Talk:The Flash#Requested move 5 May 2025

:The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. per discussion below. Best, (closed by non-admin page mover) R.B. 07:28, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

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:Flash (DC Comics character) → {{no redirect|The Flash}} – Per WP:NATURALDIS, naturally disambiguated titles (in this case, The Flash) are generally preferable to parenthetical disambiguation (the current article title). While WP:THE usually discourages use of a "the" at the beginning of article titles, this RFC there has concluded that exceptions are allowed in the event that it would provide natural disambiguation, which is the case for this article.

In any case, this title is probably the best option for this article. This character is almost exclusively referred to as "the Flash", never just "Flash". The main comic series is called The Flash, and there are two different major television series and a movie called The Flash, not just Flash. Plus, The Flash already redirects here so this article is already the primary topic for the term "The Flash". Ladtrack (talk) 04:27, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

• Reluctant oppose. This is the same situation as (the) Joker, who is located at {{-r|Joker (character)}} and has had no serious support for including the definite article. That being said, there are cases of characters whose pages start with "The", for instance {{-r|The Doctor}}, so I'd be open to changing my position. O.N.R. ^(talk) 04:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
• :That one is a little more complicated because that character is at least sometimes referred to without the "the" unlike the Flash but to be honest if this passes I am considering trying to get that one changed too. I would have to think about it but it is at least a possibility. I had to start somewhere and I think this character has a stronger case than that one so I decided to do this first. I appreciate the desire for consistency but I would much rather it be consistent the other way. Ladtrack (talk) 18:32, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
• Support per THE.--Ortizesp (talk) 16:48, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
• Support per WP:THE, and considering similar examples like The Beatles or The Who. I don't think The Joker is the same situation due to the Joker playing card. Even if moved, it should go to The Joker (character). However, nothing I can think of is also called "The Flash" as a proper noun. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 02:45, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
• Support per WP:THE per above comments. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:19, 15 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose... the TV show, the comic book and the movie all use "The Flash" so this article should make clear that the article is about the character and not any of those other things. Spanneraol (talk) 13:07, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

:Oppose per Spanneraol. "This character is almost exclusively referred to as "the Flash", never just "Flash"." WRONG. Have you ever read the comic? Or watched the TV shows? Or the movie? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:45, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

::Hi, I'm the one who wrote that statement, I have in fact read or watched most of the things you listed, and I would mostly stand by it. I probably should have put a caveat, but I didn't, so I'll do it here. I should have said that this character is almost exclusively referred to as the Flash in the third person. This is because calling him "the Flash" in the first person is really weird sounding grammatically, and not because just Flash is the correct or common name of the character. See: "thank you for saving me, Flash" vs "thank you for saving me, the Flash". This is the same principle applied to the main character of Doctor Who, who is referred to exclusively as the Doctor in the third person, but as just Doctor often in the first person. Note that that article is currently at The Doctor.

::If you want evidence that this character is almost always called "The Flash" in the third person, look at the titles on these websites: [https://www.dc.com/characters/the-flash DC Comics website], [https://www.britannica.com/topic/the-Flash Britannica]. The fact that the aforementioned TV shows, movie, and comic book are all called "THE Flash", and not just "Flash", is also suggestive of how the character is usually referenced. Honestly I don't know how else to prove it. Ladtrack (talk) 03:28, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

:::Commment: Support this account (see my !vote on the move elsewhere) as a once avid reader of The Flash comics. Yes, I have read the comics, as I think has Ladtrack. But ironically and on the evidence, there's doubt in my mind as to whether Khajidha has read them. I'm sorry if that is harsh. Andrewa (talk) 06:04, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

• Support move as proposed. The character is generally known as The Flash when others discuss him. Andrewa (talk) 06:08, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

: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: not moved. This discussion primarily hinged upon competing interpretations of WP:THE—specifically, the matter under debate was whether "the Flash" was a sufficiently {{tq|commonly used proper name}} to qualify as one of the listed exceptions to WP:THE's general guidance. Arguments were presented on both sides of this question, and from my read of the discussion, it appears that the prevailing interpretation of WP:THE is that the usage of the leading article is permissible in this title. Opponents of the move also identified other advantages of "The Flash", such as being WP:NATURAL disambiguation (due to the character's WP:PRIMARYTOPIC status over other exact title matches for "The Flash") and as being more WP:CONCISE than the disambiguated "Flash (character)". (closed by non-admin page mover) ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 16:18, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

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:The Flash → {{no redirect|Flash (character)}} – This RM seeks to overturn this RM from 2024 and this RM from 2020. Per WP:THE, the should not be appended to article titles except in the two conditions outlined in the lead; the guideline proceeds to carve out exceptions for {{tq|Titles of works and publications}}, {{tq|Names of groups, sports teams and companies}}, and a small number of extraordinary cases with special consensus. The Flash, a fictional character, does not fall in any of these categories, and a similar character — Joker (character) — is specifically listed as an example where the the should be avoided.

