Talk:Bookends (album)

untitled

Re: Lennon's "Walrus"; Lennon sings "Goo Goo Ga Joob" rather than "Coo Coo Ca Choo"...

Just being pedantic -- Shouldn't the second definition be under Bookend? -- Zoe

I don't think we need it at all. That's what wiktionary is for. I guess if there's cultural or social or scientific or historical scrutiny of bookends, then... (I'm probably being a cultural philistine. Good.) Tuf-Kat

Agreed. Brett Alexander Hunter (talk) 04:37, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Should this be in List of Concept Albums? Maybe I'm overanalyzing, but I thought I heard a repeated theme of aging and old age.--Instant Classic 16:02, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Fakin It. Half-way through the song, there is a background sound of a door opening, and the English tune "Clogger's Horpipe" played on a concertina. A voice says "Good morning Mr Leitch. Had a busy day?". This is sometimes taken to be a reference to Donovan (Donovan Leitch). Ogg 10:22, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Re: Donovan, this was almost definitely a reference to him as the line in the song is (according to Patrick Humphreys - biographer) spoken by an ex-girldfriend of Donovan. 86.149.92.6 (talk) 12:26, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

"Overs" Recording Date

How could this song be recorded in October of 1968 when the album was released in April? Cbben (talk)
Hey--wait a minute--that's why I logged on this page!!Bayowolf (talk) 09:52, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

"Concept album"?

How can this be described as a concept album when half of it is a film soundtrack without thematic unity? — O'Dea (talk) 00:45, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Solved. Str1977 ^(talk) 08:22, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Hidden Message

At the very end of the album (after the Zoo)there is a very faint backwards message - I suspect it is one of their other songs being played backwards. Does anyone know what it is or know the story behind this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.150.113.232 (talk) 02:36, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes. The message says 'please listen to an original vinyl Sgt Pepper 1st printing and bring along a Klingon to translate'. Brett Alexander Hunter (talk) 04:40, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Bookends/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Richard3120 (talk · contribs) 05:06, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Comments from Richard3120:

Would be good to see this album achieve GA status, it's an important and best-selling record across English-speaking territories. I've taken the liberty of first tidying up the punctuation in the article: many of the apostrophes and quotation marks were in varying fonts, and punctuation like periods (full stops) and commas were incorrectly placed before the closing quotation marks. I left the wording alone for the most part (save obvious errors), but there are some words that to me don't seem right in the context of an encyclopedia article.

• First paragraph of lead section: "Released several weeks prior to the penultimate Bookends in 1968..." – I imagine what you are trying to say is that Bookends was Simon & Garfunkel's penultimate album before splitting after Bridge Over Troubled Water's release, but I don't think you can use "penultimate" here without some sort of reference to that. I would just remove "the penultimate" from this sentence altogether.
• Third paragraph of lead section: "Initial sales for Bookends were immense..." – can you use "immense" referring to sales figures, rather than physical size? Would "substantial" be better?
• Third paragraph of lead section: "premiering alongside The Graduate soundtrack..." – I'm not really sure what you mean by "premiering" in this context.
• Third paragraph of lead section: "The album has continued to see critical acclaim..." – I prefer "receive critical acclaim", I'm not sure acclaim is ever "seen".
• 'Background', first paragraph: "during a period in which the duo had broken apart..." – "broken up" or "split" is more usual in the context of musical groups.
• 'Background', first paragraph: "brought upon new critical and commercial success..." – remove the word "upon".
• 'Background', second paragraph: "Artists in the time period..." – better to say "artists at the time...".
• 'Background', last line: "The duo offered another new song, then titled "Mrs. Roosevelt", that was not as developed..." – I think it should be stated here that this was the song that later turned into "Mrs. Robinson".
• 'Recording and production', first paragraph: "on Columbia's dime" – I don't think idiomatic expressions like this should be used in the article, I would prefer "at Columbia's expense".
• 'Recording and production', second paragraph: "allowed Simon to show off his chops..." – same thing regarding idiomatic expressions... how about "allowed Simon to display his talents..."?
• 'Recording and production', second paragraph: "the harmonies the band were known for slowly exited" – doesn't sound right to me, I think "gradually disappeared" or something along those lines would be better.
• 'Recording and production', third paragraph: "John Simon's work with the duo begat several tracks..." – don't think I've seen the word "begat" used outside of the Bible! "Produced" would be simpler.
• 'Recording and production', third paragraph: "Her reportings were printed..." – "reportings" isn't a word you would use here, maybe "Her observations were reported" would work better.
• 'Song analysis' section: I know you have split this into three paragraphs to make this section more readable, but given that the first half of the album is meant to be a collection of songs on the same theme, I wonder if it would be better to split this section into two longer paragraphs instead, based on side one and side two of the record, and not split the paragraphs halfway through side one's "concept" album.
• 'Critical reception' section: obviously it would be great if this were longer, but I understand it's not easy to get hold of reviews, particularly from the original release in 1968. I am British and in a month or so I should be able to visit the British Library and try and track down reviews from UK music magazines (NME, Melody Maker, etc.) if that helps, as well as more modern reviews (Q, Mojo, Uncut) of the 2001 reissue.

