Talk:Caregiver

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.

• Voluntary_caregiver → carers —(Discuss)— nobody appears to know what a voluntary caregiver is and nobody wants to be called one to their face, and anyway the internationally accepted terminology is carers, plural, not singular because an individual carer is a simple dictionary definition whilst carers are a massive international social movement — a quick search of google makes it clear that carers is a vastly better used terminology Excalibur 00:16, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Quite by accident I just came across this american blog [3] that identifies the confusion and comes up with a new word: caretaker - this to me is a person who cleans out the school toilets and minds the boiler-room not an unpaid family carer! Quote: "OK, so we all know there's an ongoing struggle within the disability rights organization between PWDs and their carers. Carers, or caretakers, are the people who help us with all that stuff we have trouble with, ie. cleaning, cooking, dressing, etc. The caretaker can be a parent, partner, or other family member. Often the carers are paid by the PWD or disability healthcare benefits." so it seems that even the Americans are confused but they are using the word "carers"

Its only a guide to usage, but Google gives 16,700,000 hits for carers. 679 for "voluntary caregiver" , and 13,500,000 for caregivers. If we then go to the first hit on google for "caregiver" it comes up with [http://www.aoa.gov/prof/aoaprog/caregiver/careprof/progguidance/resources/caregiving_terms.asp National Family Caregiver Support Program (NFCSP)]. A set of definitions by the Administration on Aging (AoA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

• Caregiver: Anyone who provides assistance to another in need.

• Family Caregiver: Used interchangeably with informal caregiver and can include family, friends or neighbors.

• Informal Caregiver: Anyone who provides care without pay and who usually has personal ties to the care recipient. Examples include family, friends and neighbors. The caregiver can be a “primary” or “secondary” caregiver, can provide full- or part-time help, and may live with the care recipient or separately.

I suppose we then need to consider the real meaning of these words: Both "informal" and "voluntary" imply a free choice. Sadly this is often far from the case - many carers are children, adults who have to give up work, or elderly people who see themselves as having no choice, for economic or emotional reasons, but to put their life on hold whilst they provide unpaid support to a loved one. Carers hate the words "informal" and "voluntary" because they know from bitter experience how they were forced into caring simply because there were no other realistic alternatives.

If this proves anything it is that the Americans are very confused about terminology. The rest of the world isn't, and that's partly because Carers UK launched the "reclaim the name" campaign some years back to resolve this issue once and for all by settling on the word "carers" - which is the word carers themselves want to use. Its a fundamental principle of Wikipedia that, unless there are overwhelming reasons to the contrary, tribes, classes and groups of people have the right to self-determination in such an important issue as nomenclature.