A large number of fictional characters and teams are often preceded with the. For example: Avengers (comics), Terminator (character), Scarecrow (Oz), Artful Dodger, Beast (Disney character), Bride of Frankenstein (character), Mad Hatter, Thing (comics), Mandalorian (character), Penguin (character), and of course, Joker (character). However, none of these articles include "the" in the title in accordance with WP:THE.

The previous title of this article was {{-r|Flash (DC Comics character)}}. However, it is redundant: the DC character is the clear [https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/massviews/?platform=all-access&agent=user&source=wikilinks&range=latest-365&sort=views&direction=1&view=list&target=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash primary topic] among the characters listed at Flash (disambiguation), of which only Flash (G.I. Joe) and Flash (Jay Garrick) are full-title matches and thus the only real contenders; {{-r|Flash (character)}} already redirects here. Furthermore, the current title, {{-r|The Flash}}, is ambiguous because The Flash (2014 TV series) and The Flash (film) are both [https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&range=all-time&pages=The_Flash{{!}}Flash_(DC_Comics_character){{!}}Flash_(comics){{!}}The_Flash_(2014_TV_series){{!}}The_Flash_(film) highly popular articles]. {{-r|Flash (comics)}} is also not an option per WP:NCCDAB. Hence, the best title here that complies with WP:THE, WP:NCCDAB, and WP:CONCISE is Flash (character). WP:NATURAL is not a {{em|requirement}} — it says "sometimes"; since other PAGs have something to say about this, they take precedence. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:54, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

• Support. I opposed the 2024 move on the exact grounds that it was confusing because of the existence of two television shows a movie and several comic books that use The Flash or Flash in their names. That previous move discussion by the way should have been closed as "no consensus" as it was a split poll at best. Spanneraol (talk) 23:53, 5 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose per arguments in the previous RM (i.e. preferring natural disambiguation and WP:THE suggesting "The" is an extremely common prefix). Yes, Wikipedia sometimes drops "The" from characters, but not always, and this seems a good exception for previously described reasons. SnowFire (talk) 14:41, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
• :And the fact that several other popular things are also called "The Flash" has no bearing on you? Spanneraol (talk) 15:35, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::Am I missing them? I checked the disambig page and the only thing I see there called "The Flash" that isn't related to the superhero is The Flash (lake). The G.I. Joe character doesn't appear to be known with "The" in front. SnowFire (talk) 17:16, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::I already listed them: The Flash (2014 TV series), The Flash (film), The Flash (comic book), The Flash (1990 TV series). And guess which two were [https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/massviews/?platform=all-access&agent=user&source=wikilinks&range=latest-365&sort=views&direction=1&view=list&target=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash the top-viewed articles] in the past 365 days? InfiniteNexus (talk) 17:48, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::::All of those are child topics of this article on the superhero. They make the case stronger that the superhero is known as "The Flash", not weaker. (If one of the spinoffs is truly the primary topic, then that's an argument for naming this article The Flash (character). I'm mostly focusing on "is this entity nigh-exclusively known with 'The' in front per WP:THE, akin to The Doctor.) SnowFire (talk) 18:09, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::::WP:THE specifically carves out an exception for titles of works, which is why those articles include "the". Again, fictional characters aren't covered by it. I've listed many examples of other characters that are also commonly referred to with a "the" but nonetheless drop the definite article in their article titles. The Doctor is the only character on Wikipedia out of thousands to have obtained special consensus to bypass WP:THE, mainly because it satisfies the first criterion in the lead — i.e. you {{em|have}} to say "the" before Doctor, or else the sentence wouldn't make sense. On the other hand, you can say "Flash is my favorite character" or "Hulk smash" and that's totally fine. There is no good reason to be in-WP:CONSISTENT and violate WP:THE. InfiniteNexus (talk) 18:28, 6 May 2025 (UTC)
• :Contrary to the (bizarre) claims made in the previous RM, WP:THE carves out no exceptions to fictional characters, only newspapers and band names. NATURAL is not the only PAG we need to consider, as there are also WP:CONCISE, WP:PRECISE, WP:CONSISTENT, and of course, WP:THE. All of these support "Flash (character)", with NATURAL being the only outlier that would support the nonstandard and ambiguous "The Flash". Common sense should prevail. InfiniteNexus (talk) 15:49, 6 May 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose as 2024 nominator. I'm going to be very thorough and address everything the nominator has said so far point by point.

