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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.
– "Demography" is a field of study; "Demographics" are the statistics reflecting the characteristics of a place examined in this field. We have
348 articles at "Demographics of" titles, and these 26 at "Demography of" titles, so I propose we move these to conform with the much larger group, and with correct usage.
BD2412T 02:01, 1 February 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. —
Amakuru (
talk) 12:54, 9 February 2024 (UTC) — Relisting.🌺 Cremastra (
talk) 22:14, 22 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Weak support: I actually think that a stronger case could be made that "demography" is a better title—thinking of words with a similar distinction, I believe we usually use the name of a science for articles or sections about what it tells us about something; for instance, "geography of Scotland". "Demographics" is common in English, but I can't think of many similar words where "-graphics" is widely used (the first one I can think of is "infographics", which seems to be neologism, although "infography" exists). But there's no obvious reason to keep 26 at "demography" and 14 times that many at "demographics". Since it's unlikely that there'd be a project-wide move of the other 348 to "demography", and consistency is logical here, this move makes sense. That said, it won't really hurt anything if some articles keep "demography".
P Aculeius (
talk) 12:16, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Oppose moves: this seems to be a matter of
WP:ENGVAR, as
WP:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements specifies a section heading of "Demographics" "Demography". I think the analogy with "Academics" mentioned elsewhere is significant: in British English it the plural of "academic", a person; in American English it seems to mean "information about the academic aspects of an institution". Note that if we moved the 26 articles listed above, we would need, for consistency, to change the section heading for thousands of articles on UK cities, counties, parishes, etc.
PamD 08:38, 8 February 2024 (UTC) Horrible typo corrected!
PamD 18:55, 8 February 2024 (UTC)reply
@
NebY Aaargh, yes, indeed, a key typo! Sorry about that. Thanks for noticing.
PamD 18:53, 8 February 2024 (UTC)reply
@
PamD: I don't think this is an
WP:ENGVAR matter at all. For example,
Population UK, which uses British English spelling, has a section header titled "Demographics of London". A comparable case would be "Religious studies", which is the name of the field of study. If we had an article titled "Religious studies of London" we would expect it to be about studies of religion conducted in London. If we had an article titled "Religious studies in London", we would expect it to be about the availability of religious studies programs in London. An article on the actual statistics of what percentage of people follow what religions would be (and in fact is) at
Religion in London.
BD2412T 20:49, 8 February 2024 (UTC)reply
From the Oxford English Dictionary##:
Demography:
1.a. The study of human populations, esp. the study of statistics, such as numbers of births and deaths, the incidence of disease, or rates of migration, which illustrate the changing size or composition of populations over time.
1.b. The composition of a particular human population.
Demographics:
1: The study of the human population and its composition; (now typically in advertising and market research) spec. (originally U.S.) the study of statistical data concerning the composition or characteristics of a television or other audience, the market for a product, etc. Cf. demography n. 1a. Rare before the development of the spec. sense.
2: Originally U.S. Chiefly in advertising and market research: statistical data relating to a human population and particular groups within it; the composition or characteristics of such a population or group, esp. a television or other audience, the market for a product, etc. Cf. demography n. 1b.
I think this supports the idea of an ENGVAR issue.
PamD 23:08, 8 February 2024 (UTC)reply
The sense conveyed by these articles is literally "statistical data relating to a human population and particular groups within it".
BD2412T 23:39, 8 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Which is "Originally U.S." and "Chiefly in advertising and market research". Wikipedia is not "advertising and market research".
PamD 07:39, 13 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Specifically oppose renaming
Demography of the Roman Empire. The study of ancient populations is extremely challenging and that of the Roman Empire's no exception - even though they gave us the word "census" they left us little else to go on. It requires the meticulous use of scraps of evidence and remains a much contested work in progress at every level, with consequences for other fields of study such as of slavery or the economy. This permeates our article and we would serve our readers well if we discussed the methodologies even more there. Whether the rest of our naming continues to follow BrEng or shifts to AmEng on the basis that articles do not discuss the study of populations we should not restrict this one. (I'm inclined to oppose such restriction in other cases too, most of all at the national level.)
NebY (
talk) 18:24, 8 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Now this is a reasonable objection.
BD2412T 22:56, 8 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Support per nom.--Esprit15d •
talk •
contribs 23:29, 29 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Support all except Demography of the Roman Empire per Chessrat.
History6042 (
talk) 02:18, 4 March 2024 (UTC)reply
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.