Excalibur 14:58, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose Caregivers is the English word; carers is a politically correct neologism; our style is to avoid them. This is particularly undesirable if, as the rhetoric above suggests, this is becoming an Anglo-American division. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:00, 9 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Carers is the internationally recognised term. Please, Pmanderson, your post here seems verging close to a personal attack and we also avoid those. --Nicholas 09:06, 10 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• I don't think I am a neutral observer anymore, so I'll participate. I oppose this move. I would consider a change to the adjective, if that's what you consider the major issue. As far as legislation/officiality in one region is concerned, it seems to be superceded by WP:ENGVAR. Carers is not a mutually intelligible term, the current setup was agreed upon in a previous AfD (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carers), and Wikipedia naming conventions prefer singular titles (which would mean a move to Carer). Maybe there's a move to make here, but I don't think it's this one. Thank you for making a complete listing. Dekimasuよ! 00:49, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be happy with 'carer', in the singular, rather than the plural 'carers'.--Nicholas 12:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support the motion. Carers is an internationally recognised term, If not then why do we have an international carers weeks. Carers look after family,partners or friends in needof help because they are ill,frail.or have a disability. The care that they provide is unpaid. The word caregiver to me indicates a paid position,they do not provide care merely a paid service.Xjacktar 16:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose carer is less common. 70.55.88.11 03:07, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose If we do move to carer(s), I think the singular is appropriate than "carers" Vaoverland 11:37, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose as nominated. Move Voluntary caregiver → Caregiver. Carers is ambiguous and not a good choice for an article like this. What difference is there between a caregiver and a voluntary caregiver? If it is only lack of pay, then that is not sufficient to base an entire article on. If the usage of the two terms is in fact different, then there should be two articles. Vegaswikian 22:11, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • And if this change is made, don't worry about the dab page. Just delete it and fold the little that is there into the main article no need to a dab. Vegaswikian 22:13, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the meaning of "caregiver" may conflict with the meaning of "caretaker" in British English. Dekimasuよ! 05:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• According to google, there are '8,210,000 hits for "carer"'. This singular form is less common than the '16,800,000 hits for "carers"'. Anyway, this isn't an anglo-us division, this is more a question of the rest of the world's carers have settled on carer and carers, whilst the US and a few assorted academics can't make up their mind at all and insist on calling us something else. There is a huge difference between a family or unpaid carer, and a paid person carrying out a similar range of tasks: these have little to do with the functions, and everything to do with the powerful sense of identity and social exclusion shared by carers. Another analogy: how would doctors like it if we patients ganged up on them and unilaterally redirected their page to quacks because it was in popular use? Likewise negro vs black people. Carers is our name, and we have every right as the group affected to define it.Excalibur 18:20, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The naming convention is this: Convention: In general only create page titles that are in the singular, unless that noun is always in a plural form in English. This is clearly not the case. I further find your analogy confusing, because you use Google hits to justify your preferred plural title (even though "caregiver" returns more hits than "carer"), and then say that we shouldn't base the title on popular use.

This is not a split of "the world" against the United States - the English version of the website of the European organization listed here is written in British English because the United Kingdom is a member of the group, and you can also view the website in German or Italian. Likewise, the word in Japanese is neither "carer" nor "caregiver", but "kaigosha" or "kaigonin" ("-nin" and "-sha" both mean "person"), which is certainly not evidence one way or the other for international support of one term starting with "care". My Japanese dictionary further recognizes that "caregiver" is "mainly American" while "carer" is "British".

I question the idea that self-identification comes into question at all here, when there is clearly no consensus as to what the correct self-identifier is. At any rate, while I'm happy to recognize your right to personally self-identify in any way you choose, and I'm happy to identify individual organizations of "carers" as they name themselves in Wikipedia articles, there is not a fundamental right for a heterogeneous group to choose the title of a Wikipedia article even if a self-identifier has been universally agreed upon. In particular, it is one of only several factors discussed at Wikipedia:Naming conflict. Dekimasuよ! 02:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. There are different kinds of carers/caregivers: professionals, such as nurses and doctors; and volunteers, such as family members or friends. (I don't think either name is right or wrong, so long as it stays at one.) – Marco79 11:02, 15 July 2007 (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.

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.

The result of the proposal was PAGE MOVED from Voluntary caregiver to Caregiver, per discussion below. The disambiguation page that was previously at Caregiver, I moved to Caregiver (disambiguation). If it would be better as a redirect here or something, please make it do whatever it needs to do; I was just getting it out of the way. -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:35, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are some excellent reasons given in the previous discussion last year for changing the name of this page to "carer" - the previous request was to change it to "carers" and this failed in part because of the use of a plural form in contravention of Wiki naming conventions. So, a new year, and a new attempt to get this right: To summarise the main reasons for the request are:

• carer is preferred by carers themselves, whilst voluntary caregiver is primarily used by professionals. People have the right to self determination
• carer is used in much legislation
• carer is used by virtually all international carers organisations and at most international conferences
• carer is short and simple - good plain universal English on both sides of the Atlantic and much further afield. It can also be prefixed if required to add meaning: e.g child carer, unpaid carer, family carer, spousal carer, black carer.
• voluntary caregiver is a misnomer because unpaid carers are often involuntary - e.g. child carers
• voluntary caregiver is not even agreed terminology in the USA - many people still use "family caregiver" "carer" or "caretaker", so there is no clear consensus in US English
• carer is a very popular word - and has over 4 million hits on google, compared with the very obscure 4,850 hits for "voluntary caregiver"
• the article itself needs much work, and this change in name would encourage carers themselves to get involved in taking ownership, editing it and bringing it up to date. Nobody wants to edit a page that calls them something they don't recognise or agree with.

Your support and comments please! Excalibur (talk) 10:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Has anything changed since the previous request six months ago? If the problem is the "voluntary" aspect of the current title, consider a move to caregiver. — AjaxSmack 01:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please compare apples to apples. Google hits for carer are 3,360,000 and for caregiver 5,540,000.  :Vegaswikian (talk) 08:02, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Vegaswikian - fair point! But I just tried seeing what all these hits really mean, and after 929 actual hits on caregiver, Google gives up: In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 929 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included. Furthermore, many of the hits seem to refer to childcare not caring for a disabled relative, e.g. http://www.carriethecaregiver.com/episode1/index.html If we then look at the omitted results they stop at 1000 with this one: http://childbirthconnection.org/article.asp?ClickedLink=300&ck=10160&area=27 - which bears no relation whatsoever to the subject of this article - its about looking after children again: "What types of caregivers provide maternity care? What are my options? Several types of midwives and several types of physicians provide prenatal care, attend births, and care for women after birth in the United States. This page provides information about these options". Based on this search the word caregiver is simply too vague and widely used - whilst carer has become more specific. Carer gets to 903 entries before google gives up on me. This is the last hit: "Family Interventions in Mental Illness: International Perspectives - Google Books Result" so at least it is relevant to the subject. But on reflection maybe counting google hits isn't that useful a benchmark after all!Excalibur (talk) 10:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, google does have its flaws if you try and use it to determine things like common name or primary use. I think part of the problem here is the common person knows what a caregiver is. Most don't know what a carer is. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:42, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That seems to be true as far as the US goes, but not in the rest of the English-speaking world. - I think that what seems to have happened is that the carers movement in the UK and Europe has gone its own way, which is very understandable given that the US is such a huge and complex place linguistically and socially and that there is a stronger tradition of user-led voluntary action here in Europe. So whilst carers in the UK, english-speaking Commonwealth and Europe etc have acted firmly and decisively to stake their distinctive claim to the term "carer", the agenda in the US is still largely led by professionals who use jargon and misnomers like "voluntary caregiver" - which no self-respecting carer here would ever recognise or accept. As I understand it, the US word "caregiver" (which by the way is never used on this side of the pond at all) seems to have a generic meaning including childcare and paid care. This is a big problem for unpaid carers here, because they have campaigned for fifty years not be confused with paid carers. So over here there has been a long and successful campaign to get the work "carer" recognised and into the statute books and dictionaries, which it has been now for over 25 years. I dont really know how wikipedia deals with these kind of transatlantic issues, but I do know that having fought so hard and so long for recognition, this one will simply not go away or be airbrushed.