:As stated in the previous RM, there is another explicit carveout to WP:THE that this nominator has apparently forgotten to mention. WP:THE says that "Use of definite and indefinite articles is acceptable as a form of natural disambiguation, if the article is not the primary topic for the article title without parenthetical disambiguation." This is derived from this RfC there, which concluded exactly that. Contrary to the "bizarre claims" by this nominator, it has nothing to do with fictional characters. This is natural disambiguation because the previous basename (Flash) is ambiguous.

:As I have no doubt the nominator is already aware, The Flash is not really ambiguous with The Flash (film) or The Flash (2014 TV series). Standard practice for comic book characters with adaptations is to consider the original character the primary topic for the basename, regardless of the view counts of the adaptation articles. Just like how Batman is the comic character and not the 1989 film or the TV series, or how Spider-Man is the comic character and not the 2002 film, or how Wonder Woman is the comic character and not the 2017 film or the TV series, or how Ant-Man is the comic character and not the film. There are like a hundred more examples of this. "The Flash" is no different from any of these.

:Unlike "The Flash", this carveout is not applicable to all of the above examples provided by the nominator. Let's go through them one by one:

::The Avengers is ambiguous because of the popular British series The Avengers (TV series), so instead it is Avengers (comics)

::Terminator (character) cannot be at "The Terminator" because the first film in the franchise is already called that.

::Scarecrow (Oz) is ambiguous with multiple other pages titled The Scarecrow, as can be seen in that disambiguation page.

::Artful Dodger is already the primary topic for "Artful Dodger", so no "The" is necessary for disambiguation.

::Beast (Disney character) is ambiguous with multiple other pages titled The Beast, as can be seen in that disambiguation page.

::Bride of Frankenstein (character) cannot be at The Bride of Frankenstein because the film would be the primary topic.

::Mad Hatter could be at The Hatter, but is not because "Mad Hatter" is already natural disambiguation.

::Thing (comics) is ambiguous with multiple other pages titled The Thing, as can be seen in that disambiguation page.

::Mandalorian (character) cannot be at "The Mandalorian" because the series is already called that.

::Penguin (character) is potentially ambiguous with a baseball player and a snow cruiser, which are also called "The Penguin". This one admittedly is close, and I hadn't realized it was an odd man out prior to right now. After this closes, I will consider an RM to change this article's title to "The Penguin".

::Joker (character) is ambiguous with the playing card, which is often referred to as "the joker", as I was kindly informed by @Zxcvbnm while I was mulling over that.

:Unlike all of these, the only other things called "The Flash" are not primary topic contenders, for reasons explained above.

:As a final matter, it is common courtesy to ping participants in a previous RM that was mere months ago, but as the nominator has neglected to bother, I have elected to do it for them. Pinging {{Ping|Old Naval Rooftops|Ortizesp|Randy Kryn|Khajidha|Andrewa|Zxcvbnm}} Ladtrack (talk) 17:01, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

::Since you responded to my argument in such great detail, it feels necessary to respond in kind, so please pardon the WP:WALLOFTEXT.

::*{{tq|WP:THE says that "Use of definite and indefinite articles is acceptable as a form of natural disambiguation, if the article is not the primary topic for the article title without parenthetical disambiguation."}} – That's correct, it {{em|can}} be used as natural disambiguation. But notice it doesn't say an article "must" be naturally disambiguated if it can be preceded with "the". It has to satisfy the other criteria outlined on the page as well. Obviously, the Flash is not comparable to examples such as The New York Times, The Beatles, and The Crown. The first criterion in the lead states that in order to include "the", the term cannot stand alone without it lest it become meaningless and the sentence nonsensical; this is true for "Crown" or "Hague" (which are not real words), but it is not true for "Flash". The second criterion says that "the" would have to be capitalized in running text, which is obviously not true for "Flash". Hence, it fails both fundamental criteria {{em|and}} is not exempted by the three carve-outs further down the page.

::*{{tq|Standard practice for comic book characters with adaptations is to consider the original character the primary topic for the basename}} – Not accurate. While it is rare for original works to lose its status as the primary topic, it is not unheard of: see, for example, The Godfather (adaptation is primary), Gone with the Wind (no primary), The Shining (no primary), and Jurassic Park (franchise is primary). Moreover, you're forgetting that "the" is not part of this character's name — we're only (incorrectly) using it for natural disambiguation; thus, the character could theoretically be the primary topic of Flash, but when added "the", we must give stronger weight to full-title matches that actually include "the" as part of their names. This is the whole reason WP:THE exists: it is logical to assume that readers will most likely search for Flash and then click the entry that says (character) if they are looking for the character, and The Flash if they are looking for a specific work whose title includes an irremovable "the". As always, please consider the purpose of PAGs instead of merely trying to blindly follow them.

