Talk:Black widow

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Spiders

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Primary topic[edit]

Here from User talk:JHunterJ#dab of black widow. I think this page should redirect to Latrodectus. Because the non-spider dab page entries on Black Widow (disambiguation) are for Initial Caps "Black Widow", and not for Common caps "Black widow", "Black widow" would appear to be used for spiders of the genus as a primary topic, and so that article should be the target of the redirect. A reader looking for one of the "Black Widows" (caps) needn't refine the search -- they can use the hatnote (formerly) on Black widow's target to get to the dab page. Being the target of redirect does not imply identity. In this case, "Black widow" does not imply that all the elements of the genus are referred to by the redirect, just that the article contains the elements of the redirect. That is, black widows are a subset of the genus, but not necessarily that the set of the genus is identical to the set of "black widows". If readers who enter or click on "black widow" are primarily looking for the spider type, then the genus appears to be the primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose; I'm reasonably comfortable with your argument to distinguish between "black widow" and "Black Widow", but the former term is itself ambiguous. It may refer to Latrodectus hesperus, Latrodectus mactans, Latrodectus variolus, Gymnocorymbus ternetzi, Stygnobrotula latibricola, Geranium phaeum, or even, erroneously, some Steatoda species. I'll grant, too, that the primary use of the term is in reference to a Latrodectus, but even this use is ambiguous. The term is used for three different species. We don't have a single article on those three species, nor should we, because they do not comprise a taxon; they merely share a common name. And that common name is certainly not a common name of the genus as a whole. Redirecting to the genus creates the false impression that it is the common name of the genus, and therefore places a burden on the genus article to disabuse readers of that notion. Or, to put it another way, it forces Latrodectus to try to be a genus article and a common name disambiguation page at the same time.
Since "black widow" is unavoidably ambiguous, it seems to me that the only appropriate use of the title is as a disambiguation page. And as long as black widow and Black Widow are both disambiguation pages, I can see no reason why we wouldn't merge them. Hesperian 04:55, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Widow black" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Widow black and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 March 22#Widow black until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:46, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]