Cheers, Richard3120 (talk) 05:06, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

@Richard3120 and Thardin12: No progress made in a month. CLOSING REVIEW. Please address these issues before re-nominating. Thanks!--Dom497 (talk) 00:35, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

My fault entirely Dom – I never intended to open the review in the first place, I just wanted to comment on it, and I didn't have the time to carry out the review. My apologies to all involved. Richard3120 (talk) 09:10, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

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: page moved: majority for "move", has run 40 days. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:24, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

---

Bookends → Bookends (album) – the primary topic of bookends is bookends which naturally come in pairs. See also Bookends (disambiguation) for other meanings. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:36, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support, per the nominator's rationale. ╠╣uw [talk] 13:42, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. Per WP:PLURALPT. "Because readers and editors are used to seeing titles at the singular form, and can be expected to search for them/link to them in the singular form, the intentional use of a plural form by a reader or editor can be evidence that a separate primary topic exists at the plural form." Bookends is listed as an example at WP:PLURALPT for a reason - a reader or editor who types in "bookends" is much more likely to intend this well-known album by a well-known artist. No need to misdirect readers unnecessarily. Dohn joe (talk) 16:52, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

  Note: the nom had changed most incoming links to Bookends (Simon & Garfunkel album). I reverted those moves as premature and unhelpful. In the course of doing so, though, I noticed that there was only one mistaken link to Bookend. Making this change would clearly be a negative move for editors and readers alike. Dohn joe (talk) 17:24, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

In what way is fixing a pipelink Bookends (Simon & Garfunkel album) "unhelpful"? Whether it is a question of preempting the predictable objection to "who will fix links" now, or whether it will come to use in two or five years when inevitably as happens with all albums and songs the next album "Bookends" is issued, a clear pipelink in a template is nothing but helpful. Instead of which you've just gone through articles removing pipelinks to ensure work. In ictu oculi (talk) 22:03, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

It wasn't "fixing", and it's not "inevitable". It was premature if this RM is successful, and unnecessary if it fails. It's best practice to link to an actual article instead of a redirect most of the time. Dohn joe (talk) 22:19, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

It is near to inevitable that there will be other media products with a generic name. It happens to all our song album book film articles eventually. In this case it has already happened in fact, there is already another Bookends jazz album. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:05, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

And if that album rivils this one for primarytopic, we can revisit. Dohn joe (talk) 01:39, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

No need, this RM is simply proposing bookends as the natural topic of bookends. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:04, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support the world involves more than just music. This clearly isn't the usual usage. -- 70.51.46.146 (talk) 05:35, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

  The world, however, does include music. And if a musical topic is most significant, why discriminate against it? Dohn joe (talk) 18:28, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support. 70 makes the most telling point, "the world involves more than music" Why aren't these technical requests now? --Richhoncho (talk) 18:20, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