::*{{tq|This carveout is not applicable to all of the above examples provided by the nominator}} – I did not suggest that those articles were all in the same situation as the Flash in terms of disambiguation/primariness; I wrote, A large number of fictional characters and teams are often preceded with "the" [but do not] include "the" in the title in accordance with WP:THE. In other words, it is the standard convention to omit "the" from the names of fictional characters, even if they are sometimes preceded with "the". I'm not going to go through each of your examples as I find that pedantic, but many of your claims are debatable and can easily be challenged. I'd elaborate, but I fear you'd summarily send those to RM, so I'll avoid shooting myself in the foot. The reason none of those articles should be moved even though many of them could theoretically be naturally disambiguated comes down to WP:THE, as explained above.

::*{{tq|It is common courtesy to ping participants in a previous RM that was mere months ago}} – That is most certainly {{em|not}} the norm, unless a new guideline has recently been added that I am not aware of. I have participated in many RMs, and I have only seen this being done on rare occasions, such as when a follow-up RM or RfC is held immediately after another due to unresolved questions. The previous RM for this page was half a year ago — even if it were opened a month ago, it would still be unnecessary to ping previous participants. In fact, one could argue doing so is a form of WP:CANVASSing since you are attempting to regurgitate old opinions instead of making way for new ones, which discourages WP:CCC and may lead to circular arguments (i.e. the same people making the same arguments, leading to zero progress and a waste of time). But perhaps the editors that have been pinged will kindly consider re-reading WP:THE, especially the criteria outlined, and arrive at the correct decision that abides by PAGs.

::TL;DR — WP:THE does {{em|not}} support this page being titled "The Flash". As such, it and related policies (WP:CONCISE, WP:CONSISTENT, WP:NCC) take precedence over WP:NATURAL. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:11, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Thanks for the detailed response. I know lots of people don't like reading walls of text, but I prefer it this way.

:::{{tq|It has to satisfy the other criteria outlined on the page as well.}} I don't know where you're getting this. It doesn't say that, it just says it can also be used as natural disambiguation, in addition to the main criteria. Just in case you didn't read the RfC I linked, here's the relevant part of the closure:

::::"There also seems to be consensus that the application of the principle should be restricted to article titles where there is genuine natural disambiguation (e.g. one this is commonly called "The Foo", the other is called "Foo" and not normally "The Foo") and a genuine need for disambiguation. There also seems to be consensus that a case-by-case approach should be taken and common sense applied to avoid unnecessary confusion, and so that conflicting considerations can be taken into account."

:::This is a perfect example of that. This comic-book character is commonly called "The Flash" (not always, but it doesn't have to be always, just commonly), and other major topics are simply titled "Flash" and not normally "The Flash", so "Flash" in this article has a need for disambiguation. Nowhere in that RfC does it suggest that this rule is limited to only articles that fit one of the other two criteria. In fact, the topic discussed in that RfC, the Hulk, does not fit either criteria. So why would you assume that to be the case?

:::I still don't see what other fictional characters have to do with anything here. Obviously they do not default to including the "the", this is only when it provides natural disambiguation, because that's what WP:THE says.

:::{{tq|see, for example, The Godfather (adaptation is primary), Gone with the Wind (no primary), The Shining (no primary), and Jurassic Park (franchise is primary)}}. I did specify comic book characters. A comic-book character losing primary topic to one of its adaptations is extraordinarily uncommon, to the point that I cannot think of a single instance in which this actually occurs. This includes instances where the adaptation has more pageviews; see [https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&range=this-year&pages=Iron_Man|Iron_Man_(2008_film) Iron Man], [https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&range=this-year&pages=Morbius|Morbius_(film) Morbius], [https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&range=this-year&pages=Ant-Man|Ant-Man_(film) Ant-Man], [https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&range=this-year&pages=Jonah_Hex|Jonah_Hex_(film) Jonah Hex], and [https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&range=this-year&pages=Green_Lantern|Green_Lantern_(film) Green Lantern]. This is because the adaptations are, specifically for comic book characters, considered subtopics of the original character. This is an unusual standard, I know, but there is no reason to break it for this specific character.

:::{{tq|it is logical to assume that readers will most likely search for Flash and then click the entry that says (character) if they are looking for the character, and The Flash if they are looking for a specific work whose title includes an irremovable "the".}} Not in this case. It is well-known among audiences that all of these derivative works are based on the DC Comics character; all four prominently feature DC's logo and iconography throughout the marketing, and the character is iconic enough through decades of comics and adaptations that any person that is looking for any of these adaptations should know of the character's existence, and that he is commonly referred to as the Flash. They will not be WP:ASTONISHED to find the comic book character here; at worst, they will say "I should have known" and move on. Or, more likely, they will see (2014 TV series) or (film) in the dropdown and know to pick that, as they would have to do anyway regardless of what title this article has.