I do wonder if - as a possible compromise - the "iron rule" couldn't be broken in this case and a separate page be created for "carer" with mutual links that accepts that we are not really in disagreement, merely we have gone in very different directions in terms of organisation, self-identification and terminology. We are talking about 7 million carers here in the UK alone, it really isn't a trivial matter...for example whilst they are both fizzy drinks, Coca Cola is not the same as Irn Bru (our national drink here in Scotland), and likewise classes of people are self-defined culturally rather than by some grand scheme of things.Excalibur (talk) 01:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is an excellent analysis from Excalibur and a persuasive attempt to reach a compromise. If we can find a few references to back-up this narrative then I'm sure we'll be able produce a balanced and informative article. Nicholas (talk) 12:43, 8 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, I had never heard the word 'carer' before being directed to this page based on the rather inflammatory opening paragraph (which I have now edited). True, I'm an American and not a carer/caregiver/whathaveyou, but I have certainly known people personally who were caring for disabled relatives, and I think it's overstating things to say that Americans fail to use 'carer' because we prefer to impose jargon on people. It's the only colloquial word I've ever heard here, and it's used by the people themselves, not just those who write articles about them. (And, in fact, colloquially, I probably wouldn't use 'caregiver' to refer to anything other than a carer, at least if I understand the definitions Excalibur has offered correctly. The dictionary may use it for paid homecare of various sorts, but that's not how I hear it being used among people I know.) My suggestion would be to make a separate article on the history of the carers movement in the UK and elsewhere rather than simply splitting this article in two. This topic is certainly significant enough to warrant both an article about political milestones, etc. and one defining the various terms, explaining where they're used, and listing prominent organizations. If the word 'caregiver' is generally considered offensive outside of the US, the article could also use a section about that, but I'd like to see some links to articles or at least blog posts by more than one person, and I don't think this belongs in the introduction to the article. Excalibur, you clearly do have more expertise in this area than most people here, but your use of "literate hemisphere" does little to inspire confidence in your reliability. Franzeska (talk) 19:15, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If we really have two very different uses, then having two articles makes sense to me. However the introductions would need to reference the other term in the text to explain a bit about why two articles. I don't think a hat note would be sufficient. There is still an issue with the possible need to split out 'caregiver' and 'voluntary caregiver', but that can be resolved later. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose per the previous discussion, mutual intelligibility problems, and WP:ENGVAR. I fail to see that anything has changed since last time. The proposal here does not seem to me to be an unbiased representation of the previous discussion. Also oppose any POV forks and hope that there won't be any unilateral moves this time around. Dekimasuよ! 05:20, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Carers do not wish their identity to be defined by people who are not carers: that's the fundamental principle at stake here. In the UK and Europe we have a more mature, carer-led movement which has already chosen their preferred terminology and this has been accepted in UK Law, whilst in the USA, no such user-led movement exists, there is much local fragmentation and disagreement. Therefore WP:ENGVARshould if anything favour the British variant which has a wide consensus. Several carers have contributed to the earlier debate, and without exception all were in favour of the term "carer/carers". There is a fundamental and over-riding principle at at stake here: the right to self-identification. [[4]] Can we at least start by agreeing that the word "voluntary" is offensive and inaccurate, and work from there? Excalibur (talk) 11:50, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that voluntary is unnecessary and see why it's offensive. I would support a move to caregiver. I had never heard the word carer before looking at this page, so to support a move to that, I want more substantial evidence that this is not just a personal preference. I'm not denying that you know more on the subject than I, but I keep seeing caregiver listed as the primary term and carer as a possible alternative in places like the dictionary on the Disabled People's Association, Singapore page. Without more evidence, this sounds like a matter of taste or original research or whathaveyou. If just plain old caregiver is a controversial and/or offensive term, there must be carer organization websites that mention this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Franzeska (talk • contribs) 18:05, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. The addition of voluntary is unnecessary disambiguation, that is implied. In Australia, carer is the term used commonly, professionally and in legislation; Caregiver is used mainly in politically motivated reports, but would be better than the current title. Andrewa (talk) 17:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was inclined to oppose this because "carer" has been described as a politically correct neologism that is not immediately intelligible to Americans, a description that is largely accurate.

However, from the article it appears that the self-awareness of carers/caregivers as a social entity exists primarily in the UK and Europe. This, and the official use of the term "carer" are reflected in the article. (See UK history and legislation section for examples such as Carers and Disabled Children Act 2000.) It's not that carers are called "caregivers" in the USA; they don't exist conceptually in the same sense in the USA. (A little like hillwalkers). Because of this, WP:ENGVAR would suggest carer as the appropriate title.

