Talk:Swimming

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:33, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 January 2020 and 12 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Bpan3322.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:33, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Limited scope of article

I think, or at least hope, I'm missing something. This article contains a section on swimming in non-aquatic organisms but there doesn't seem to be one mention of swimming in organisms that swim naturally! Where can I find the article on swimming in fish, whales, squid, etc? Surely it exists? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it should be split into Swimming as a form of locomotion, and Swimming in humans? 18:48, 18 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.31.118.254 (talk)

Done - I've used the title Human swimming, feel free to amend! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Why wasn't this move discussed at WP:WikiProject Swimming? This is quite a serious move, and I for one don't agree with the article naming. There are 100s (possibly 1,000s) of articles throughout WikiPedia linking to swimming hoping to reach something about competitive swimming (in humans obv.). "Swimming" as an article name makes more sense for the main article, the whole animal swimming thing should have been moved to a separate article (e.g. Swimming in animals. I request you open a discussion at WP:WikiProject Swimming ASAP. Yboy83 (talk) 19:47, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Because science takes precedence over mere diversions like sports and recreation. The plain fact of the matter is that having Swimming focus only on humans is like redirecting mammal to human and creating a new page for "non-human mammals". It's utter nonsense that only makes sense from the most biased, anthropocentric POV. Mokele (talk) 04:05, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Please show the wikipedia policy on science taking precedence? What i'm trying to say is two things: 1) This should have been discussed at WP:Swimming prior to any move being made - it is the project's primary article. 2) The move has huge implications on internal wikilinks - there are more than 6,000 pages in the article namespace which link to the article "Swimming" (or redirect "Swimmer") - the majority of these (guess >95%) now link to the wrong article. Are you volunteering to change them all? Yboy83 (talk) 08:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I think WP: swimming will have a biased perspective - it should also be discussed on WP: animals, WP organismal biomechanics, Wp: fish, etc. And as for these wikilinks, there's a small link at the top of the page that redirects to the human swimming article. We shouldn't let simple inertia stand in the way of correcting massive anthropocentric bias. I'd also like to point out that it was brought up at this article, as you can see above. If nobody in your WP is watching it and hasn't noticed a change in nearly 6 months, well, what does that say? Mokele (talk) 12:14, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

"WP organismal biomechanics" - ha - a project with just one member... and that's you! Surely that makes you biased towards that perspective. The decision should have been discussed at all relevant Projects due to the massive number of articles which link to Swimming. Yboy83 (talk) 13:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Yet little ole me has accomplish more in a week than your project in a month, especially since you can't even seem to keep track of your own central page for months at a time? Ever hear of watchlists? I'd also like to note that I wasn't the one who moved it, so clearly I'm not alone in this opinion.

The point is, everything else aside, that it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to have an article on a general term that contains only information about a tiny subset of that term, and by a poor example of it, to boot. Insisting that swimming should be about humans is like redirecting movie to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Have your little discussion if you wish, but I fail to see any valid reason for the fundamentally irrational organization you propose. In the meantime, I'll get back to actually contributing real information, rather than sports trivia. Mokele (talk) 14:24, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

• Ye gods. This move was completed without very much input. Wouldn't it make more sense to move "Human swimming" back to "Swimming" and have the article at Swimming moved to "Swimming (biomechanics)" or something? This has move created an enormous amount of link-repair work that can't necessarily all be done by bots. (cross-posted from [[1]]). –xeno (talk) 15:58, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
• Completely agree with Xeno. When people look for the article swimming, they don't look for fish or comparative densities of wood compared to water (which, by the way, also is considered swimming). -- Chris 73 | Talk 16:39, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

This discussion is starting to get a little muddied: Regardless of where it should or should not have been discussed beforehand, the move has taken place - I think the most productive thing to do here is to reach a consensus on what article should be at what page name.

I don't think there is any argument that there should be three separate articles: one about swimming, defined as propelled motion through water; one about swimming in humans; and one about swimming for sport.

I would tentatively posit that where there are multiple possible contenders for one page title, say 'X', the article with the broadest scope should be titled 'X', and sub-aspects of X should be titled 'X (topic)'. That way, the scope of an article is clearly defined by its title, and page 'X' will employ a WP:Summary style, with brief sections summarising the sub-articles.