:::{{tq|WP:CONCISE, WP:CONSISTENT, WP:NCC) take precedence over WP:NATURAL}} I've left out WP:THE here as I've already explained how that does not apply above. For the rest: WP:CONSISTENT explicitly does not apply when disambiguation is involved, including natural disambiguation. This article does require disambiguation, so WP:CONSISTENT is obviously not relevant here. I don't know why you're bringing up WP:CONCISE, since it favors "The Flash". That's eight letters and nine characters; your proposed title is fourteen letters and seventeen characters. Count them if you don't believe me. WP:NCC hasn't been updated since September, before this RM. It needs a new example. Naming conventions (music) did something similar when Let It Go was moved to the basename; that's no big deal. You didn't mention WP:PRECISE here, but you did earlier, so I'll go ahead and address it. "The Flash" is more precise. Because of reasons I've explained above, the adaptations are not major primary topic considerations. The only thing that is is The Flash (lake), which this obviously dwarfs. Meanwhile, "Flash (character)" is ambiguous with Flash (G.I. Joe), which makes it partial disambiguation (but it is not ambiguous with any of the other associated pages, for similar reasons). This is fine, but it is, by definition, less precise. Ladtrack (talk) 00:36, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

::::I'll keep it short. You have yet to explain how you believe this article satisfies WP:THE's core criteria or falls under its listed exceptions, which are the only things that matter; I'll save you some time and tell you it does not. The bit about natural disambiguation is {{em|not}} stated to be a criterion nor an exception ({{tq|In general, a definite ("the") or indefinite ("a" or "an") article should be included at the beginning of the title of a Wikipedia article only if at least one of the following conditions is met}}) and merely clarifies that "the" may be used for natural disambiguation — which seems obvious, as I am unaware of any word that is "banned" from natural disambiguation, so I am not sure what that fuss was about. I am all for using "the" as natural disambiguation (and have made RMs in the past doing so) {{em|so long as}} it abides by WP:THE. In any case, I just took a closer look at the RfC you referenced, and it's ... more than 11 years old and had 12 participants? Yeah, I wouldn't give too much weight to that — "the Force consensus is not strong with this one". In your reply above, you also chose to selectively respond to my response while ignoring important parts such as the one about "the" not being part of the character's name and thus we cannot say the character must be the primary topic of "The Flash" or that readers are expected to include "the" when searching for the character. As for the rest of your reply, we could probably spend hours WP:WIKILAWYERING over the specific meanings and interpretations of certain guidelines, but I do not think that is productive nor the central focus of this RM. InfiniteNexus (talk) 03:12, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::I gotta admit, I am unaware of a rule that says older RfCs are too weak to be considered valid even if they haven't been overturned, but if I'm wrong, please feel free to correct me. You are correct that I forgot to talk about those other two points (and I probably owe it to you after you took the care to write out a full response to me), so I'll go ahead and do it now.

::::::It doesn't really matter, in my view, whether the character's name is officially "the Flash". I can't even really say if it is or not, because eighty years of comics have a lot of variance, but it doesn't matter anyway. It only matters that the character is commonly known as the Flash. This is especially considering that the Doctor clearly does not fulfill either of the main criteria and only the natural disambiguation exception, which does not specify official names, so presumably that exception follows normal titling rules where official names don't matter.

::::::As for the search issue: this runs both ways. Just as people may search "Flash" and not see the comic character in the dropdown, they also may search "The Flash" and not see the comic character in the dropdown. I don't particularly care if you believe me or not, but this character really is widely referred to as the Flash, more so than just Flash, so it is a very likely search term. Either way, we're disadvantaging somebody. And we have reasonable error-handling on this. Basically every major search term people could use to get the comics character is covered. It shows up if you type "Flash DC" and "Flash comics" and "Flash character" and "Flash superhero". If a reader has even the slightest idea of how to use Google, they should be able to handle our search bar.

