Rename: Robinson Goldberg Contraption

"Robinson Goldberg" is two different names mashed together, thus making an impenetrable, obscure name. We have an existing term in wide use: Rube Goldberg Machine. Why not just call it what it is, since Rube Goldberg Machine is a widely used term?

Rube Goldberg is clearly the established and existing term for this (for example, it gets 3.3 million google hits, whereas Robinson Goldberg gets 13 thousand).

Support rename; switching it with its redirect is no big deal.

The main page uses both names because TV Tropes is trying to counteract the fact that poor Robinson frequently doesn't get the appropriate credit for what he's done to help codify the trope.

Plus, Rube Goldberg Machine already redirects to the appropriate page. Doing a rename feels like trying to fix a problem that's already been solved.

I find that most people I know are more familiar with a Heath Robinson Machine. Robinson was commercially active before Goldberg as well, so I vote for changing it to Heath Robinson Machine.

edited 14th Jul '11 2:13:56 PM by CrypticMirror

Support the rename swap.

If we already have the alternate title as a redirect, then the only question is whether the redirect should be made the main name. In this case, the far wider usage of the redirect clearly indicates that it is the title most people know the concept by, so really we ought to use that. With all due respect to poor Robinson, we aren't in the business of prescriptive naming — telling people the name they should use for something.

Meh, name's not broken, don't see a reason to rename

Robinson/Goldberg Contraption found in: 162 articles, excluding discussions.

This title has brought 170 people to the wiki from non-search engine links since 20th FEB '09.

It's not like people are having trouble linking to the page, so you can't accuse the name of being obscure. Here we are literally proposing a fix to a non-existent problem

edited 14th Jul '11 2:16:40 PM by Ghilz

I'd say add Heath Robinson Machine as a redirect and either swap in Rube Goldberg Machine as the title (everyone I've ever run into refers to this sort of thing as Rube Goldberg) or custom title it as "Robinson/Goldberg Machine" to be more obvious that it's referring to two separate people.

That number 170 is pretty meaningless, since it includes the redirect as well.

And both redirects are at 0. Now lets do math

170-0=????

No, that's a glitch in the inbounds counter. All redirects are 0, unless it started as the main name and got swapped.

Inbounds through a redirect don't get counted on the redirect page. Just on the final landing page.

Ah. My bad.

edited 14th Jul '11 2:33:03 PM by Ghilz

To the best of my knowledge, Heath Robinson is the name primarily associated with these devices in the UK, while Rube Goldberg is the name primarily associated with them in the USA. Never heard of Rube Goldberg before visiting this site, whereas I have been familiar with the name Heath Robinson and associated it with this kind of device since forever. With that in mind, I think it would be preferable to find a name which is internationally recognisable, but if no such name can be found I guess Rube Goldberg Machine probably is better, seeing as the site's American.

The site isn't actually American. The servers aren't in America, and the founders aren't American. One of them is in America at the moment, but only temporarily and he's an Irish Traveller and lives in Jamaica. The site is international.

Uh. Can I argue that I meant predominantly culturally American?

Yeah, probably not gonna win that one. My bad.

OTOH, "Rube Goldberg" is clearly the predominant name on the internet (by a factor of ten, according to Google). I'm not going to argue about whether this site is American, but I'm pretty sure it's an internet site

That is a valid argument. We are driven largely by internet culture.

I know not of this Heath Robinson of whom you speak, for the record.

You probably wouldn't, unless you had a particular interest in his kind of drawings. He's some foreign dude.

Do Google search results vary by region? Because if so, it looks like Rube Goldberg gets more Google hits than Heath Robinson even over here.

Depends on which Google mirror you use. The answer is, sometimes.

Alright, Heath Robinson Machine is a redirect now.

I support swapping the redirects and making Rube Goldberg Machine the main name since Spark 9 pointed out how common that name is online.

edited 14th Jul '11 3:40:48 PM by LouieW

Shima, I think the servers are currently housed in Austin Texas. San Antonio. One of the cities around these parts.

I'm cool with a name swap.

Crowner hooked, as requested.

How long does it take before a rename? Just whenever someone feels like it?