  Do you even consider the arguments before adding your knee-jerk !supports? Dohn joe (talk) 18:28, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

How is this comment not WP:PA? In ictu oculi (talk) 23:05, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

I realize that two wrongs don't make a right, but try searching "richhoncho" and "knee jerk" or "knee-jerk" - I was just using their own terminology. If you find it offensive, I apologize. Dohn joe (talk) 01:39, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. I agree with Dohn joe. Melonkelon (talk) 02:01, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Melonkelon, fine but how does someone type a small "b" when looking for "bookends" not "Bookends"? In ictu oculi (talk) 07:07, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't follow. Please clarify. Melonkelon (talk) 07:09, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Melonkelon, I mean how does someone who is looking for real "bookends" type "bookends" in the top right hand search box and get real bookends? How do they type "bookends" and avoid getting an album instead? Our search doesn't distinguish initial b/B, our titles don't distinguish initial b/B. In ictu oculi (talk)

WP:PLURALPT is not about letter casing, so I'm not sure why you are asking me about it. What's the relevance? Melonkelon (talk) 12:01, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Melonkelon I'm asking how users can search for real bookends without getting this album. The relevance is that currently if I search for "bookends" (small b) I don't get bookends (small b), small b sends me to an album by Simon and Garfunkel. So how do I search for bookends (small b) and get bookends (small b)? In ictu oculi (talk) 14:23, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

See below. Dohn joe (talk) 16:44, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

But not answered below, I will re-ask. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:59, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

• Solution?. I think I may just have solved this problem. I just created Bookends (object) to redirect to Bookend. Now someone searching for bookends has a convenient redirect to get where they want to go, while the 90% of people who want this album when they type "bookends" get where they want to go as well. That, combined with the hatnote here should be satisfactory for everyone involved. This is what we aim to do - get our readers where they want to go, correct? Dohn joe (talk) 16:44, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
  • OK, so why are you opposing Bookends (album)? That's exactly the same without the need for a redirect. This is my last comment on this RM (for the benefit of other editors and me). --Richhoncho (talk) 19:11, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Non-solution - this is almost becoming comic. User:Melonkelon assuming I don't search for Dohn joe's Bookends (objects), Bookends (pair of wooden things) or similar unlikely redirects, how does a reader get from searching for real bookends to get to an article about real bookends? Remember the rh search box cannot distinguish between initial b and initial capital B. So how does a reader search for bookends and get bookends? In ictu oculi (talk) 02:15, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Refer to Gamaliel's post. The object is singular (Bookend) and this album is plural (Bookends). Also refer to this quote from PLURALPT, "Because readers and editors are used to seeing titles at the singular form, and can be expected to search for them/link to them in the singular form, the intentional use of a plural form by a reader or editor can be evidence that a separate primary topic exists at the plural form." Melonkelon (talk) 05:05, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

User:Melonkelon, I'm sorry to press you but how does this answer my simple question. How do I search for "bookends" with a small "b" and get bookends instead of an album from the 1960s. Search cannot distinguish between initial "b" and "B". Gamaliel hasn't addressed this either. Compare Amazon.com "bookends" actually gets bookends. Since "bookends" like shoes come in pairs, it is WP:ASTONISHING that I cannot search for "bookends" and get bookends. We don't under WP:PLURALPT redirect users searching for "shoes" to Shoes (album), why should we do it for something else that comes in pairs (i.e. I don't think you can even buy a single "one bookend" on Amazon.com). So how does a user search for "bookends" with a small "b" and get real bookends instead of an album from the 1960s? In ictu oculi (talk) 00:59, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

There's no evidence that anyone's actually doing that. If they were coming here first, then having to use the disamig page, then going to the bookend article, the traffic stats would reflect that. Instead, in the last month, we have 7k coming here, 1k at bookend, and almost nobody at the disambig page. it seems they are using the singular and finding it just fine. Gamaliel (talk) 02:46, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps, but that wasn't the question I asked. I asked "So how does a user search for "bookends" with a small "b" and get real bookends instead of an album from the 1960s?"