Finally, the OED definition of 'swimming' is :"The action of moving along in the water by natural means of progression." I would suggest that an article on swimming ought to cover this.

With this in mind, here's my summary of the relevant issues:

• Keep 'Swimming' about swimming in general
  • Article matches dictionary definition of swimming
  • Articles with limited scope (.. in humans, .. as sport) can be covered in summary sections
  • Avoids anthropocentricism

• Make 'Swimming' about swimming in humans only
  • Matches historical use, so links don't need changing

    Assuming that all links to [Swimming] were correct before the page moved, it should be easy for a bot to update all links that did link to [swimming] to point to [human swimming], where the article was moved to

  • Presumtion that readers searching for 'swimming' will be looking for human swimming

    'Swimming' can have a link to 'human swimming' at the top of the page

    Links in WP will always point to the relevant article

    External search engines will point to the article which users are most likely to be searching for.

    If people are looking for swimming in humans, they will search for 'swimming in humans'. People searching for information on swimming in general will probably search for 'swimming'.

As I see it, on the balance of these points, there's a strong case to keep the article about swimming in general at the page entitled [swimming]. I may have missed some points of consideration; if so, please add them to the summary or debate the relevance of my points below. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:37, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Assuming that all links to [Swimming] were correct before the page moved, it should be easy for a bot to update all links that did link to [swimming] to point to [human swimming], where the article was moved to faulty logic: prior to your move, the article said "Swimming is the movement by humans or animals through water, usually without artificial assistance" so they incoming links weren't necessarily looking for human swimming. Of course that compounds the problem... However your argument about general -> specific does make sense. I guess I'm just looking for the lazy way out. –xeno (talk) 17:41, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

First some facts:

• The move was suggested in October 2008, one comment received in January 2009, move made without further discussion on 30 March 2009.
• The mixture of content on the old version of the page meant that it is highly likely that any page move would have been potentially controversial as defined by WP:RM, hence it should have followed the procedures outlined at WP:RM.
• In excess of 6,000 pages in the article namespace linked directly to swimming, plus others via a number of redirects. The content of these pages was mixed between swimming in animals and swimming in humans, however in all liklihood, the majority were regarding the sport of swimming (to start with, there are some 3,500 articles tagged with the WP:SWIM banner, a large proportion of which can be assumed contain a link to Swimming).
• The page moves performed thus far has generated a large amount of link-repair editing.
• A long term proposal on the WP:SPORT to-do list was the creation of separate "Swimming" (general activity) and "Swimming (sport)" articles.

My thoughts:

• The original Swimming article (pre-30th March) was in my opinion a little too anthropocentric, however the content now on Swimming could probably have been easily inserted into the old text, with expansion where necessary.
• Had the WP:SPORT to-do proposal ever gone live, the link-repair issue requirement would still be an issue.
• There has to be a better article name than Human swimming.

My proposal:

• Swimming - with initial sub-section describing self-propelled motion through water by animals and how non-aquatics animals (including humans) have evolved and adapted to develop an ability to swim, followed by content from Human swimming.
• Swimming (non-human)/Swimming (biomechanics)/Swimming in the animal kingdom/Whatever ... - The content currently on Swimming, expanded with as much detail as desired.
• Swimming (sport) - for all competitive sport aspects of swimming.

Reasoning:

• The majority of links to Swimming are from articles related to swimming by humans, which suggests it is "the most easily recognized name" (WP:NAME) for such encyclopaedic content.
• This minimises the amount of link-repair to be completed as current links to Swimming still link to an article regarding the human activity, and in time through general article editing, links will be fixed to Swimming (sport) as required.
• Swimming becomes less anthropocentric, with a suitable separate article for additional detailed information.

