Talk:Phoenix (mythology)

Multiple Languages

Why are there various translations for Phoenix? This is very unencyclopedic, as encyclopedias are intended to provide information for the topic and not translations. I would not see such a thing in World Book or Britannica. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.79.7.251 (talk) 19:07, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Geography

Interesting how this article manages to omit the common fact that one of the biggest cities in the U.S. happens to be named after the Phoenix. Intentional oversight, or just laziness? Starlightmusic 08:00, 23 June 2006 (UTC) (a native Phoenician)

Actually, there's a seperate page abot phoenix, if you do the search in the search window, yiu'll see that you get two options; Phoenix the city, and phoenix mythology. --Tilstad 20:46, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

There are references to San Francisco and Atlanta, but not to Phoenix, Arizona, which is just silly. I live in downtown Phoenix and just got back from a walk with my mom visiting from Tucson. During the walk I showed her some of our urban parks, and the mythological phoenix is symbolized everywhere in beautiful sculptures, paintings, and images intertwined with the city's architecture. The most recent piece of art was a sculpture of the mythological phoenix commissioned by the City of Phoenix in 2006. Cbreitel 13:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Maybe Phoenix (the city) is named after the bird's fire, especially in summer Phoenix (AZ) about the heat! Pinkfloydgeek 09:17, 14 September 2007 (MDT)

Lifespan

"500 or 1461" years? This seems odd, listing two possibilities with one being very specific. porge 11:09, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Herodotus, and most classical authors following him, say 500. One says 1461. Another says 7006. User:Jheald 06:00, 07 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Just wondering if the number 1461 has to do something with the Sothic cycle... can someone add some info on this? Alensha 23:43, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Instead of "depending on the source," I really think the article should actually delineate who says what. I'd help if I knew which was which and I'm too tired to do the research. -- Hinotori^{(talk)|(ctrb)} 08:48, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Tacitus, in someone's link in the article, gives both 500 and 1461 in his description. -- Pheonix2og

Lifespans

I have seen several other lifespans for the phoenix. It appears that the ancient writers used a number that seemed appropriate. Pliny the Elder's description, drawn from Manilius, the Senator, says 540 years, and I saw a reference to 12,994 years. I think that a thorough article on the Phoenix would require references to several sources. There may be more external sites that have good information. PLewicke 21:21, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Etymology

Cut from the article:

The word "Phoenix" is etymologically similar to the word "firebird".

Can anybody give a source for this - or even say which language is being discussed? (Not Greek, I think). User:Jheald 06:00, 07 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This is what "http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=phoenix" says about the word's etymology: "phoenix O.E. and O.Fr. fenix, from M.L. phenix, from Gk. phoinix 'mythical bird,' also 'the date' (fruit and tree), also 'Phoenician,' lit. 'purple-red,' perhaps a foreign word, or from phoinos 'blood-red.' Exact relation and order of the senses in Gk. is unclear."

I was lead to this page by http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/Vol_1/v1notes.htm#284 (an online edition of Burtons The Thousand Nights and a Night", which claims

We still lack details concerning the Ben or Bennu (nycticorax) of Egypt which with the Article pi gave rise to the Greek "phœnix."

Not having heard this variation before, I find the currently given etymology more plausible. Still, I mention this alternative for the record. 188.100.196.8 (talk) 22:27, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

What is the "ce" 'In ce and Rome' supposed to be an acronym for in the etymology, or is this a typo? Sochwa (talk)

This was the result of a bit of vandalism, which has now been fixed. 16:26, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Inspiration?

Can anyone find the name of the bird in East Africa that the phoenix is supposedly modeled after? The Jade Knight 05:09, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It appears that one of the earliest versions of the Phoenix was in Egypt where it was the Benu bird. This page http://www.philae.nu/akhet/Benu.html refers to the model being the heron, but I have read that flamingos that nested in volcanic ash where an inspiration for the phoenix. I have also read that the origin was in Mesopotamia.

As for the story of the bird which lays its eggs on East African Salt flats... I think this may be referring to the flamingoes of the Great Rift Valley in Kenya.

There is another source of inspiration; "Scientists often discount Bird of Paradise in Papua New Guinea, but in 1957, however, Australian zoologists discovered that New Guinea tribes had exported bird of paradise plumed skins for centuries and that among those visiting the island, as long ago as 1000 BC, had been traders from Phoenicia in the Middle East. Another significant discovery was that the tribes people used to preserve the skins for export by sealing them in myrrh, molding them into an egg shape,and wrapping this in burned banana skins; a procedure that tallies almost exactly with the mythical bird's reputed treatment of its destroyed nest. Perhaps most significant of all is the fact that the brilliantly colored males of Count Raggi's bird of paradise are adorned with cascades of scarlet feathers that, during their courtship dance, they repeatedly raise aloft, while quivering intensely; a spectacle reminiscent of the phoenix dancing in its burning nest. On reaching the Middle East, descriptions of this spectacle, combined with the egg-like parcels of skins, may well have been sufficient to inspire the myth of the phoenix." - Quoted from Occultopedia's page on the Phoenix. I have been looking for the source of this reference ever since, especially which Australian zoologists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.244.175.243 (talk) 00:05, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Osamu Tezuka

In the category of pop culture appearances, may I suggest that Osamu Tezuka manga - I forget its name? I don't know much about it, but it's supposed to be good and it centres on phoenixes. Brutannica 02:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Here it is: Phoenix (manga) Brutannica 02:29, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

D'oh! I should do more research before I post these things. It's under the "Artwork" section. Why are comics and anime classified under artwork? That's not all that accurate... Brutannica 02:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Repetition

There is a lot of repetition in this article, it really needs to be cleaned up. E.g. Two sections give explanations of the phoenix in Xmen and Harry Potter. -- Pheonix2og

Yeah, and who the hell cares about harry potter or the xmen? this article should have as basis in mythology, not in children's fantasy stories. if you must mention them, create a section about the phoenix in popular culture. Cwiddofer 04:01, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Revision