As for the page stats, of course pop albums get more page views, even when we conceal that they are albums and do not provide artist names, so lack of dab traffic suggests we are not at the worst case of 7k coming here, 6k staying here, and 1k finding it is not about bookends but about a 1960s pop album and then following the album hatnote to real bookends, but there will be users who simply re-enter cutting off "s". It still doesn't address the problem that there is no way a user "bookends" with a small "b" can get real bookends instead of an album from the 1960s. Even though bookends come in pairs. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:16, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't know how you can say there is no way for them to get there and then in the same comment discuss the disambiguation page they use to get there. Gamaliel (talk) 17:45, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:PLURALPT. Objects are titled with the singular, including ones that come in pairs: shoe, twin, etc. Gamaliel (talk) 02:58, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
  • That only deals with the title of the objects, not the usage of the plural. How is this musical subject primary over the objects? That also must be satisfied, or the object would be primary, since it is only by Wikipedia convention that objects use singular and not plural. It could easily be Wikipedia convention to use plural for objects. -- 70.51.46.146 (talk) 08:46, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
    • The object is the primary topic for the singular, the album for the plural. Gamaliel (talk) 19:34, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support per nom and redirect to Bookend. The plural is the clear primary topic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:22, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
• Support and redirect to Bookend per above. Deb (talk) 09:22, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
• Comment: my thinking in examining these WP:PLURALPT issues has been to weigh the importance of each of the topics involved. If, hypothetically, all of our common noun articles were at the plural title, what would be the primary topic between the common noun topic and the popular culture topic. In most cases I think that the answer is obviously the common noun topic. Here, I am not so sure, only because the book-supporting device is relatively insignificant in the scope of human history. It could almost be merged into Bookcase. The album, by contrast, is particularly important - although I may be biased in thinking that, since I wrote the article (many years ago) on "A Hazy Shade of Winter". In sum, I find this to be an edge case, and can neither support nor oppose the move. bd2412 T 18:08, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

  Thanks for the openness and clarity in sharing your thought process on these moves. Would we all do the same! One question, though - what about the usage criterion? It is the other major criterion we are supposed consider in determining WP:PRIMARYTOPICs. What role does usage play in your thinking here? Dohn joe (talk) 18:19, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

  I consider pageviews to be very important if the base page title is a disambiguation page, and there is an asserted primary topic for that title, because readers are probably not looking for a disambiguation page at all. Pageviews of topics listed on the page suggest which topic the reader was actually looking for. Between existing non-disambiguation page topics, pageviews are of limited utility. We have no idea whether the reader who ended up here typed "bookends" or "Bookends", or even whether they were thinking of the device when they typed "Bookends" with a capitol "B". Maybe they got this far and assumed Wikipedia has no article on the device, and gave up. We also really have no idea whether they came here from a link in another page, like the one I made when I created "A Hazy Shade of Winter". If Bookends had been titled Bookends (album) at the time, I would have pointed the link there, and everyone who decided to go from the song to the album would have boosted the pagecount of the latter title, not the former. bd2412 T 19:07, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

  I buy all of that, and certainly the general concept. I do think that we can get some rough idea, though, by looking at general trends in plural usage. I've mentioned this elsewhere, but if you look across subjects, the singular version of a word tends to get 10x or even 20x the pageviews of the plural. (Choose some random nouns and try it for yourself.) So if we consider that as a baseline, when we see views for a particular plural that jump way up, relatively speaking, I think it's a reasonable assumption that at least a large portion of the jump is because people are looking for that plural topic separately from the common noun. So here, where the plural gets almost 9x more than the singular, or possibly 80x more than what we would expect the plural to get, doesn't that seem to put this in the slam-dunk category for usage? Am I making sense? Dohn joe (talk) 19:40, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support: Per WP:ASTONISH, the number of English-speaking people on the planet who think of "Bookends" primarily as an album is certainly much smaller than the number who think of "Bookends" as things used to hold books upright on shelves. Per WP:PLURALPT: "the normal situation is that a plural redirects to its singular. For instance, Chairs is a redirect page, taking readers directly to Chair." Moreover, bookends are commonly sold and used in pairs, so the usage in the plural may be more common in this case than for some other topics (although probably not enough to support the plural as the primary form relative to the singular). Generally, I think that if a typical person sees an article title and thinks, based on the title, that they are reasonably sure of what the article should be about, that is what it should be about. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:10, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
• Comment only. I note the similar pair (ho ho), nomination, Parachute/Parachutes has been resolved with a straight mathematic !vote of 8 to 2 (with one neutral) and the album has been moved to Parachutes (album). If WP:Consistency means anything, then this move should be supported. --Richhoncho (talk) 08:25, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

