Talk:Poll tax (disambiguation)

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Confused[edit]

A user seems to feel that including the Canadian and New Zealand head taxes in this article, for which there are tons of reliable sources using the term "poll tax" as a description, is somehow not acceptable. While it does seem that this is simply disruption to prove a point, I want to assume good faith and ask anyone if there's a possible reason why a user who might search this term in order to find one of these articles should be unable to.--Yaksar (let's chat) 19:26, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that "poll tax" is completely unambiguous and we have an article on its topic. Srnec (talk) 00:44, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 14 March 2015[edit]

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: not moved. (non-admin closure) –Chase (talk / contribs) 22:33, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Poll tax → Poll tax (disambiguation) – The primary meaning of "poll tax" is head tax and so this title should redirect to tax per head, our main article on the topic. (This is also American usage. See here and here.) Srnec (talk) 18:02, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Also note this discussion of the issue from late last year. — AjaxSmack 18:20, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. As thrashed out in the previous discussions, "Poll tax" is ambiguous. If head taxes were the primary meaning, that would not indicate that we should redirect poll tax to tax per head; it would indicate that we should move the article to Poll tax. Since there's no agreement that this is true - because it isn't true - we should leave things as they are. It's true that the tax per head article has a lousy title, but that's a matter for discussion on the tax per head article. Besides, that entire article is equally lousy. 209.211.131.181 (talk) 19:02, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's a nonsequitur. The primary meaning of poll tax determines what it is about or where it redirects. It does not determine what the article on that primary meaning is titled. Should be head tax, perhaps. Srnec (talk) 20:49, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose - the real primary topic is a tax levied on people who try to vote at the poll, i.e., in elections. (While the first page of Google books is full of tax-per-head usage, [1], go to the second and third pages and you'll be inundated with the tax-per-vote usage.) Honestly, if anything, the proposed move is taking us in the wrong direction. Red Slash 17:15, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The tax was not levied at the polls. It was an annual tax. Having paid it (in the past year, or two or three years) was often made a prerequisite for voting. Similarly, poll taxes were not only or always used by states as prerequisites for voting. See about poll taxes in Iowa, for example, here. It was absolutely never a tax per vote. Srnec (talk) 20:48, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize for my imprecision. I was trying (and apparently failed) to rewrite "poll tax" in a way that described what it actually was. Alas, it's not for nothing that we haven't found a WP:NATURAL title for the U.S. article Red Slash 01:49, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Regardless of origins, the terms is now just as widely used to refer to a financial impediment to voting in a context unrelated to capitation taxes, to the extent that the proposal would only confuse or inconvenience readers.--Yaksar (let's chat) 18:32, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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.