Just to let you all know, I'm planning a MAJOR revision of this ariticle. I will be addressing all the issues stated above...and many more. I've actually gotten some real books out of the library :-) I will be posting my revision on a subpage when it's done...I'd like everyone's approval before I go replacing the current article. I'll give you the link when it's ready. ~ Sarabi1701 02:25, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Hey everyone, I've started the new phoenix page. There's not much to it yet, but you can watch the progress here. Please, don't edit this page. If you have any ideas or comments, post them in the discussion section. Thanks! ~ Sarabi1701 23:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it should note that it is (on) the logo of Coventry University, along with the other university mentions? 81.208.163.26 16:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Phœnix

Shouldn't the bird have the ligature and the city not?Cameron Nedland 21:39, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

No, it should not. I've been researching the phoenix so I can rewrite this article, and nowhere have I seen it written that way...not even in the scholarly works. ~ Sarabi1701 00:15, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

But the article American and British spelling differences seems to disagree.Cameron Nedland 21:18, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Pheonix in jewish mytholegy

There is also a jewish myth about the Pheonix that says that this is the only animel in the garden of eden that hadn't eaten from the fruit of knowledge when eve offered it and thus he became the gurdian of some things ( I'll have the source on monday)--82.81.21.67 21:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Story/Plot Spoiler Warning

Shouldn't one be added to the Popular Culture section? For example some parts of the Video Game sub-section is giving away story details for most of the listed games.

Actually, I don't think there should be video game details on this page at all. This is not an article for a video game. I'm working on a revision of this article (see section Revision above), and I've already taken care of that. Check it out...I think it came out very well.

Literature

On the Shakespeare line, there is a reference to "the arabian bird" in "Cymbeline" an obscure Shakespeare play. Not sure exact scene no. but is where Iachimo tries to seduce girl.

Phoenices in popular culture

The "In popular culture" section is out of hand - if not technically an indiscriminate collection of information, then at least it emulates one well. I think some severe culling is in order, but let's just talk it over first.hi

For a creature as widely referenced in Western culture as the phoenix is, it appears to be unworkable attempt to list each and every appearance of the word in literature and arts. I propose as a guideline something more or less like

The mere fact that an author or artists mentions or depicts a phoenix, or names a character after the phoenix, is not in and of itself relevant in this article. On the other hand, the article should mention works where the phoenix motif has spawned independent scholarly interest. Of course this must be sourced with references to relevant secondary literature. Also, mentions of the phoenix in texts from before (say) 1500 AD may be notable in themselves as historic sources.

This should cover arts, literature, songs, movies, et cetera. I'm still not sure what to make of all of the video game references; some people might consider it excessive to demand academic sources for them. Opinions? Henning Makholm 00:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Change "Phoenix (Mythology)" picture. Reasons 1.) It looks odd when you first look at it. 2.) Viewers will go "huh?" when they look at this page.

Split

I've split the article for what I hope are obvious reasons - as Henning Makholm says, it was starting to be dominated by a rather random list. I hope no-one has any objections. The rest has been moved to Phoenix in popular culture. Richard of York 21:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Phoenix Arizona and the Indians

The Pheonix Arizona article suggests the city was named after the Egyption bird but I thought that I had heard there was a Native American version that was called a Pheonix in translation. Also are all of the birds listed on Fire bird (mythology) dirivatives of the Egyption bird? --Gbleem 03:21, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Phoenix eggs and wikiproject birds.

I have two questions (well, more like statements, but...) regarding this article. 1. In Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic, one of the issues (Ramadan, from Fables and Reflections, I added it to the Pop. Culture page, so you can look their if you want) mentions Phoenix eggs coming in opposite pairs. Now I realize that this is probably fiction, but in mythology are their eggs ever mentioned, or does mythology state that are there a set amount of phoenices in existence, and they never go extinct due to their pseudo-immortal qualities, or does it never mention anything of the sort at all?

2. The Purpose of Wikiproject Birds is to create an Ornithological resource. Do Phoenices really fit in that, I think they would better fit in Wikiproject Mythology or Wikiproject Cryptozoology, seeing as they don't really exist. Does anyone else agree?

Description

I've added most of the top of the page to a description section, the top of the page is meant to be a short summary of the article. User:Artist Formerly Known As Whocares 19:03 (Eastern Standard Time), 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Clarification requested

The "Phoenix Karatedo Association"... Should we understand this as the Phoenix (Arizona) Karatedo Association? If so, is this important? Alton 19:09, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Wellington Phoenix

Without a citation to definitively say that Wellington's name came from the ashes of New Zealand Knights, I've added the word "possibly". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.193.237.146 (talk) 00:43, 26 May 2008 (UTC) --208.108.152.62 (talk) 16:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Phoenix tears

From where does come the info in the description about phoenix tear's healing power ? I don't remember hearing about that elsewhere than in Harry Potter so I doubt it should be here. It definitely needs a citation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.10.169.190 (talk) 08:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

The healing powers of tears comes purely from the mind of Rowling. I shall delete it. http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast149.htm contains many quotations of ancient and medieval writers on the phoenix, none of which mention tears or carrying heavy burdens. The carrying of burdens likely comes from the fact that the phoenix carried its dead parent's body to Heliopolis.Chrysologus (talk) 20:04, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

is there a possibilities that the phoenix may live again?

November 23, 2009. i saw a bird like creature. gold color and flying very fast.10mins or more this creature is just rounding and rounding and suddenly disappear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.211.168.52 (talk) 19:23, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I hate to ask, but shouldn't there be a REFERENCE to Fawkes, the Phoenix of Harry Potter? People may well come here looking for that, and I argue that modern mythology is still mythology. (Fawkes -- do I have the name right? -- is probably now one of the most familiar examples of phoenix.) s for the tears thing -- that should be covered elsewhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug123w (talk • contribs) 15:49, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Simurgh?

Why does the "History" section begin with a reference to the Persian simurgh? The simurgh is not the source of the Phoenix myth, nor are the two even very much alike. If either was the inspiration for the other, logically it would have to be the other way around since Egyptian references to the Phoenix predate Persian references to the simurgh by at least a thousand years. While it makes sense to mention the simurgh in the "Related Usage" section (which really ought to be renamed something like "Similar Mythical Creatures"), it makes no sense at all to talk about the simurgh in the "History" of the Phoenix. I propose that the entire first paragraph be removed. FireHorse (talk) 08:27, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay Booger-mike (talk) 19:32, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Textiles

Lampas with phoenix, silk and gold, Iran or Irak, 14th century.