  I don't think that WP:Consistency has ever meant disregarding the relative importance of the topics in making primary topic determinations. Otherwise, Windows would point to Window. Historically, parachutes are much more important than bookends; although I would not deign to compare the importance of the Coldplay Album with the Simon and Garfunkel album, we know that the latter album has the benefit of still being the subject of critical acclaim nearly five decades on. bd2412 T 19:47, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support. The physical object is what most people looking for bookends will want to find. Reader experience trumps all other considerations. Some of our guidelines seem to need fixing, and the first step in this is to get a rough consensus supporting this move. And then fix the guidelines of course. Andrewa (talk) 11:11, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

  User:Andrewa: the problem is, "what people think of when you say a word" is not the same as "what they use WP for". The Bookend article is barely more than a dictdef stub, and unlikely to grow. The Bookends article is well-written, well-referenced, and gets thousands of views a month. This article is in fact "what most people looking for bookends will want to find." Isn't reader experience made better by sending people to a better article that they're trying to reach in the first place? Dohn joe (talk) 15:31, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

  Dohn joe Thanks for the comment but I'm afraid that while I agree strongly with some of the points you make and while they sound good they don't seem to apply to the bookend article on even a little investigation. If you haven't already, have a look at the external link http://www.dimensionsinfo.com/bookends-sizes/ already given in the article, one of only two there so I'd have looked at them both at least before making any claim that the article is unlikely to grow beyond being barely more than a dictdef stub (a claim only saved by the barely but which as you express it applies equally to many other good stubs... BTW this article should be marked as a stub, IMO). Either way, what do you think of the section there Additional Facts and Other Interesting Details: In the past, the bookends were made from very heavy materials. Lighter versions only emerged sometime in the 1870s, a time when the simple sheet metal was originally patented for this specific purpose... I'm not sure we want to add that information on just that one ref, but it sounds quite fascinating to me, probably true and exactly the sort of material that should be added to the article when properly sourced. That patent should be verifiable, not easily perhaps but someone will eventually take it on. I could go on, but you get the idea. Andrewa (talk) 17:45, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

  Andrewa - I'm still a little stumped. Certainly, the bookend article is capable of some expansion, and perhaps "unlikely to grow" should have been more like "unlikely to grow substantially" or "unlikely to grow into an article of the size of Bookends." But I encourage you to make a comparison of Bookend and Bookends. I would be interested to know which metric(s) lead you to state that most people looking for "bookends" are looking for the Bookend article. Dohn joe (talk) 18:35, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

  There's no perhaps about it, your unlikely to grow claim was IMO quite simply contrary to all evidence. I'll answer more fully when I deal with some local emergencies I hope, but meantime perhaps you might indicate for me why you think the size of the article is even remotely relevant to this discussion, and exactly what is puzzling you to the point of being stumped. Andrewa (talk) 18:57, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

  I'm stumped how anyone can look at the two articles, see the stats behind them (size, pageviews, number and quality of refs, incoming links, etc.) and then say that Bookend is "what most people looking for bookends will want to find." I can understand (although I disagree with) the position that bookend the object is somehow more important or of greater long-term significance than the album, and thus should be the primarytopic even for the plural form, but that's not what you are saying. You are saying that more people looking for "bookends" want to go to Bookend. I'm just curious what evidence or argument leads you to that conclusion. Dohn joe (talk) 19:12, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

  OK, understood. The reason that anyone can look at the two articles... etc is that you're mixing up relevant issues with ones that are irrelevant (particularly but not only article size, see my first question which you have not addressed at all). It makes the discussion rather difficult.

