Talk:List of New Testament minuscules (2001–)

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: no consensus. The cited guidelines don't apply to this case (MOS:TOPRESENT is about dates, and MOS:NUMRANGE is about how to format ranges, not what to do in cases where both ends of a range are unknown), and by everyone's admission, nobody who participated in this discussion understands how this numbering system works. Given that circumstance, two votes for (including the nominator), one vote against, and one non-voter who wasn't persuaded by the supporters' arguments cannot be construed as a meaningful consensus. (non-admin closure) —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 16:38, 13 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

List of New Testament minuscules (2001–) → List of New Testament minuscules (2001–3017) – or List of New Testament minuscules (2001–2900) or List of New Testament minuscules (2101–2900), where the alternative suggested titles would imply removing some of what's currently in the list. My primary goal is to get rid of the strange combination of the dash followed immediately by a closing parenthesis, which is usually a date range but in this case is not. There are less than 30 titles like that on the English Wikipedia that I could find. Note that there's a duplication of the content of the end of this list in List of New Testament minuscules (2901–). There is also a duplicate of the content of the beginning of this list in List of New Testament minuscules (2001–2100). I don't fully understand how these lists are constructed, but I don't see big transclusions. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 03:19, 22 August 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 06:35, 29 August 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Reading of Beans 06:50, 18 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

A dash not followed by a number in cases such as this is fairly common when the highest number in a series is not known with certainty, even if there aren't that many articles on Wikipedia so titled. I wouldn't be worried about consistency with the titles of other articles or lists. I would instead be concerned with whether there is a definitive end point of the list. If the highest number is definitely 3017, then the proposed title is fine, and I can see no objection to using it. However, if there is substantial disagreement over the numbering, unless 3017 is the highest number proposed by any of the main sources, leaving the title open-ended would probably be better. This would also be the case if additional minuscules could be catalogued or numbered above 3017 in the near future: we wouldn't want a title that has to be changed repeatedly for relatively minor and predictable reasons.

Choosing a lower, arbitrary number such as 2900 solely to avoid this difficulty would potentially create an issue due to the likelihood of a "rump" list for a relatively small number above 2900 being necessary or desirable. However, if that is consistent with the numbering scheme used by other, duplicative lists, then it might be alright. The question then becomes why such lists exist. 2001–2100 and 2901– look like they're intentionally smaller, perhaps to make scanning and reviewing specific portions easier for readers. It's possible that not every "chunk" of this longer list has been made into a shorter list because not all of them are of equal interest to scholars. But if this (probably) is the reason why shorter versions exist, then the existence of 2901– doesn't support ending this one at 2900.

In the absence of more knowledge of the numbering system, and going solely on consistency with the titles of other articles or lists, I would suggest that there is probably nothing wrong with the present, open-ended numbering of the title. P Aculeius (talk) 12:08, 22 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Support. MOS:NUMRANGE says to use a full value range, this article ends with 3017 so that seems like a valid range. Gonnym (talk) 07:20, 23 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

I believe that explanation only applies where the full range is definitely known. What is unclear is whether 3017 is the highest number that exists, or can ever exist, or whether it is merely the highest number in this article, or in one count, or currently assigned. If it's the highest possible value, then the proposed title is probably the best. If it might not be, then the current title may be preferable. P Aculeius (talk) 12:31, 23 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Is there some central authority that is in charge of assigning numbers so that different people don't use different numberings? No sources are cited for the highest numbers in the list. When I checked the source that is cited for number 3012, I found that the referenced source does not contain the number 3012. There is also a potential confusion with a date range, since "2001–" looks like a range of years beginning 23 years ago. How about List of New Testament minuscules (2001 and higher)? Why are there duplicate lists for parts of the range? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:10, 23 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

I have no idea how numbers are assigned or whether there are variant systems—I was hoping that you might, as the nominator! I think that an understanding of the system is essential before this or a similar change in title is made.

I don't think potential confusion with the year 2001 is a concern, any more than it would be if one of the lists began or ended in 1066, 1492, 1776, or 1952. Anyone who knows what New Testament minuscules are will probably be aware that they're numbered in the thousands, and anyone who doesn't know that would discover it by reading the lead paragraph of the article (or should, if it doesn't already make it clear). It seems improbable that anybody would be searching for them by year, so astonishment does not come into it.

To restate, I don't think an open-ended range "(2001–)" is problematic; it's common enough in other contexts (including dates), and while "less than 30" other articles with similar titles isn't a lot for Wikipedia, it's proof that it's a fairly common way of dealing with open-ended ranges. I don't think it should be disturbed unless we can close the range; "and higher" or "and above" or "and up" isn't a standard way of doing so, and these would call more attention to the title than the present one. If I ran across such an article title, my first thought would be, "how odd! I wonder why they did that."

As for duplicates, I suspect they're "chunked", i.e. broken out as subsets for ranges that are more heavily studied, for ease of reading, and possibly so they can be discussed in greater detail than is practical in a range ten times as great. The reason not every range has subsets would be because not all of them are equally important or require as much attention—although it's also possible that additional subsets might be created in future. As with the upper end of the range, I would hesitate to disturb this arrangement without more definite knowledge of the reasons for its existence, particularly when perfectly valid and acceptable reasons for doing so come readily to mind. P Aculeius (talk) 13:18, 24 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

It's not as common as you might think. I believe there are only 26 articles on the English Wikipedia that end with "–)", and this one and "List of New Testament minuscules (2901–)" are the only ones that aren't indicating a timespan (and "2001–" looks like a timespan since 2001 is a recent year). That's a very small number when you consider the total number of Wikipedia articles. Three other RMs are open about timespans ending with "–)", and the discussions so far indicate that all or nearly all of the other 24 will be moved. Most of the others are very similar to the other three open ones (which cover five articles), so I'm waiting for those RMs to close before submitting the remainders in batches as multi-page RMs. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:48, 24 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Oh. I guess I already said some of that. Sorry for the repetition, but I'll leave it. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:01, 24 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Note: WikiProject Greece, WikiProject Bible, WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, WikiProject Christianity/Noticeboard, WikiProject Lists, and WikiProject Greece/Byzantine world task force have been notified of this discussion. Reading of Beans 06:39, 18 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

• Weak Oppose - while it is not common for article titles to have the em-dash close parenthesis, the use for section titles for related ancient manuscript numbering does appear to be common. See List of New Testament papyri § Papyrus 101– and List of New Testament uncials § Uncials 0301–. It is the sheer number of minuscule (thousands vs hundreds) that compels breaking them up in to segmented articles, versus having them all in one main list as the other lists do. Since in all cases the number of discovered texts is still unknown, leaving these open ended makes sense. However, it appears that a banned user (JohnThorne) did some major reworking, where they moved out some content, but more importantly, brought in a bunch of extra content as well in 2019 [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tiggerjay (talk • contribs) 14:26, 18 September 2024 (UTC)Reply

Note that the links about about papyri and uncials are not article titles. They are section links. If we must have an open-ended range in these titles, a worded form such as "2001 and higher" or "2001 onwards" is better than ending a title with a dash. Note that since closure of the RMs at Talk:Northern League (ice hockey, 2005) and Talk:Trois-Rivières Aigles (2013), there are now even fewer titles that end with "–)". I now find only 21 of them instead of approximately 30. The number is likely to keep going down once the RM at Talk:Collingwood Blues (2020–) is closed. Note that MOS:TOPRESENT says "Do not use incomplete-looking constructions such as 1982– and 1982–... ." —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 19:34, 4 October 2024 (UTC)Reply