Lampas with phoenix, silk and gold, Iran or Irak, 14th century. Per Honor et Gloria ✍ 15:47, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Hoatzin

The Hoatzin resembles a phoenix quite nicely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.34.189.99 (talk) 14:34, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Black Phoenix

i've been hearing stuff about a "Black Phoenix" but i can't find any information neither on the internet nor in books... Does anyone know anything about it ?--Fipas11 (talk) 11:37, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Real Phoenix bird in Holland?

When I was a kid, I have seen a golden bird together with my sister and aunt. So has anyone seen a golden bird with a long tail and golden feathers before? Can anyone tell me what kind of bird this is? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zaraki888 (talk • contribs) 10:27, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Maybe you saw a golden pheasant. Some of them look extremely similar to the description of a phoenix. -- Fyrefly (talk) 14:43, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Links to Disambiguation Pages

The link to firebird in the first paragraph leads to a disambiguation page. I think the links to the various cultures should direct to pages we have on those culture's version of a fire bird, and the link to firebird be removed. Also, the See Also link to Fire Bird (Mythology) leads to a disambiguation page and should be removed per WP:INTDABLINK JSellers0 (talk) 15:42, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

The roc is not a phoenix

Why is roc listed in the specific legends section? The only things they have in common are being birds and a very slight connection through Garuda. It certainly isn't a version of the phoenix myth. At best, it should go under a See Also heading, but it needs to be removed from its current location. -- Fyrefly (talk) 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I guess I'm removing it then. -- Fyrefly (talk) 19:53, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

The Phoenix has paranormal powers — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.241.117.162 (talk) 22:54, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Title

Currently, Phoenix is a redirect page to Phoenix (mythology) and to Phoenix, Arizona. I don't have much of a problem with the disambiguation page, but feel that the qualifier "(mythology)" is unnecessary and somewhat backwards, as the city was named after the creature; this is the actual phoenix.24.22.129.215 (talk) 20:27, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Regarding Hebrew chol

Recently some information was added regarding Hebrew cho. It lacked the appropriate philological context and simply presented the being as simply another form of the Greek phoenix, free of cultural context. It was therefore reverted. I have, however, since created Chol (bible), which previously redirected to this page. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:33, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

What the 'chol' was is disputed and we cannot present one interpretation as fact. See R. Van den Broek's book [1] where he says "We are therefore of the opinion that the rabbinical interpretation of Job xxix.18 proves only that the rabbinical world knew the Classical phoenix myth and that there is no evidence whatever to support the view that in this text the word hoi must be translated as phoenix. This is the reason why Job xxix.18 will not be referred to again in this book." I've reverted the material at Chol (bible) (which should be Chole (Bible) and again from this article. Dougweller (talk) 09:32, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Lack of Information

This article seems to have a severe lack of information on the phoenix. The article barely describes what the phoenix is, the defining aspects of the phoenix, the various mythologies that include the phoenix, the symbolism of the phoenix, etc. And for some reason, someone decided it was appropriate to create a description passage on the "Chol" and paste it at the top of the article above the summary -- that belongs as a portion in a mythology section, not at the top of the article. This article is considerably incomplete and is in desperate need of more accurate and concise information from multiple sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orcrist90 (talk • contribs) 05:22, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Reversion

Recently a bunch of stuff was added to the article in a section titled "In Jewish Scripture". I removed it but, by mistake, I left no edit summary. Here's why I removed it: There's no mention of the Phoenix in these sources, but rather a being identified as some sort of analogue via glossing. We can discuss the glossing where it happens, but it is inappropriate to turn this article into an article about a being from another cultural tradition that has been glossed as "phoenix" when brought into English discourse. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:40, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Occurrence in modern literature section?

here I was excepting to find heaps of info (or at least a sentence) on Fawkes and theres nothing. I know theres an article Phoenix in popular culture but we could possibly mention a couple here and then link to the article. thanks. Coolabahapple (talk) 05:50, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Possibly a mistake

in the article, chapter "Etymology", I read

  ... which is derived from Classical Latin phoenīx. The Classical Latin phoenīx represents Greek φοῖνιξ phoinīx ...

Now the penultima syllable of a Greek word can only then have a circumflex accent when the ultima is short. Hence either the circumflex accent or the macron over the i in the transliteration of the greek word (or both?) is definitely wrong.

The new Greek word Φοίνικας has its accent on the antepenultima, which it couldn't if the penultima (the iota) were long. This makes me believe the circumflex is wrong. The German Wikipedia, by the way, has an acute accent: Φοίνιξ. I was unable to find a dictionary online to confirm this; therefore I didnt change the article right away.

Moreover, I still believe (without a good reason, I admit) that the ultima in φοῖνιξ/Φοίνιξ is short, so the macron over the i in the transliteration would be wrong; if it is then I believe the macron over the i in the latin word (both instances) is also wrong. However, I'd like to leave it to a specialist in this field (which I am not) to change the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.177.198.76 (talk) 16:03, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Connection with Apollo?