  The most people in my original vote was a gut reaction, please note the will (which is the closest I can get in English to tenseless, it's not a speculation of the future which would violate WP:Wikipedia is not a crystal ball) and contrast it to your are. We're talking about significantly different propositions. The are is the only part of it answered by page stats, and that's one of the critical limitations of such stats, and why we also have regard to long-term significance of course. And that is very much part of what I'm saying. Andrewa (talk) 19:15, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

  I'm sorry - I thought that by including size in my latest response as one the of the stats by which one can compare the two articles to determine which is the primarytopic for "bookends", I was addressing your question. It's not a simple byte-to-byte comparison, but when one article (this one) is approximately 38 times lengthier than the other, I think it says something about the relative importance that WP editors at least, have assigned it, and stands as a good proxy for what our readers, too, will be interested in. But let's put that aside for now, please. Let's assume that size has zero to do with this question. Can you look at the other criteria I mentioned - pageviews, number and quality of refs, incoming links, and explain how exactly you think reader experience will be improved by this RM? Thanks. Dohn joe (talk) 20:34, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

  I cannot see how, by including size in my latest response as one the of the stats by which one can compare the two articles to determine which is the primarytopic for "bookends", you were addressing the question of why you think the size of the article is even remotely relevant to this discussion (my added emphasis). It seems to me that you were actively ignoring the question.

  But I will accept the offer to now assume that size has zero to do with this question, noting that that you also want the last word: I think it says something about the relative importance that WP editors at least, have assigned it, and stands as a good proxy for what our readers, too, will be interested in. But let's put that aside for now, please. Done.

  So now I'd like to ask about your other criteria... pageviews, number and quality of refs, incoming links. The first is controversial, and the other three irrelevant in terms of current policy and guidelines, as far as I can see. Have I missed something?

  Now to your question how exactly you think reader experience will be improved by this RM. I think that most readers would expect the physical object(s), not the record album, to be the topic of the article they found at bookends, because these are an object possessed by a significant proportion of the world's population, and used on a daily basis by the vast majority of the world's secondary and tertiary students and many if not most of those with tertiary qualifications. The proportion of primary students I wouldn't like to guess (I once trained for work in Central African Republic, where I would likely have owned the only bookends for miles if even I had owned any, but didn't actually get there... long story) but in the developed world bookends are ubiquitous in primary schools too. A great many people possess them, even more use them, and if they speak English they know what we mean by the term.

  The album, on the other hand, sold two million copies. That's a lot, but there are even more bookends. Many times. And those who don't know that bookends exist have largely never heard of the 1968 Simon and Garfunkel album either, in my estimation. Andrewa (talk) 01:02, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

  I wasn't aware that "number of items sold/in existence" was relevant in terms of current policy and guidelines, either.... If you really don't think that most of our current "bookends"-seeking readers are looking for this article, in spite of contrary evidence, then I guess there's nothing else to say. Dohn joe (talk) 13:37, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

  I don't want to give up on consensus yet. You do realise that record sales are one of the key pieces of evidence accepted as evidence of notability? Andrewa (talk) 18:54, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

  I don't think anyone is disputing the WP:Notability of either this album or the object. The relevant question is how does record sales fit into WP:PLURALPT? Actually, strike that. We can't find consensus until we start from the same foundation. So - do you agree or disagree that most of our current "bookends"-seeking readers are looking for this article? Let's start there. Dohn joe (talk) 20:13, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

  I'd have to say that I'm unsure. But I'd also say that it's irrelevant, because the long-term significance of the physical object so clearly dwarfs that of the record album. Andrewa (talk) 04:44, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