Furthermore, there doesn't appear to be a clear rule at Wikipedia about using regional politically correct neologisms for titles. (E.g., "homemaker" rather than housewife, Native Americans in the United States rather than American Indians in the United States, chair (official) rather that chairman, &c.)

Therefore, support However, abstain from supporting the move. — AjaxSmack 20:53, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All of the leanings you refer to were introduced into the article by the editor who proposed this move, himself. This is what the article looked like before he started editing it to push things towards the European perspective, prominently discussing the NFCA. I disagree that the group of "caregivers" doesn't exist conceptually in the United States. Dekimasuよ! 05:13, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If carer and caregiver are significantly different concepts, is there enough material for two articles? No change of vote, at least not yet. Andrewa (talk) 08:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say "caregivers" doesn't exist conceptually in the USA, I said doesn't exist in the same sense. Maybe I should have said that the collective political mobilization of the group appears to be less developed in the US and therefore the encyclopedic importance of the topic would be more important in UK/Europe. Certainly there are caregivers in the US (although the website you cited uses the term "family caregivers"[5]). I don't support a two-article solution which would be a clear content fork. (Perhaps it was wrong of me to compare hillwalking which would suggest content differences as seen here.) The two terms refer to the same thing; "carer" is a lame-sounding neologism and it is unclear whether "voluntary caregiver" is original research or a descriptive (voluntary + caregiver). And it does appear that the article is owned by someone with a "carer" agenda. So, on those notes, I think I'll just abstain from this discussion. — AjaxSmack 16:14, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If the political mobilization really is much more developed in the UK, then an article like Carers movement may be justified. Considering that Americans generally do not understand the word 'carer' and that people from other English-speaking countries do understand 'caregiver', I'm not keen on the current move request. However, I've seen enough different blog posts (including ones from Americans) complaining about the use of 'voluntary' that I don't just think this is just Excalibur's personal bias talking. The term isn't original research though: I see it used widely on government sites like this one: [6]. It appears to be the standard legal term in the US, while 'family caregiver' and just plain 'caregiver' are more popular colloquially. I would support splitting the article into Caregiver, which would cover paid and unpaid caregivers in general and Carers movement, which would be about the history of the movement in the UK and to a lesser extent in other parts of the world as applicable. Disability and Disability rights movement have separate articles, so I don't think it's unreasonable to do something similar here. Franzeska (talk) 17:55, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think Franzeska has come up with a very acceptable compromise - the analogy with Disability and Disability rights movement is fairly compelling. Carers aren't insulted with a correctly prefixed use of the word "caregiver" but they do have an issue with defining their separate identity from paid workers, in both the US and the rest of the English speaking world. This is reflected to some extent in the use of the term "Family Caregiver" in the USA - The only reason carers don't like this coinage either is that unpaid carers include friends, lovers, and neighbours, who are not family.