Could the word "phoenix" be connected with the "Phoebus" (usually translated as "bright") aspect of Apollo? CFLeon (talk) 19:27, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Basis in reality

It is conceivable that the Phoenix myth was a product of unearthed fossilized bones of an instinct raptor of paleontological origin, much as discovered dinosaur bones may have inspired dragon legends of medieval Europe. In this aspect, a bird of ancient origin is given life as it is dug up and has come to existence once again, to reenter into consciousness. Thus, the Phoenix has risen from the perished ashes of old to live again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The shaman poet (talk • contribs) 06:53, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

More likely, the origin is connected with what's called "anting". This is a quirk with some birds of rubbing ants on themselves or rolling in ant mounds. In modern times, birds have been seen doing this with lit cigarettes or ashes, or even small bits of vegetation on fire. CFLeon (talk) 00:48, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Species

Since this thing is compared to a rooster, and connected to Phoenicia, I'd say it's scientific name wouls be Gallus phoenicia, if it were to exist in real life. Booger-mike (talk) 19:34, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Never mind, it's more like an eagle Booger-mike (talk) 02:24, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

WP:INTDABLINK

All editors who are mistakenly removing the disambiguation tag from the hatnote, please familiarize yourself with the above policy. This shouldn't be that difficult, I've referenced the above policy twice now. Might I suggest VeryRarelyStable, that you self-revert your incorrect revert? Thank you. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 12:29, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Edits and revisions

To me when reading the current article, it didn't seem to confer a correct notion of what the phoenix is - based on the definitions given in the Oxford concise dictionary, merriam Webster and dictionary.Com. I have tried to edit this but I did not know that dictionary definitions cannot be cited as sources... In honesty I do not understand why that is but however... If I can find other sources and list them, I would appreciate some feedback and hopefully acceptance of the revision. To me, and agrees by peers it is clearly that the phoenix rises again from its own ashes. Swansickle (talk) 02:44, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 22 October 2019

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

The result of the move request was: No consensus. (non-admin closure) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:27, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

---

• Phoenix (folklore) → Phoenix
• Phoenix → Phoenix (disambiguation)

– Primary topic by longterm significance. Everything on the disambiguation page is named after this creature. The only competing primary topic, Phoenix, Arizona, is already naturally disambiguated with the addition of "Arizona". A hatnote from this page will suffice for people who simply type in "Phoenix" hoping to reach the city. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 05:12, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

• Agree —VeryRarelyStable (talk) 06:22, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - primarily based on pageviews which do not show this is the primary search topic as the city has very similar results. There is no value in forcing a primary topic competition here. --Gonnym (talk) 08:46, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - definitely not a primary target, as stated by Gonnym, both have averaged around 105k views per day. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 10:40, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Pageviews are not an indication of the primacy of a subject. Phoenix, Arizona was named after the phoenix and has its own built-in disambiguator. I'd bet good money Wolverine (character) gets more pageviews than Wolverine, the animal, as well; shall we make him the primary target of that word? —VeryRarelyStable (talk) 10:57, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

The template instructs us to base arguments on WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. Those criteria are: recognizability, naturalness, precision, conciseness, and consistency. Not on the list: pageviews. —VeryRarelyStable (talk) 11:03, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

The guidelines for this are found at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, not WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. There you will find that page views is in fact one of the two most common determiners and "X is named after Y" is not a criterion, despite that argument being used on multiple move requests. -- Fyrael (talk) 19:46, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, technically the exact quote is "Being the original source of the name is also not determinative", which doesn't explicitly say it can't be considered. I still think a number of users on these discussions believe it is determinative though. -- Fyrael (talk) 19:53, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Scroll up a few centimetres. You will find a brown box which includes the words "Please base arguments on article title policy..." The words article title policy link to WP:NAMINGCRITERIA.

As for WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, it also says

Perhaps the most commonly rejected criterion is that the primary topic should only belong to what "first comes to mind". This argument is inevitably tainted by the personal background, location, biases, ethnicity, and other pieces of one's own life, but we are trying to build an encyclopedia that is untainted by systemic bias. The primary topic is therefore determined without regard to (for example) the national origin, if any, of the article or articles in question.

—and I can assure you, only Americans think of the Arizona city before the mythical bird upon hearing the word "phoenix" otherwise unqualified. —VeryRarelyStable (talk) 03:22, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that is a generic template for all proposed page moves, but we're not talking about proper naming procedure. We're talking about which topic should own the base name, so the NAMINGCRITERIA is irrelevant and PRIMARYTOPIC is the correct guidelines. I think you're the only one here who doesn't realize that. Even the proposer had "primary topic" as the first two words of their rationale.

And so far zero people here have said anything about what "first comes to mind" or claimed that the city is primary. That was some really weak straw man garbage. -- Fyrael (talk) 05:34, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

If NAMINGCRITERIA is irrelevant, why does the template above – really, just above, at the head of this section, it's a light brown box, I can take a screencap if you can't see it – prescribe it as the correct basis for argument?

Nohomersryan below argues that the city is "known globally" and therefore the creature doesn't "outstrip" it as a primary topic. Red Slash below asks rhetorically "Which one has more significance?" after pointing out that ("Lol") there are people living in Phoenix whereas phoenixes don't exist. So while, indeed, no-one on the Oppose side has said anything about what "first comes to mind", at least two people have in fact claimed that the city is primary. Not quite so weak straw as all that, then. (And indeed, if you don't think the city at least has a claim to primacy, what else are you proposing should be the topic of the article simply titled "Phoenix"?)

Exactly what the positive argument is for keeping the city as the primary topic, if it genuinely isn't "it's what most Americans think of first", I'm not picking up from people's statements below. As far as I can tell, the city "has greater significance" because it just does, end of. Not convincing. —VeryRarelyStable (talk) 06:28, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

You are misunderstanding, on both points. Again, the template links to that guideline because it is a generic template that gets put on all page moves, and is correct for 90+% of them. Disambiguation pages are special cases though. I think you can see that nobody is arguing that there's a wrongly named article. That's why those aren't the applicable guidelines here. We're talking about whether or not there is a primary topic that should live at the base name instead of disambiguating at the base name. Please believe me that for discussing primary topics the correct guidelines are at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, which other editors have also linked multiple times. And I'm sorry that I claimed it was straw man because I didn't realize that you misunderstood what others are claiming about the city. Those editors are not claiming the city is primary. We are saying that none of the topics are primary, and so the disambiguation page should stay at the base name. They are talking about the significance of the city because that's a large part of what they believe keeps the creature from being primary. Sorry for going on attack mode earlier; I hope this has cleared things up so at least we are using the same framework for discussion now. -- Fyrael (talk) 14:09, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Actually, I'm not sure why I used "we" in there, since I'm not thoroughly convinced either way yet and haven't given a "vote". -- Fyrael (talk) 14:17, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

I see I have misunderstood to some extent, but with that corrected I must reiterate: only to Americans would there be any question of the city even challenging the primacy of the mythical creature.