:::::All that stuff aside, the main issue is basically that we disagree on the interpretation of WP:THE. If it is an additional carveout independently of the main two, I'm right. If it isn't, you're right. I don't think either of us are going to convince the other, so let's just see what happens. Ladtrack (talk) 06:20, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Agree to disagree, but I'd like to understand why you believe that sentence is a valid criterion when the guideline only lists two conditions numbered #1 and #2 and says "the" should be omitted unless "at least one of [those] conditions is met". I do not see a "#3" before the "natural disambiguation" clause? InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:53, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Mostly it's intent. The way it's written is maybe phrased poorly (and can be fixed), but I'm very confident it is meant to be an additional carveout, independent of the other two. The RfC clearly didn't mean to make it dependent on the other two criteria, there is no reading of that conclusion that suggests that and it doesn't even make sense in the context of the discussion. Further, if it does indeed depend on one of the other two criteria, that bit does literally nothing, because if one of the other two criteria are fulfilled, then obviously it's good for a "the" regardless of natural disambiguation. Clearly the RM was not intended to do nothing, as the original proposal was specifically to cover an example that is not already covered by the two main criteria. Therefore it must have meant, explicitly or implicitly, to have added an independent third criterion. Generally, when a guideline does not correctly reflect the consensus reached, the consensus is right and the guideline is wrong. An interesting example of this is when WP:NCNUM incorrectly noted from an RfC conclusion that certain years had to be primary topics, and it was discovered about three years later that that was not what the original RfC close had said. They changed NCNUM because of that, instead of keeping what the guideline said and ignoring the actual RfC close. We should treat this the same way. I do think WP:THE could do with some clarification to make sure it properly reflects the current consensus, or we could do an RfC to overturn that consensus, but all that stuff would probably have to come after this RM. For now, we should operate on what they pretty clearly meant. Ladtrack (talk) 07:58, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose move per 2024 RM. The character is commonly known as "the Flash", so the "prevailing common use" clause of WP:THE applies, and I've flipped my position from that RM. O.N.R. ^(talk) 04:40, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
• :The difference between this and the examples listed is that you can remove "the" from "the Flash" and the construction would still make sense, but you can't do so with "The Edge", "The Notorious B.I.G.", or "The Doctor". Flash would belong in the bulleted list above "prevailing common use" (notice I just omitted "the" and the sentence didn't lose its meaning; now try replacing "Flash" with "Doctor"), where you can easily omit "the" from "the White House" and "the United States" even though "the" is almost always included in running text. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:53, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::This is largely based on how picky the individual or entity is about the use of the "the", in my view. Like, "I have the whole Beatles catalogue" doesn't sound out of place, but it's still The Beatles, or "I just renewed my New York Times subscription" but it's still The New York Times. Doctor Who is almost bewilderingly anal about using the "the" when referring to the character, so it and some but not all musicians are kind of the exception to the rule here, but most cases where "the" is used we can still omit in sentences. I do appreciate the point you're trying to make here, but I'm just not sure this is the line to draw. Ladtrack (talk) 07:31, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::I was specifically referring to the "prevailing common use" and "other proper names" lists, which contains terms that you cannot remove "the" from, i.e. you can never in any circumstances just say "Hague" or "Doctor". The Beatles and New York Times are, again, covered by the other exceptions listed on WP:THE (band and newspaper). The Flash is not. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:38, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::::Oh, sorry, I misunderstood. My bad. Is prevailing common use the reason the dress sits at at that title? Ladtrack (talk) 21:09, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::::Well, does this sentence make sense: "I saw a picture of dress and thought it looked white-and-gold"? InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:52, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::Well, I guess you could say "I saw a picture of that dress and thought it looked white-and-gold". It is a bit clunkier but I don't think it necessarily has to be "the dress", that feels like more of a title it was given because of how much it dominated social media. Not that I have any problem with "the dress", it's definitely the WP:COMMONNAME of that particular phenomenon. This wasn't really meant as a gotcha, by the way. It just felt like an edge case where it didn't really fit any of the standard criteria, so I thought it was worth asking. Ladtrack (talk) 01:00, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. This character is AFAIK never called just Flash when others refer to him. It does occur when they are addressing him directly, but that's not the issue here. I Have only been reading the comics since the mid 1960s I admit, but leaving off the The is a new one to me. Is it too much to ask for sources that use the name Flash? I admit I find it hard to understand wp:the. Perhaps it needs tweaking to better deal with cases such as this one. Andrewa (talk) 05:04, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. My read of the situation is that this satisfies WP:THE and other article naming policies and guidelines better than the alternative. Other editors have thoroughly discussed how this aligns with similar cases like The Joker, The Penguin, NYT, The Beatles, etc. While relevant, what these examples highlight is the need to make a case-by-case determination in light of the particular facts. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 20:57, 8 May 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:THE and dipping in and out of this interesting discussion. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:12, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