As for neologisms, carer is almost certainly a much older term than caregiver, but right now I cant evidence that. Why dont we run with Franzeska's suggestion? Excalibur (talk) 16:11, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support two articles, Carrer and Caregiver. I believe this the suggestion you are supporting. I don't belive that there was any opposition to this. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, do we have a consensus on that? Let's give it a couple of days, and if we are all agreed then I'd appreciate some advice from someone who has done this before about which bits go where and how to do this - unless anyone else wants to have a go, if so please get stuck in. Excalibur (talk) 02:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Splitting carer out looks like moving some of the intro, and sections 1-4 into the Carer article. Some of the other sections may also need to be moved in part but that may just involve reading the entry and seeing if it is about the system in Europe or the US. Vegaswikian (talk) 08:17, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support two articles, though as I said before, I suggest that the carers one be named something like Carers movement since the essential difference (and reason for having two articles) is the level of organization and political activism/awareness in the UK vs. the US. (But I defer to others' judgment here.) Looking on google, I see (in rough order of popularity) "carers movement", "carers' movement", "carer movement", and "carer's movement", among other things. I think the plural "carers" requested by Excalibur in the previous move request would be justified in the context of "Carers movement" but not in a single-word title. My suggestion is that the current content about legislation and history be moved to the new article, while names of international organizations should go in both. (And, of course, both articles should be expanded subsequently.) Franzeska (talk) 16:21, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Carers' movement, or Carers' rights movement do you think...and I assume the apostrophe is collective? Also, what would we do with the redirects of carer and carers - to say nothing of the other variants like voluntary carer, voluntary caregiver, informal carer, informal caregiver, etc etc....Excalibur (talk) 21:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that all of the redirects like that go to caregiver, but that the first paragraph of that article mention the vocabulary issue prominently and have a link to the other page. Franzeska (talk) 18:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support two separate articles. To be honest, I've never heard the term, "carer'" before today. I've been a caregiver myself for a parent and this is the generally used and understood term in the United States both by the general public and health care professionals. I am puzzled by the adjective, "voluntary," since most caregivers assume the role by default. What real choice does a loving spouse have but to assume the role? Also what choice does a loving adult child have when his or her siblings either refuse or are unable to assume the role of caregiver for their parent or parents? clariosophic (talk) 12:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know I said I wasn't going to do it but I can't help it. Oppose two articles at carer and caregiver — a clear content fork. Support two articles at caregiver (or voluntary caregiver) and carers movement/carers' movement. — AjaxSmack 03:28, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support two articles, "Caregiver" and "Carers' Movement". I am, however, slightly anxious that we'll not find the appropriate references. Is there a decent history of the carers movement that would justify the split? If not, it could be perceived as original research. Nicholas (talk) 11:25, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose carer and caregiver as two articles, because they do not need two articles, and because of Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English.

From their own definitions, caregivers are "...people who take care of other adults, often parents or spouses, or children with special medical needs." (NLM.NIH.gov) A carer is "...someone, who, without payment, provides help and support to a partner, child, relative, friend or neighbour, who could not manage without their help." (Carers.org) or "...someone who looks after a friend, relative or neighbour who needs support because of their sickness, age or disability." (Direct.gov.uk). Carers and caregivers are one and the same thing.

The article was begun in 2005 and used U.S. English ([7]). There is therefore no reason to shift the language and the title to a non-U.S. one. This is clear from Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English. Carer/carers should redirect here, not the other way around. Llamasharmafarmerdrama (talk) 20:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone for what has been a very useful and thoughtful debate. I think that there appears now to be a fair degree of consensus: the elements of the article dealing with carer's rights and legislation will now be split off into (sorry but I still can't bring myself to use let alone pronounce that awful disambigu-thingy word!) a new page Carers rights movement in parallel with the disability pages. I'll have a crack at this fairly shortly unless anyone else fancies getting stuck in first. Excalibur (talk) 16:38, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Per the above discussion, I'm removing the listing from WP:RM without moving the page. If I'm mistaken in my reading of the consensus here, please let me know. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding of the discussion is that we want to move voluntary caregiver to caregiver (which is currently a redirect to this article). In addition, we want to create a new article that covers the carers rights movement. I think the dislike of the word 'voluntary' has been pretty universal and uncontroversial. Franzeska (talk) 19:14, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I'm sorry. I saw the part about the new carer's rights article, but I missed about removing the word "voluntary" from the title. I'll take care of that now. -GTBacchus^(talk) 06:21, 30 January 2008 (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.