With regard to pageviews, it must be remembered that this is specifically English-language Wikipedia, and Americans are disproportionately represented among English-reading internet users. —VeryRarelyStable (talk) 10:42, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose, no clear primary topic. —Xezbeth (talk) 12:34, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. The city is a level-4 vital article, one of the largest in the United States, and is known globally. It's got quite a lot of long-term significance itself. So I'm not convinced this article outstrips it to such a degree on both WP:PRIMARYTOPIC counts to deserve the base name. Nohomersryan (talk) 14:38, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
• Agree Having this as a disambig page demonstrates an inappropriate American bias. If I look up "phoenix", I expect to be taken to the page for the mythological creature (after which all other senses are named), not a disambig page. The Phoenix article should be for the mythological creature, and this page should have at the top two "See alsos" (one for Phoenix, Arizona and one for the Phoenix constellation) and link to the disambig page where additional senses can be found. See also VeryRarelyStable's (correct) argument about Wolverine (character) and Wolverine above. Bueller 007 (talk) 19:42, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

• I agree. The fact that Phoenix, Arizona is seen as on-par with the Greek Phoenix in importance may be an instance of lacking a WP:GLOBAL perspective. I'm not sure if you asked someone outside the U.S., they'd see it the same way._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 20:09, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

• Lol, there are millions of actual real-life people living in Phoenix and its environs. Like, real, actual people. There has literally never existed a single phoenix. Which one has more significance? Red Slash 02:28, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

• It sure looks like the founders of Phoenix, Arizona thought it was significant if they named their city after it..._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 03:29, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

• As with Boston presumably.... Although I agree the folklore is primary if anything, I don't think there is a clear primary topic given the large number of other uses[[2]] even though the folklore gets the most views. Crouch, Swale (talk) 08:03, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

• Agree, particularly from a global perspective. :bloodofox: (talk) 20:47, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support have to say that a phoenix is a phoenix, not Phoenix Arizona. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:10, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

  WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT and WP:NWFCTM at its finest Red Slash 02:28, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

  That sure didn't read like "I don't like Phoenix, Arizona" to me. It seems like you're the one who "doesn't like" his opinion._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 03:26, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

  "have to say that a phoenix is a phoenix" - what a well-supported opinion, right? Compare that to, say, Ngrams, which show that "the Phoenix" (case-insensitive) used to be used half as much as "Phoenix", but that now it is dwarfed by it, clearly showing a huge increase for the city over that time frame. (Notice that Phoenix starts to pull away around the late 1800s... right as the city was founded...) Red Slash 14:33, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. "Long-term significance" does not mean what comes first is the default primary topic. Calidum 02:14, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per... umm... the second criterion of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. "Greater long-term significance" does not mean "longer-lasting significance". It clearly means more significance. (What kind of significance? Long-term significance.) Red Slash 02:28, 23 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support. The legendary creature seems like the obvious primary topic to me having existed (in a mythological sense) since ancient times, with arguments for the modern city coming across as somewhat US-centric. In any case, the city is already distinguished by the state name. PC78 (talk) 13:24, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

High page views is a US-centric argument? -- Fyrael (talk) 14:00, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I never mentioned pageviews, that's not the only argument made above for the city (although if we knew where pageviews were coming from that could certainly be the case, hypothetically speaking). Despite Phoenix being one of the largest US cities in terms of population, I don't believe it is one of the better known outside of the US. That's merely an opinion of course, but I think it's best to conside the global perspective as others have noted above. PC78 (talk) 14:31, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

My impression so far is that most of the argument for the city is page views, with one user mentioning it's categorized as a vital article and another looking at ngrams. But I wanted to challenge this because I think that a number of editors here are taking this "global perspective" thing a bit far and essentially penalizing the city for being in the US. It would seem to me that we should weigh all users equally rather than pretending that all countries have the same amount of daily users. In other words, it should not matter at all if we determined that half of the bird's views were from the US and a full 90% of the city's were. Users are users. -- Fyrael (talk) 15:48, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

And just for the record, my !vote would remain the same if the other main article by this name was Phoenix, England, or Phoenix, Ghana, etc.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 16:04, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

It's not a question of "penalising" the city for being in the US, merely a case of relative notability from a broader perspective. PC78 (talk) 16:09, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support. In spite of arguments I've made the other way, I think this is a pretty close parallel to the primary topic considerations for Apple. While the phoenix is of course not as significant as an apple, the primary competition here (the city) pales in comparison to Apple Inc. In terms of mythical creatures and their cultural impact, I have to think that the phoenix is a solid competitor for second place, after of course the dragon. -- Fyrael (talk) 16:45, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. The mythical creature article and the city article receive roughly the same number of pageviews, with no "Phoenix" topic getting more than the others combined, and long-term significance does not obviously favor the creature over the city. Moving this will invite all kinds of mislinks and headaches for our readers and editors. Dohn joe (talk) 21:18, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Due to the many mistaken links that will inevitably direct readers to the creature when it should have been the city, the band, the constellation, etc. Neodop (talk) 04:05, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

• This argument makes no sense. If "Phoenix" remains a disambig page, then any "mistaken links" would still inappropriately take readers to a disambig page instead of the page they were looking for. There's really no difference. "Mistaken links" is not a valid reason to choose the primary topic. Bueller 007 (talk) 19:10, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

While I agree with you that the mistaken links argument is not a great one and is implied in any primary topic discussion, there actually is quite a bit of difference. Links to disambiguation pages can be seen from a tool we have and are constantly being fixed by members of the disambiguation project, but links that are simply to the wrong article can only be found by an editor who just happens to notice them on the source page (or I suppose an editor could look through every incoming link to the page and check that they're legitimate. -- Fyrael (talk) 19:55, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