  Despite your unsure-ness, it's very clear that this album dwarfs the plural of "bookend" in usage. But no worries. If you (not just you - the larger "you") want to make it more difficult for our readers to get to the page they're looking for, it makes me sad, but that seems to be the direction we're going around RM and AT. C'est la vie.... Dohn joe (talk) 12:42, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

  It made me sad to see that Wikipedia was being dumbed down to suit inadequate searching for commercial products by socially economically privileged readers. Minimising clicks is about serving those that click the most, and it was at the expense of logical structure. I am heartened to see the tide turned. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:50, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

  SmokeyJoe, I don't understand. Someone who buys an album is economically privileged, whereas someone who buys a bookend is not? Most bookends are commercially produced and sold products, yes? And those who click the most (or at least most of those who click) - want to go to this article. That's exactly who'll be getting the shaft here. At the expense of logic. Dohn joe (talk) 13:39, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

  Page views and link clicks are biased to the economically privileged. Bookends over a popular album reflects a structure of generic at base names, specific topics more precisely titled. An encylopedia is more like a library than KMart. In a library, things are stored in their logical place, little consideration as to whether it is banal, specialist or popular. In KMart, the most popular stuff is at the door.

Someone looking for the album Bookends, but too lazy to bother with the artist or genre, should still expect it find it easily in a popular shop, or google, but should not expect to find it has the first entry in the contents page of a reference work of all information. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:43, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• I'm just going to interject here that I think there's a degree to which bookends are like typewriter carriage return levers. How much longer will people even have books as anything other than a historic curiosity? bd2412 T 01:31, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

  Good question. Many of my primary school students ask their teachers "why do we need to learn to write? I just use my tablet."

  My reply is that, having spent several decades in computer support (software mainly but some PC hardware), when I'm called to a busted computer to this day and always in the past the first two things out of the toolbox are always a notebook (the paper sort) and pen. And the number of times I've said to someone "the next time you get that message, please write it down exactly as it appears on the screen" is large and still growing. It's not easy to search the logs of a dead box, and a lot more trouble than just using pen and paper.

  Let me tell you a few other things I've noticed that were predicted to be about to happen: No more need of assembler language, predicted since the late 1960s, commercial fusion within ten years, predicted since the early 1970s, and computers rivalling the human brain in power, predicted within ten years in the 1980s.

  There's an enormous and ongoing investment in automated retrieval of print material on university campuses, and Amazon.com still sells lots of books. It may not last. But it may. Andrewa (talk) 04:27, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

  I think a bookend is a bit more like the typewriter carriage return lever than it is like assembler language, or even like "pen and paper". Some libraries are full of books but bereft of bookends because they have other means of arranging their shelves. bd2412 T 13:49, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

  First things first. I was answering your question How much longer will people even have books as anything other than a historic curiosity? (my emphasis), have I done so to your satisfaction? Andrewa (talk) 18:51, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

  I guess the answer is that we don't know. Even if books are around for a long time, bookends may not be; and even if they are, they're just not that important historically. They're like doorstops for bookshelves. I concede, however, that there's a long run over which bookends are likely to be more important than an album. bd2412 T 03:48, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support moving Bookends → Bookends (album) or Bookends (Simon & Garfunkel album).

Redirect Bookends to Bookend, as these devices come in pairs. At least the interesting ones do.

Reject the the Simon & Garfunkel album as primary topic because it is a commercial product named to capitalise on an existing and familiar term, and because Wikipedia should resist promulgation of promotional tricks. Also not that notwithstanding the significance of Simon & Garfunkel in their field, a massive proportion of the readership is unfamiliar with them, but familiar with bookends. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:45, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support move, as well as the redirect of Bookends to Bookend. I agree with the position advanced above by several editors that the primary topic of "Bookends" is, well, bookends. That they generally come in pairs, increasing the frequency with which they'd be referred to by the plural, only strengthens the case. Egsan Bacon (talk) 16:39, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
• Support I'm not sure what the policy/guideline grounds for opposing this move are…WP:PLURALPLT says "plurals are treated like any other topic", and if it didn't we ought to ignore it. The primary encyclopedic topic seems to be the object. Also, there are lot of other meanings for "Bookends" (several listed at bookend (disambiguation)), so if not bookend, perhaps this should point to a disambiguation page? —innotata 18:30, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Stat to consider

