Talk:Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

List of countries

Is there any way to better organize that list of participating nations? Sherwelthlangley 06:12, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

So the Soviet Union is still on that? Shouldn't it mention that they got on, and which of the countries since its split are on it now?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.148.20.29 (talk • contribs) 11:56, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the first text this needs to be more orginized —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hawiai94 (talk • contribs) 20:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I organized the list into a new, fully updated table at separate page - List of Partial Test Ban Treaty signatories. --Allstar86 (talk) 06:40, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Criticism and Opposition

The reasons for the treaty are pretty well known but the article doesnt state whether the treaty met with much opposition in Western Countries (Edward Teller was one opponent) or what the arguments against the treaty were. 82.132.136.179 (talk) 19:46, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

An excellent reference on this is Richard Rhodes' book The Arsenals of Folly. SkoreKeep (talk) 03:39, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Boeing NC-135?

The significance of this airplane to this topic is notclear either here or on its page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.214.92.126 (talk) 07:44, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Health effects of atmospheric testing

be good to see much more on this. I understand that was the driving force for the ban. 74.60.161.158 (talk) 17:28, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 31 July 2016

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

The result of the move request was: No consensus — JFG ^talk 23:53, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

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• Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty → Partial Test Ban Treaty
• List of parties to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty → List of parties to the Partial Test Ban Treaty

– I am proposing simply to remove the word "Nuclear" from these titles.

The name "Partial 'Nuclear' Test Ban Treaty" is used just once in the main article, while "Partial Test Ban Treaty" is used in both the lead, infobox, and multiple times throughout the article. Similarly, on the "List of parties to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty", the lead refers to the "List of parties to the Partial Test Ban Treaty" and "Partial Test Ban Treaty." Wikisource also uses "Partial Test Ban Treaty."

Outside Wikipedia, "Partial Test Ban Treaty" appears to be more common than "Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty." Searching for the former on Google yields 81,500 results (28,000 on Google Books), while the latter yields 13,500 (8,170 on Google Books). Expert organizations also tend to use "Partial Test Ban Treaty": see the relevant pages at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, UN Office of Disarmament Affairs, CTBTO Preparatory Commission, Atomic Heritage Foundation, and SIPRI. I am curious for others' thoughts, but this seems like a pretty clear opportunity to standardize things.  GRKO³  17:17, 31 July 2016 (UTC) --Relisting. — JFG ^talk 15:09, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

• Support per WP:COMMONNAME evidence above. Looks like this was moved without discussion from the proposed title to current title with this edit. TDL (talk) 04:46, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:PRECISE and WP:RECOGNIZABLE. Otherwise, readers may no know whether this has something to do with drug tests, or scholastic aptitude tests, or what. WP:COMMONNAME is not one of the naming criteria, it's a the first-try option for finding a name that complies with them. When the most common name does not comply with them (this fails two of them) then we pick another option, and this one is also attested in sources.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:00, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

The commonly recognizable name (aka WP:COMMONNAME or WP:RECOGNIZABLE) is a policy discussion on how to evaluate the criteria, especially point 1 (recognizability). More common names are far more likely to be recognizable then less common names. The evidence presented shows that the proposed title is more common, which is very strong evidence that it would be recognizible to readers. Do you have any evidence that the current title is more recognizable?

PRECISE does not say that any conceivable hypothetical ambiguity must be avoided, only that the title must "unambiguously identifies the article's subject and distinguishes it from other subjects". Otherwise we could play the hypothetical ambiguity game ad infinitum (how do we know that this treaty is not about nuclear weapons and not Nuclear family?) Can you provide any evidence that that the phrase "Partial Test Ban Treaty" has ever been used to describe other subjects such as "drug tests, or scholastic aptitude tests"? If not, then the proposed title is not ambiguous. TDL (talk) 14:46, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree with TDL. I appreciate the interest in making the title recognizable. As I indicated above, "Partial Test Ban Treaty" is far more commonly used than "Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty," and as WP:RECOGNIZABLE states, "Wikipedia generally prefers the name that is most commonly used." Regarding the WP:PRECISE argument, I would agree with keeping the current title if there were some other topic with a similar name. I ran Google and Google Books searches for documents mentioning "partial test ban" but not "nuclear," and as far as I could tell, there were virtually no substantive results (at least, nothing that clearly was discussing something other than this treaty). Accordingly, "Partial Test Ban Treaty" is appropriately precise. Going beyond that (i.e., keeping the current title) would make the title too precise, which PRECISE warns against.  GRKO³  (talk) 22:30, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose per SMcCandlish. Removing the word 'nuclear', which I've usually heard it referred to, removes the full and important meaning of the term and the page title. In this case 'too precise', if that's what it is, is perfect. This treaty is a major historical step forward in the very long attempt to curtail, as much as possible, nuclear weapons, which were tested above-ground for almost two decades, and the name meets Wikipedia usage as an encyclopedia by being factual, precise, and immediately recognizable. Randy Kryn 16:26, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
• An additional piece of evidence in support of the proposed move. If Google Trends is to be believed, "Partial Test Ban Treaty" is searched for far more frequently than "Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty" (which doesn't even register).  GRKO³  (talk) 19:48, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

"Partial" is likely not in the commonest name. "1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty" might cover it (1963 isn't in the lead paragraph, will edit it in). Randy Kryn 22:45, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.