• Comment Many of these comments seem to be confused about the proposal, and therefore should be considered invalid. The proposal is that the page for phoenix (which is currently a disambig page), should be changed so that it covers the mythological creature (and a separate disambig page should be used). Anyone who is arguing that Phoenix the city takes precedence over the mythological creature is missing the point. Currently if you look up "Phoenix" in Wikipedia, you get taken to a disambiguation page. If you want to get from the disambig page to the Phoenix, Arizona page, you have to click a link. The suggested move would replace the disambig page with the page for the mythological creature. The page would have a hatnote with a link to take you to the Phoenix, Arizona page. From the viewpoint of finding the Phoenix, Arizona page, nothing has changed. Currently you have to click on a link from the disambig page; under the proposed move, you would click a link in the hatnote. All this suggested move is doing is giving people the actual meaning of phoenix (i.e., the one found in every dictionary, which should be the primary topic) when they search for "phoenix". Bueller 007 (talk) 19:10, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

If you look on the disambiguation page, you'll find that there's many actual meanings of the term "phoenix". And dictionary definitions very much do not imply significance or how encyclopedic a topic is. -- Fyrael (talk) 19:55, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose Clearly no primary topic among for this name by page views, especially considering the city, and probably by long term significance too.--Yaksar (let's chat) 03:13, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

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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.

User Revert-Warring to Restore Misinformation, Unreferenced Material, and Misattribution

So, after seeing this article after being away from it a while, I've noticed the introduction of a bunch of editorial content and misattribution to sources I've placed on the article. I removed it. Unfortunately, as is all too often the case on the project, this has evidently awoken a revert-warrior watcher (in this case @VeryRarelyStable:), emerging from their slumber only to push aside core guidelines like WP:PROVEIT to aggressively reinsert all the accrued misinformation, misattributed material, and otherwise entirely unreferenced material (example). The user has also restored 'citation needed' tags inserted by a drive-by user for sections that are fully referenced to reliable sources, as well as more obvious problems, like referring to ancient Phoenicia as modern Lebanon (!), using amateur websites like this as sources, and employing 19th century translations of primary sources as sources. And what's with the insertion of sites like these?

This sort thoughtless drive to maintain any information, even flatly incorrect, misattributed, and unreferenced material, is not helpful to the project nor its readers, and only contributes to the deterioration of otherwise solid articles. Where are these users when the nonsense is inserted on to the article in the first place, I wonder? :bloodofox: (talk) 17:11, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Questions.

• What's your beef with the passages from the Exeter Book, Dante, and Shakespeare? Why did you delete that entire section?
• How does being saved on an "amateur" website make a text unreliable? A lot of websites devoted to literary texts don't have very up-to-date CSS (being maintained by literature scholars rather than IT professionals); how does that affect their textual reliability?
• Where do you think Phoenicia was?
• The only "citation needed" tag I can find in the version I restored is on the claim that Phoenicia and Lebanon are the same place. Where are the ones you're complaining about?
• For that matter, if someone has tagged you "citation needed", than WP:PROVEIT would seem to put the onus on you, wouldn't it?
• Can you please quote an example of what you're referring to as "editorial content"?
• Why did you restore the phrase referring to the Bennu as "a bird observed in some respects to be similar to the phoenix"? Observed by whom?
• Why should the Bennu get a whole top-level section to itself, when even your restored text notes that the phoenix is also similar to a whole bunch of other mythical birds?
• Why did you remove the Chinese characters and kanji from the "Analogues" section?
• Do translations go off with age, like milk? What's wrong with using a translation of Herodotus from 1858? How does its age make it unreliable?
• And if it does make it unreliable, wouldn't the same happen to Lundy, which was written in 1876, and which your version restores?
• Why don't you like Google Books, seeing as it doesn't seem to be the book itself you object to, since you've kept the references but removed the links?
• Why did you remove the category "Birds in mythology"?

—VeryRarelyStable (talk) 03:59, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

First of all, translation date matters. A lot. As does translation quality, the translator, and the reliability of a site hosting said translation. I get that you're new to this topic, but, in short, 19th century—in many cases Victorian—translations are often infused with old layers of scholarship, and frequently make references to now-dead theories, and do not reflect the many innovations in scholarship that have occurred over the next, say, century. For example, Western society no longer considers women to be subhuman. Stick to modern, reliable sources, including sites that host them, rather than amateur websites pushing a fringe agenda (obviously, this is an RS fail, although you've now revert-warred to restore it twice.)

Lebanon is a small modern nation. Phoenicia was a region with expanding and contracting "borders" in the western Fertile Crescent. The gap between the two is immense, and despite what certain Lebanese nationalists may claim, the two are not equivalent. We're not here to stoke the flames of Lebanese nationalism.

Work with Google Books links, and you'll find that Google Books links are only regionally accessible, and therefore useless for most people outside of the U.S.

Did you read the Bennu section? Do you understand how the Bennu is so closely connected to the Greek concept of the Phoenix? How new are you to this subject? Are you familiar with the concept of the analogue in folklore studies, and what that means, exactly? Do you understand the crucial distinction between describing something as observed and not flatly stating it as fact, and why someone would do that? If not, please brush up on these topics before responding further, as otherwise you're wasting my time and yours.

The characters, which can vary, were removed because they are not in the source provided. Additionally, the citation needed link was added to a section fully referenced—the reference is at the end of the paragraph. You are doing your reader no service by misattributing material, and only introducing further confusion into the text.

It seems that you've chosen to get into a dispute about the content of this article without being particularly familiar with the topic itself—why would you think that was a good idea? :bloodofox: (talk) 16:28, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Unanswered questions remaining:

• What's your beef with the passages from the Exeter Book, Dante, and Shakespeare? Why did you delete that whole section?
• Can you please quote an example of what you're referring to as "editorial" content?
• If 19th-century sources are unreliable, why did you restore the reference to Lundy (1876)?
• Why did you remove the category "Birds in mythology"?

I admit I didn't know that about Google Books links; I haven't had a problem with them from here in New Zealand.

An expert on the phoenix I am not, but I was translating Tacitus when I was sixteen. I have some, admittedly more limited, experience with Greek as well. I know at least enough about the process to know that there's a huge gap between a perfect translation and a worthless translation, and that practically all translated classical texts inhabit that gap. I know that faults in some passages of a translation do not render every paragraph of the text unreliable. I don't find any references to the supposed subhumanity of women in that Herodotus passage, for example. (I think you exaggerate, by the way; nineteenth-century opinion held women to be subadult rather than subhuman.)