• :Which part of WP:THE? InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:38, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::SnowFire answers your good faith concern very well below. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:17, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• OK, I can see where this RM is going. It's unfortunate that some editors are either unable or unwilling to correctly interpret guidelines. We cannot ignore guidelines without good reason because there's a reason they exist — in this case, it's because they are superfluous "noise words" and {{tqq|cause problems with the length of the name, the quick search function, and sorting}}. Let me just caution the closer that WP:RMCIDC states: {{tqq|Any move request that is out of keeping with naming conventions or is otherwise in conflict with applicable guideline and policy, unless there is a very good reason to ignore rules, should be closed without moving regardless of how many of the participants support it.}} InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:52, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
• : {{ping|InfiniteNexus}} Let's step back and speak abstractly for a moment. Say that there's a guideline that 100%, indisputably, says to do course of action A. Let's also say that there's a specific instance where a wide and well-attended poll is made of Wikipedia editors, and it's overwhelmingly in favor of contradictory action B. Let's also say that this isn't a matter of legality like copyright. What should we do? The answer is clear. The wide and broad consensus wins. If this is a recurring issue, then it's the policy that needs to change to reflect the reality of consensus. If it's a one-off issue, then it's just a normal case of WP:IAR. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. "My interpretation of this policy says I'm right" only goes so far, even if we grant for a moment that this take on the "rules" is correct; it might be that the rules might be updated, it might be a case of a merited borderline case that needs clarification, it might just be IAR.
• : On the specifics, WP:THE says outright that including "the" is fine {{green|in cases of prevailing common use}}. That standard seems indisputably met here. So it's far from clear that this is even an IAR situation to begin with; your interpretation of WP:THE is, at the very least, credibly contested. SnowFire (talk) 22:59, 13 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::Consensus can elect to override policies and guidelines, but there has to be good reason to do so, and that is a high bar to clear. What is the argument here for sacrificing the problems with including "the" in the title as outlined at WP:THE? Because "Flash" is commonly preceded with "the"? There are numerous examples of other characters who are almost always preceded with a "the", yet none of them have been given special treatment to ignore WP:THE, so it is unclear why this deserves to be an outlier. Because the character is the primary topic of not only "Flash" but also "{{em|The}} Flash"? No one has provided evidence to support this assertion, and all-time pageviews certainly do not support it. I guess it will be up to the closer to assess the persuasiveness of these arguments, which are either questionable or lack evidence, but if it is determined that there is consensus to ignore WP:THE, the rationale should certainly not be faulty readings of WP:THE when the Flash clearly does not fall into any category discussed there (and "Joker" is most similar example on that page that is singled out). As you're probably aware, consensus not determined by the number of raw votes but the strength of the arguments presented — and policy-based arguments are considered the strongest. InfiniteNexus (talk) 01:23, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::Not that it matters that much, but the Hood has a title like this and has been stable there for almost three years now. Obviously, the Hood doesn't meet the first two criteria, and it isn't wrong if you say just Hood like it is to say just Doctor, so according to your own logic it fails the prevailing common usage test. Perhaps you should ask the person who moved it why they did that. [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Hood&oldid=1103518658 Who was it that moved that page again?]
• :::Joker is a little different because "The Joker" is still ambiguous with the joker, but I admit this particular issue fairly rarely rears its head. There's probably a couple of natural disambiguation examples I haven't thought of, and after this is closed I'll probably comb through them to find more, but just because an exception is rarely activated doesn't mean it isn't ever applicable. I have explained multiple times now that this isn't a character thing, and that that has nothing to do with why I proposed that move. I do not know why you keep bringing that up but this could have been a building or a food or a planet and the same logic would have held.
• :::Claiming that all-time pageviews do not support this being the primary topic for "The Flash" feels disingenuous at this point. Even if this character did not fulfill the long-term significance criteria of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (and it does, having been around since 1940), it still would be the primary topic because the view counts of works based on this character do not count against the character. You know this, you work on comic-book related articles. I shouldn't have to explain it to you, and certainly not for the third time now. Here, look. [https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&start=2020-07-01&end=2025-05-12&pages=Iron_Man|Iron_Man_(2008_film) Here are the pageviews] for the comic book character Iron Man, and for the 2008 film. As you can see, the viewcounts for the film are higher. Does this mean that the movie is the primary topic by pageviews? Perhaps you should propose a move from Iron Man to Iron Man (character). After all, there is something else called Iron Man with higher