would still be the primary topic by usage—so the case that it is indeed the primary topic is if anything strengthened by the Chaplin film having been brought up. TompaDompa (talk) 22:41, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

  But not the primary per historical significance, which would fall to The Great Dictator if it were included. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:39, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

  Perhaps, but it shouldn't. I'm inclined to think dictator would be about equally reasonable to include, and then that would definitely be the primary topic by historical significance. But of course, that's not how WP:Disambiguation pages work. TompaDompa (talk) 00:24, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Novels, WikiProject Books, and WikiProject Musicians have been notified of this discussion. Raladic (talk) 20:52, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

• Comment - I stumbled across this through some other thread and got curious, so I checked if the DAB page actually contained all relevant content for "The Dictator" and wasn't all too surprised that it didn't, but I was a bit surprised at how many notable things it was missing. I found several works titled "The Dictator" and "The Dictators". Works span the 1893 The Dictator (book) by Justin McCarthy, which appears to have been in continuous print for the past 130 years, so there might be a smidgeon of PT2 there. There are also two historian books titled "The Dictators" (with subtitles, so they pass WP:PARTIAL - The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia by Richard Overly from 2004 & the 2024 The Dictators: 64 Dictators, 64 Authors, 64 Warnings from History book by Iain Dale. Then there's of course the 1904 play, on which the two movies that followed it are based. We also have an article on the The Dictator (soundtrack) of the 2012 movie, which was missing from the DAB page. All in all, there's quite a lot of articles and especially the historians works and the 1893 book. Now here's comes the interesting new twist: the 2004 book by Overy won two literary awards and is already cited across 64 articles, some of them extensively so. After having done some more digging on this, two things are clear - 1) the book easily sails through WP:NBOOK with countless sources discussing it in detail, both in news, as well as journal analysis, and it's almost surprising it has been cited so much and doesn't have its own article already and if someone feels so inclined, can convert the redirect above into an article before I get the chance to, and 2) This book smells very strongly of PT2 (some articles like Propaganda in the Soviet Union cite it a whopping 40 times alone, aka this book is already become an important historic reference piece) - in which case we now have a PT1 of the 2012 movie, and a PT2 of a historic reference book, aka no PT for this disambiguation page for "The Dictator/s". Next - this book is likely easily contesting that The Dictators band is no longer primary for "The Dictators" either and should be moved to a disambiguated parenthetical The Dictators (band) and The Dictators becomes a redirect to The Dictator tagged with {{R from plural}} similar to other plural to singular dab pages. We may of course also consider them separate under WP:PLURALPT and sharing a single DAB page at The Dictator (disambiguation). I haven't had enough time to analyze the other pieces as much, so can't fully speak to those yet, but in any case, I do think this RM is now procedurally a bit at a crossroads, given the new information that wasn't previously considered (arguably it's a bit of a shortcoming of the RM process sometimes as it doesn't have as strict of a "before" criteria like AfD or RfCs have). The WikiNav data is from June and we won't have the August data for a while to see what the new additions will do for PT1 primacy for the singular vs its current DAB page. So, I'd suggest a pause under WP:NODEADLINE as this feels likely down the road of a WP:NOCON close, and we take a closer look at some of those additions and the navigations resulted thereof and re-evaluate this in a few months again. I'm not formally voting, since alternatives such as PLURALPT may still be valid reasons, but the lack of updated navdata against the previously missing things on the DAB page may still be enough to warrant waiting and coming back to this once we have a clear picture on that. Raladic (talk) 05:53, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

  It's great that additional entries were found and added to the page, so thanks for doing that. However, I'm not overly concerned about the need for a pause. NODEADLINE cuts both ways. We can just as easily revisit and reassess down the road as needed. Wikipedia is a work in progress after all. I also didn't see this mentioned earlier, but it's worth pointing out that even on Dictator (disambiguation), which contains many more entries, the overwhelming PT1 usage favorite is still the 2012 film by a significant margin. Per WikiNav, nearly 84% of outgoing pageviews are to the 2012 film, which is incredible considering the other entries that were listed prior to your recent additions.

  I do understand the points made about the recently-added literary works, one of which won two awards, but let's not discount the facts:

  • Over 200 film critics reviewed the 2012 film
  • Books (and other forms of scholarly analysis) have been written/published (and continue to be written/published) covering the political satire and controversy surrounding the film
  • It was banned or censored in several countries.
  • The film's lead actor, Baron Cohen, even pulled a widely-reported publicity stunt in character on the red carpet of the 84th Academy Awards.

  The additional entries that have yet to show up on WikiNav are not likely to have a significant impact on outgoing pageviews. The DAB entries, as well as the missing redirects and/or articles would have been created long ago if we expect that their absence caused a gaping hole. And if by some slim chance I'm wrong, we simply revisit. This film has left a lasting mark in ways that have kept the conversation going. This wasn't a flash-in-the-pan significance that came and went. While the jury may still be out on "enduring historical significance" decades from now, there's too much going for it at this time. It is clearly the primary topic until there is strong evidence to indicate otherwise. We have no reason to believe that directing most readers to the 2012 film – where 84% end up going anyway – is going to cause any issues. -- GoneIn60 (talk) 11:57, 6 August 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.