Yes, I read the Bennu section. Without the Herodotus passage, all it says is that the Bennu is "similar in some respects" to the phoenix, but that the Egyptian sources are "problematic" and may be influenced by the Greek ones. That's not a summary of what it says, that's all it says. And that's in your "restored" version of the page. So no, I do not understand how the Bennu is "closely connected" to the Greek concept, which means that if I was supposed to understand that, the writer of that section didn't do much of a job.

I would read the word "observed" to mean that there was something objective to observe. That sentence with that word in it strongly suggests to me that the writer thinks the Bennu and the phoenix are real animals that can be put in adjacent aviary enclosures and empirically compared. On the other hand, merely asserting that two concepts are similar seems to me to be a general enough statement not to need hedges and qualifiers. (Obviously one would want to display the evidence if one were going into the particulars of their similarity.) However, if one felt that even the mere similarity between them needed to be qualified, observe is the wrong verb, since they are imaginary and hence not observable. "Considered" or "understood" might be better.

Typically when a text puts "modern X" in parentheses after the name of an obsolete location, as in "Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe)" or "Prussia (modern Poland)" or "Asia Minor (modern Turkey)", it's understood that they're merely stating it's the same location. At least, that's what I've understood it to mean since primary school. It doesn't imply political continuity.

That being said, I was under the impression that the "citation needed" was attached specifically to the identification of Phoenicia with Lebanon, since, as you say, there is a reference at the end of the paragraph for the association of Phoenicia with the phoenix. If I were "citation needed"-ing the association of Phoenicia with the phoenix, I would place it after the word "Phoenicia", not the word "Lebanon".

The Chinese characters and kanji for the Fenghuang and Ho-o may not be found at the source referenced, but they are found on the Wikipedia pages linked at those words. I note that the Anka has a word following it in Arabic script; I imagine the Chinese, kanji, Devanagari, and additional Arabic characters in that paragraph were added for consistency.

Still looking forward to the answers to those remaining questions.

—VeryRarelyStable (talk) 02:30, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

First, had you read the section, you'd have encountered the sentence "Classical discourse on the subject of the phoenix points to a potential origin of the phoenix in Ancient Egypt". Again, read the article or we're not going to have anything to discuss here. As the article makes clear, the Egyptian Bennu plays an important role in discourse around the development of the Phoenix. The analogues mentioned later share motifs, some more than others, but modern scholars are not proposing a direct line of transmission. At best you'll get a comparison via the Thompson motif index (again, folklore studies).

Next, pre-Linear B decipherment translations, especially on topics like these, propose all sorts of outdated nonsense, as this article highlights. Since then, Indo-European studies has grown in leaps and bounds, as has Classical studies as a whole. If you were as versed on the topic as you claim, you'd be aware of this. You'd also be aware that transliteration generates a host of problems, particularly when drawing from a corpus of forms, and so we don't put specific variants into the mouth of a particular scholar. Don't misattribute material.

I suggest you evolve your understanding of the importance and risk of equating modern nation-states and ancient regions with modern borders. Tip: You claim to be familiar with Tacitus, but then you'd know that nobody equates the Roman exonym Germania with modern Germany—but the Nazis sure loved to. It definitely implies continuity, political, cultural, and ethnic. Prussia wasn't modern Poland (were you kidding?) and when it comes to modern borders, everything is political. Wikipedia is not composed to the whims of nationalists—enough.

"I think you exaggerate, by the way; nineteenth-century opinion held women to be subadult rather than subhuman" has to be one of the funniest unintentionally humorous quotes I've read on English Wikipedia over the past decade or so, I'll give you that.

If you've scratched your edit-warring itch, I'll go ahead and start correcting the article. Otherwise we're going to need to elevate this, as I'm not keen on letting this article deteriorate into a bunch of ill-considered nonsense, and my Wikipedia time is limited—I'd rather not spend it explaining fundamentals to edit warriors. :bloodofox: (talk) 02:53, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

• Why did you remove the section on the Exeter Book, Dante, and Shakespeare?
• You said there was "editorial" content in the article. Where?
• What makes Lundy (1876) more reliable than other 19th-century sources?
• Why did you remove the category "Birds in mythology"?

Do you mean to tell me that that vague introductory handwaving in the Bennu section about "pointing to a potential origin" is your idea of content?

Please point to a specific problem of translation in the Herodotus passage you removed.

The "modern Lebanon" phrase is not a hill I intend to die on, or I'd have a lot more to say about the confusions you're making up and attributing to me. Likewise with the status of women in the 19th century.

—VeryRarelyStable (talk) 04:42, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

If you want to contribute to this article, start by finding a copy of the Van der Broek book used throughout this article. In the mean time, you're wasting your time — and mine. :bloodofox: (talk) 05:08, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, you know, there used to be an electronic copy handily linked from the article at least from some locations, but someone removed it. In the meantime, are you seriously proposing we should base an entire article on a major folkloric-and-mythological creature on one book?

Even if that was a good idea, you do know, don't you, that Wikipedia is supposed to have actual specific information in it, not just references to somewhere else people can find the information?

So there wasn't any "editorial" content in the article? You're conceding that?

Why does the fact that the phoenix appears in folkloric as well as mythic contexts mean that it doesn't count as a "bird in mythology"?