The following discussion is an archived 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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No move. I started this and made a confusing malformed request. Per advice, I made the request with a different "multiple moves" request process. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:21, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Caregiver → Caregiving – Caregiving should be the top-level category for all concepts, and as this caregiver article contains the most coverage of the topic, it should be named after the general concept and not only the occupation. --Relisted. DrKiernan (talk) 18:45, 18 September 2014 (UTC) Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:05, 6 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, good call. A example content is Residential care not Residential carer / Residential caregiver. Gregkaye ✍♪ 14:41, 6 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment In the past there has been a lot of controversy over whether this article should be named "carer" or "caregiver". I just refactored the old discussions to put them all at Talk:Caregiver#Carer_versus_caregiver. In proposing this move, I did not mean to raise these old debates and have no opinion about which term is best. However in any case, I still propose that this article not be named after the occupation but rather the practice. It should be called "caring" or "Caregiving", not "Carer" or "Caregiver". The content of the article is mostly about the practice and less about the occupation. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:04, 9 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I did not propose this properly when I made the proposal because I actually combined two move requests into this one proposal. I simplified the move request to indicate that this proposal is just about moving this page. The proposal is just to move "Caregiver" to "Caregiving". An alternative could be to move this to "caring". Here is the supplementary information I provided:

I just put a navbox and category on all the care articles I could find.

Category:Caregiving

I think that perhaps this article should be renamed to "caregiving". So many of the articles in this navbox are about the practice of caregiving and not the occupation, and so much of the literature is the same.

Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:09, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. The article is about a person who is a caregiver and not about the concept of care giving (note the proper spelling). Now maybe there is some difference based on an English variant, but that would mean the article does not get moved. Creating a template does not mean we need to change the name of this article. Likewise, the name of the category does not always drive an article name since the naming guidelines may call for different name. The older discussion had a lot more input and I'm not seeing anything in this discussion that shows the old consensus is no longer valid. Vegaswikian1 (talk) 19:57, 12 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Vegaswikian1 Spelling does not matter to me; I just want to sort the concepts. Yes, you are right, currently no place on Wikipedia discusses the concept of "care giving", and this article talks about the occupation without ever explaining the concept. I am adding some information about the concept behind the occupation here because it must have been an oversight to never present care giving information anywhere else. In any case, my intent is to distinguish this from an unrelated academic concept currently at "Caregiving". I could use advice on distinguishing these articles somehow, even if you object to my proposal. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:25, 12 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Note. Caregiving, is an existing article. Vegaswikian1 (talk) 20:03, 12 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• NOTE related requested move at talk:caregiving -- 70.51.46.146 (talk) 04:35, 19 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose as malformed request, since the target is occupied by an article already. Dicklyon (talk) 03:19, 20 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the pages, per the discussion below. Although there is general agreement that the current setup is not great, there was not general agreement as to what to do about it, and RM isn't really a venue for negotiating content disputes. Dekimasuよ! 20:10, 22 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Caregiver → Caregiving
• Caregiving → Caregiving (sociology)

– The words Caregiver and Caregiving ought to be disambiguated. These two articles describe unrelated concepts, so a person doing what is described in the article on Caregiver does not actually do the things described in Caregiving. The content in Caregiver is the most familiar use of the term, so it should be the primary topic. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:18, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Note There is a history of side discussions about the British "Caring" versus the American "Caregiving". I have no opinion about this and do not want to raise this debate; I just want the disambiguation and to confirm this article as the primary topic for the term over that sociological concept. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:18, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• @Dicklyon: @Vegaswikian1: Thanks for your patience. I was confused. I hope this is clearer. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:24, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. Bottom line a caregiver is a person in fact and in our article. Caregiving is about the concept in my mind, but our article describes it as really a specific type of caregiver. At best, that is what I get out of skimming that article. I fail to see that something is really broken here, so given that, it is not clear that moving will improve the situation. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:22, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I know the broken part is not easy to see, but the problem is that the articles on "caregiver" and "caregiving" need disambiguation because the words seem the same while the articles describe totally unrelated topics. "Caregiver" is about assistance for a disability, and the other article is an esoteric academic concept. I did not move this myself because of the history of controversy on this talk page, which is about UK versus US spelling and not related to my proposal, but still touchy. In response to your objection, this article is in fact about "caregiving theory" and not the occupation of "caregiver". I rewrote the entire article in the past few days and did not change the meaning of it, but I can confirm that this article has always been about the general concept of caregiving and not the profession. I hope that helps. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:35, 3 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Another explanation is that there are no separate articles on "nurse" and "nursing", as both of these go to "nursing". In the same way, right now there is no article for concept of "caregiving" in the sense of the "caregiver" profession, so I would like for this to be an article on both the profession and the concept. The article at "caregiving" is about an unrelated concept. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:22, 6 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Something else I can't agree with Vegas here, everything is "broken", or in a mess. As much as possible needs to go to Care, a disam page that actually covers most of the bases here:

Extract: "Social concepts

• Child care, the act of caring for and supervising minor children
• Day care, the care of a child during the day by a person other than the child's parents or legal guardians
• Elderly care, the fulfillment of the special needs and requirements that are unique to senior citizens
• Foster care, a system by which a certified, stand-in "parent(s)" cares for minor children or young people
• Health care, the treatment and management of illness, and the preservation of health through services offered
  • Care of residents, care given to adults or children outside of the patient's home
  • Home care, health care or supportive care provided in the patient's home by healthcare professionals
  • Primary care, routine health care, usually the first provided a patient sees
  • Primary health care, a series of principles geared towards making health care available
• Intensive-care medicine, provision of life support or organ support systems in patients who are critically ill
• Managed care, a variety of techniques intended to reduce the cost of providing health benefits and improve the quality of care"

- neither of the pages here cover all this stuff, and "caregiver/carer" relates to several. Bizarrely, this page isn't linked there! Caregiving → Caregiving (sociology) - is ok, but maybe Caregiving (intimate relationships) is better, if clunky. I don't quite know what this page should be - it covers mainly elderly and disabled/seriously ill. -health, -medical, ? But not the plain term I think. And somebody please add the basic links around this stuff. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 16:26, 9 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki CRUK John Wow, all of this is surprising to me. I am American and you are British, and I think culturally the difference between caring and caregiving may be more divergent than just a difference in spelling, and could be different concepts. I had imagined that in Talk:Caregiver#Carer_versus_caregiver the disputes were just a matter of terminology but this might be deeper.

Americans use the word "caregiver" but as I understand, British say "carer". From the American perspective, caregiving only refers to assistance due to a health impairment, so I think Americans would not associate child care, day care, and foster care with the concept of caregiving. The concepts of health care, primary care, primary health care, intensive-care medicine, and managed care are also unrelated in American thinking, with the exception that perhaps a person in intensive-care medicine would need a caregiver to assist with daily activities unrelated to doctor-specific interventions. The other two you listed, residential care and elderly care, are commonly associated in the US with caregiving, and I had already put them in Template:Care navbox but will also make them more prominent in the article. Please check that navbox - I just made it, and I feel those are the American concepts associated with "caregiving".

Excuse me for second guessing you but I have to ask - are you sure that the British concept of "caring" includes child care, primary care, and the others you named along with regular assistance for the impaired? As noted below, I had trouble finding a source I liked to define this topic, but chose the American version of a certain DK book called Caregiver's Handbook in English and seemingly Carer's Manual in the UK. If these books are really the same then it seems like at least one British source agrees with the American perspective, but on the other hand, so many people have had so many disputes on this name and usage that I have difficulty recognizing the scope of caregiving/caring. Please confirm that children's care etc really should be included before I look more at sources. It could be that "care" should be a page about the broad British sense of the word, the content at care should be moved to a disambiguation page, and this "caregiving" page should be a subpage of the broader concept of "care", especially if you can find a source which says impairment care, child care, and health care are all related under the "care" top level heading.

You were surprised that this page was not linked at care. It does not surprise me because despite the common word "care" being used these are not concepts which I would immediately think to connect. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:56, 10 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.