For the past week, there has been a special redirect in place at this article to track the number of people who come here looking for the object instead of the album. It's not an exact science. But the results are pretty striking. Over the past eight days:

• visits to this page: 2,548
• clicks on the special redirect to Bookend: 16

That's 0.6% of people who came to this article and clicked away to Bookend. That's 99.4% who came to this article and did not click away to Bookend. That strongly suggests that people are expecting to find the album when they type in "bookends", and that the proposed move will make life more difficult for our readers. I would hope that some of the !opposers above will see this and reconsider their !votes. Dohn joe (talk) 17:02, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Entering the search query "bookends" doesn't really help find the album because the album has an imprecise title. If it were titled Bookends (Simon & Garfunkel album), this title would helpfully appear as a suggestion.

If helping readers is the desire, move Bookends to Bookends (Simon & Garfunkel album). Then, these people coming to this page won't have to use expectations, they will know what page they are downloading.

Of your 2,548 page views, what proportion do you think came from wikilinking, where the link almost always has context, and what proportion from google, where "bookends" gives absolutely no hint that google thinks searchers want the album, but add further information and the album article hits the top with summary information clealy identifying that it is the album by Simon & Garfunkel? I suspect few entered "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookends" into the url. Next to nobody types titles, they arrive with assistance. I think the 2.548-16 reflects the fact the search engines and wikilinks assist in identifying the page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:41, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't that suggest that search engines and wikilinks do a fantastic job in identifying this page, then, if only 0.6% clicked away from it to Bookend? Dohn joe (talk) 02:06, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Indeed it does. External search engines and wikitext links are doing well, despite the generally too-short, imprecise titling. External search engines would be doing well because they read the whole page. Wikitext does well because editors understand that readers need context before deciding whether to follow a link, they add words to the sentence or pipe the link where the article title is imprecise. (Why don't self-style titling experts understand this?) The Wikipedia search box autocomplete is doing poorly where articles do not have recognizable titles. Bookends is a terrible title for this article in terms of the search box autosuggest functionality, Bookends (Simon & Garfunkel album) would make the autosuggest meaningful. Looking at the autosuggest in action in the image to the right, does it not look likely that a reader will expect "Bookends" to be the ordinary thing? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:28, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

And yet only 16 clicked away over the course of a week, regardless of how they got here. If you think that making "Bookends" a redirect to "Bookend" will improve that number, I have a counter-example I could show you. It's hard to improve on 0.6%, don't you think? Dohn joe (talk) 15:50, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I think it is more important for Wikipedia users to know what page they are downloading from its title. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:33, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

• Request close - This doesn't change anything, there is overwhelming consensus above to include (album), for all the reasons stated by each supporter of the move. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:32, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

---

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.

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 Done Checked, although I'm not sure how much use an archive version of the duo's website is. Richard3120 (talk) 02:17, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Simon's Age

The Wiki page on Paul Simon gives his birth date as Oct 13, 1941. This is in conflict with the Background section that states he was 27 in 1966.Grumpyoldgeek (talk) 23:01, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

interesting, think i was just writing from a book source on that one. i'll update it. thanks. Saginaw-hitchhiker (talk) 06:40, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Bookends is a concept album that explores a life journey from childhood to old age. Side one of the album marks successive stages in life, the theme serving as bookends to the life cycle. Side two largely consists of unused material for The Graduate soundtrack.

This is apocryphal. Basically it's nonsense. And as for side 2 'largely' consisting of unused material: Simon had only three songs for Nichols, only one (Mrs Robinson) was used, one unused is 'Overs' which is on side ONE, so this is more rubbish. It'd sure be nice if WP writers could occasionally curb their immature enthusiasm and, for now, it'd be satisfactory if someone could correct the above. Thank you. Brett Alexander Hunter (talk) 04:37, 30 January 2021 (UTC)