pageviews. Go ahead, do it. We'll see how that proposal goes. Ladtrack (talk) 02:31, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::(SF) Just because you say "no one has presented evidence" doesn't mean that's actually true. Please re-read the arguments you were already given. I don't see any point in repeating them yet again here, but I'll humor you: there is only one competing topic, as I already stated, The Flash (lake), and this article has literally 100x the views of that one. There is a very long-standing practice that a "parent" article sometimes automatically has priority over "child" articles, unless the child article is truly well and non-controversially surpassing the parent (e.g. movies that were 100x more known than the book of the same title they were based on). You can disagree with that, but it is just factually true that the Wikipedia community considers this relevant in naming discussions. Given that, all the other "The Flash" movies / TV shows / etc. don't matter here, and this article is the clear primary topic. If you disagree that's fine, but this is perfectly based in policy and practice. And if hypothetically you were right that policy said otherwise, that is only a good cause to go update the policy to be even more clear that this kind of use of "The" is okay. SnowFire (talk) 03:00, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::::Replying to both. The Hood was a long time ago and I honestly don't remember making that move, but I probably didn't have as good of an understanding of WP:THE back then and would support reverting the move today. Digging up an old edit of mine as a "gotcha" moment feels gratuitous and not acting in good faith ([https://deadline.com/2018/07/james-gunn-fired-guardians-of-the-galaxy-disney-offensive-tweets-1202430392/ I feel like James Gunn now]). Anyway, regarding the Iron Man example, you're right, I would oppose disambiguating Iron Man because of the film's popularity. But as I have already explained, this is different: it's easy to determine the primary topic between "Iron Man" (character) vs. "Iron Man" (film), but this is "Flash" (character) vs. "{{em|The}} Flash" (film/TV show). You read that right, the character's name is "Flash", not "the Flash", or else this and previous discussions wouldn't exist as there would be no grounds for the article to be titled "Flash". If we rank all the articles titled "Flash" by primary topic, the character would unequivocally be near the top, Flash (Jay Garrick) (interesting article title 🤔) and the other titleholders would be the only child articles ineligible as primary, and the movie/TV show would be rock-bottom per WP:PTM; on the other hand, if we rank all the articles titled "The Flash", the character will not necessarily be miles ahead of the movie/TV show. Can you guess where The Batman redirects to? InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:46, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::::It redirects to Batman (disambiguation) because the character is not predominantly known as the Batman, he is predominantly known as just Batman. He has been called the Batman, but he is not predominantly known as the Batman. The Flash is predominantly known as the Flash (I felt stupid just writing that sentence but apparently it needs to be spelled out). This character is dramatically more likely to be referred to as the Flash than that one is to be referred to as the Batman. There's no way you don't know this. Also, just for the record, The Flash has redirected here since 2005, over all these other media, so if it isn't the primary topic for The Flash then we've been pointing people to the wrong article for 20 years now.
• :::::{{tq|You read that right, the character's name is "Flash", not "the Flash"}}. This is probably wrong. I was being overly generous earlier and saying that it is ambiguous, but in actuality you are probably wrong. At best, you have pulled this statement from thin air and there is nothing at all to support your assertion. Meanwhile, DC has consistently referred to this character as the Flash for decades. The closest thing we have to an authority, DC's official website, lists him as [https://www.dc.com/characters/the-flash the Flash]. Not "Flash", "the Flash". That is the title of his character page, because that's what DC calls him. Everything else is called "The Flash" because he is called the Flash. Please note that [https://www.dc.com/characters/batman Batman's page] does not call him "the Batman", it calls him "Batman". Mull over why this might be and perhaps that will help you understand why "The Flash" has redirected here for twenty years and "The Batman" does not point to Batman. Ladtrack (talk) 06:11, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::This discussion is starting to wear me down, so I'll probably make this last comment and then move on. DC's website is not a good source as they are hilariously inconsistent: they use "[https://www.dc.com/characters/the-joker The Joker]" but "[https://www.dc.com/characters/penguin Penguin]", yet both are almost always called "the Joker/Penguin" and the website goes on to use "the" in every sentence of their biography. Bizarrely, they also use "the" for [https://www.dc.com/characters/the-cheetah Cheetah], a character who I have never heard being called "the Cheetah" — first time I learned her name even had a "the". To close, perhaps I too shall invite you to ponder why this article was located at some variation of "Flash (character)" for twenty years until the previous RM, and why no other character article on this wiki except one (The Doctor) uses a leading "the". InfiniteNexus (talk) 07:10, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::I'm not quite sure why the Penguin doesn't have it, but Wikipedia does agree that Cheetah does use a the - the Cheetah redirects there and the article starts with "The Cheetah is a fictional character". As an aside, this is an astonishingly poor article for such a popular character. Did something happen here? Ladtrack (talk) 07:40, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
• :I object to InfiniteNexus's characterization – that editors in favor of The Flash have ignored or blatantly misinterpreted policy. Multiple editors have described in detail how The Flash aligns with WP:THE and other policies and guidelines in light of the facts. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 16:24, 15 May 2025 (UTC)