—VeryRarelyStable (talk) 05:42, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

How often do you encounter "apples and fruits" or "dogs and animals"? It's the same for "myth and folklore". Additionally, after this ridiculous edit—you inserted nine tags in a single paragraph—please kindly take a break and return when you're calm. :bloodofox: (talk) 05:48, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 31 October 2019

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: restore the page to the previous stable title, Phoenix (mythology), at this time per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 15:43, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

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Phoenix (folklore) → Phoenix (mythology) – Moved with no discussion. The Phoenix has an origin in ancient mythology, not modern folklore and should be disambiguated as such. _{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 14:04, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Obvious support. This should be an uncontroversial move. Bueller 007 (talk) 15:20, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Support - article was at this title for a considerable length of time before being moved without discussion. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 15:57, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Support, if nothing else then for consistency with the many other mythical creature articles that use this disambiguator. bloodofox's move rationale could be applied to so many articles that I think it would have to be a project-wide decision. To save people searching, the edit summary given for the move was "Myth is a particular genre of folklore, the phoenix motif is not restricted to myth". -- Fyrael (talk) 18:43, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. Please read up on this topic before voting. The phoenix is a an entity and motif from Ancient Greek folklore, of which Greek mythology is a genre. There has historically been a lot of confusion about the difference between myth and folklore on Wikipedia (there is in fact a lot of confusion about what folklore is all over Wikipedia). In short: myth is a genre of folklore. The phoenix appears in a wide variety of folklore genres and is not restricted to the myth genre. It far more commonly appears in legend, another folklore genre. :bloodofox: (talk) 04:21, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

I also note that the original poster seems to be confused about the term folklore ("modern folklore"). This is a common issue to those new to the topic: They assume the word folklore refers solely to modern phenomenon, and generally they're just thinking folktale. The reality is that folklore is a genre that encompasses everything from recipes to jokes, but also genres such as myth, legend, and so on. These terms are not synonyms in the academic study of the topic, folklore studies. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:40, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

The move appears to be a WP:POINT attempt to change usage of a widely used disambiguation. This is not the place to debate this. It should be done in a more general sense, either all or nothing. Moving things peacemeal to "folklore" is just disruptive._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 15:07, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Support. You can't make people change their usage of a word to what you think it ought to mean by writing one instance of it and expecting the rest of the population to pivot around you. All it accomplishes is confusion and misunderstanding. ("Read up on this topic" where, exactly, please?) Hence, as per Fyrael's comment, either the usage of "folklore" needs to be changed all over Wikipedia, or this article should adhere to the existing standard. (That is, since we couldn't reach consensus on just titling it "Phoenix", which would have been my first preference.) —VeryRarelyStable (talk) 07:21, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

No one is asking anyone to change how they speak. What we're talking about is article accuracy. I get that you're still steaming about the exchanges, but as I said there, your best interest here if you're interested in producing accurate material is to familiarize yourself with the topic. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:38, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

If you have sources, produce them. If not, well, so far consensus seems to be going in the right direction. "Accuracy" means that people come away from reading your article with correct ideas about it in their heads, which won't happen if you use a word that they are guaranteed to misunderstand. See Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style. —VeryRarelyStable (talk) 22:25, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Had you visited our article on Ancient Greek folklore, for example, you might have encountered “Greek and Roman Folklore: A Handbook” (Anderson, Greenwood, 2006), which discusses the phoenix at various points and includes a handy discussion on folklore genres for readers new to the topic (you’d benefit a lot from this). Additionally, Thompson’s famous folklore motif index, used universally in folklore studies (Motif index), dedicates an entire motif to the figure: B32. Again, you’d be wise to read up on a topic before discussing it. :bloodofox: (talk) 01:16, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

How were you planning to distribute this book to the readership of Wikipedia so they wouldn't misunderstand the title? My university library doesn't have it. —VeryRarelyStable (talk) 07:42, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Get access to a better library. Thompson’s index is widely available, any major university will have a copy of the Greenwood book. Comparatively speaking, it’s also not too terribly priced. Anyone can also read the article’s lead. Your willful lack of comprehension and refusal to perform basic research before wasting the time of others remains unhelpful. :bloodofox: (talk) 10:36, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

The suggestion to do research in order to weigh in on an article title is quite backwards in my opinion. It does not matter if folklore experts would categorize the phoenix as primarily a part of folklore. We should name this the way that most of our readers expect it to be named, so that they can easily find it, not just people that have read a particular book that you think is important. -- Fyrael (talk) 17:09, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

I’m pretty sure readers can suss it out themselves without any confusion, and redirects also help. “Legend” would still be more accurate than “myth”, and certainly causes no confusion. Again, we’re not talking about a single book here, but numerous works by experts in the field. This isn’t remotely controversial, but unfortunately does reflect the poor coverage of folklore topics on Wikipedia to date. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:57, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Let's be clear here what is and what is not in dispute.

• Not in dispute: Experts use the terms "mythology" and "folklore" (and "legend") with semantic ranges that are different from the colloquial.
• Not in dispute: The expert use of the terms divides up the semantic field with better precision than the colloquial.
• Not in dispute: In the expert use of the terms, the phoenix is most accurately described as a creature of "folklore".
• In dispute: Wikipedia article titles ought to favour the precision of expert usage over the accessibility of colloquial usage.
• Of relevance: Experts in any field always underestimate the difficulty their technical language poses for newcomers. (Source: Pinker, The Sense of Style.)

—VeryRarelyStable (talk) 23:04, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

This is correct. Colloquial speech uses the terms folklore, myth(ology), and legend synonymously (all with essentially the semantic value of 'fiction'), whereas anthropologists, and specifically folklorists, recognize these terms as distinct genres with significant differences (but with overlap). This is not a unique situation to folklore studies. However, it seems to me that if a reader is going to research an entity from the folklore record, they're going to need to pick up a few things about folklore along the way. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:22, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

• Support. Yes, mythology is a more appropriate disambiguator. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:34, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

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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.

Nag Hammadi material

I would like to know exactly what is wrong with including the phoenix reference in the Nag Hammadi material on this page, as three editors so far have done and one has reverted each time.

• Is the passage believed to be fake?
• If not, is the Nag Hammadi corpus of such little scholarly interest that it shouldn't be on Wikipedia at all? (We'd better take that up with the Wikipedia pages on the subject.)
• Are there better translations of this particular passage that should be referred to instead? Where are they? What do they say?
• Is the concern merely that there exist groups of people whose interest in the Nag Hammadi texts is other than scholarly? (If that's the problem, I have bad news for you about the references to Christianity.)
• Perhaps complaints about "revert warriors" might be taken more seriously if those making them were to make constructive corrections rather than revert-warring themselves?

—VeryRarelyStable (talk) 07:15, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Motif

No it was B52! not 32! 104.151.24.36 (talk) 09:44, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Do you have a source for that? This source supports B32. Favonian (talk) 09:55, 29 February 2024 (UTC)