I suggest each of the pages: Swimming, Human swimming, Swimming (sport) and Swimming (disambiguation) are locked from major editing and moving until consensus is reached. It is also important for us to obtain input external from those involved in WP:animals, WP:organismal biomechanics, Wp:fish, WP:SWIM and WP:SPORT. Yboy83 (talk) 20:13, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

What about making swimming the disambiguation page, with links to Aquatic locomotion (which can be very comparative and very biomechanics oriented), Human swimming, and Swimming (sport)? That would allow a broader scope, and allow linking to swimming for any animal or human, and would also make the biomech article title parallel with other titles such as terrestrial locomotion and Animal_locomotion_on_the_surface_layer_of_water.Mokele (talk) 15:39, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

That wouldn't be my ideal solution but I'd happily accept it as a compromise. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:27, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Making Swimming a DAB page sounds very sensible - this discussion shows how different people view the term from very different perspectives. Human swimming and Swimming (sport) look like very reasonable titles. Titles for the other aspects need a bit of thought about how many articles and which covers what, e.g. biomechanics, evolution (including the return of various land animals to aquatic life - beetles, spiders, ichthyosaurs, whales, seals, etc.) - but that problem need not concern the sports enthusiasts. --Philcha (talk) 20:13, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

So, is it agreed? Who wants to do the move? I could, but I'm going to be busy with RL stuff for a while, so it could be a while. Mokele (talk) 17:08, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

 Done - please check I've done everything necessary. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:26, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, there are now over 5,000 articles on Wikipedia that wrongly link to the disambiguation page; most of them probably were intending to link to this article (human swimming). It's time for all of you who insisted on this move to get started fixing them. Suggestions available at WP:DPL. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 09:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I quite agree that those who instigated this move fix them. I however believe that many of the links should link to Swimming (sport). I have already placed a Bot request to repair links to articles in Category:Swimmers and Category:Swimming competitions - this should reduce this number of 5,000 by a significant margin. Yboy83 (talk) 11:21, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Great Swimmers In United States History

One of the best known swimmers in the United States definately have to be Kristen. She is the next up and coming 2012 London Olympic Games star currently training in Baltimore at the NBAC. So look out Michael Phelps this girl has got you beat!

Swimfrogs24 (talk) 02:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I didn't know they plan mixed sex competitions in 2012. lets wait and see -- Chris 73 | Talk 07:36, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Water Intake For a Swimmer

The amount of water a swimmer needs daily is your body weight multiplied by .3 for the minimum number of ounces you require daily. Many coaches will say that taking "gulps" at practice are better than sips. The night before swim practice you should drink 16 oz of water, best before bed. The morning of practice you should drink 16 oz of water as soon as you get up. If the practice is later in the day you would drink 17 oz of water 2 hours before practice. About 15 minutes before your work out you should drink 4-8 oz of water or any type of sports drink. Try to avoid any carbonated beverages. Also avoid caffeine because it is bad for your heart. Drinking fruit juice before practice can loosen stools and cause gas so it is smart to stay away from those types of beverages. During your work out you should be drinking fluids every 15 minutes. After the work out is finished you should drink 24 oz of fluid for every pound that was lost within 2 hours after exercise. The best type of drink to have after practice is a sports drink such as Gatorade. It is not recomended to drink carbonated drinks or alcohol after practice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbond2 (talk • contribs) 05:19, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Explanation of some edits

The lead mentioned bathing, cooling, travel, fishing, escape, exercise, and sport as the main reasons to swim. Escape is ambiguous and points to a disambig page, which doesn't help clarify anything. I replace it with recreation. Travel seems absurd; perhaps what was meant was locomotion. I deleted that, but perhaps someone wants to put in locomotion.

In the recreation section, I expanded the "most" comment to hopefully make it not require a citation as was requested long ago above. If you have doubts about the new comment, feel free to delete it.

I did delete the dubious content about the best stroke for rough open water, that doesn't particularly belong in here anyway.

The sport section was odd, because it was about exercise not competitive sport, whereas it referred to an article only about competitive swimming as the main article. So I moved that content to the recreation section, and put the lead from swimming (sport) in as the content of the sport section. And I retitled both accordingly.

Finally I moved the content on styles to the section on styles, which had very little content before.

--Ccrrccrr (talk) 00:34, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Attribution and POV problem

This article is almost entirely original research, with many POV statements such as "swimming is healthy", and next to no references. As such it makes good promotional brochure text for a swimming club but a poor encyclopedia entry. I have tried to add some tags but was blocked by semiprotection. I am instead going to alert various admins, groups, and projects about this article. DQweny (talk) 00:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

{{Editprotected|Human Swimming}}

Please see the talk page. This article is almost entirely original research and makes various POV statements that would be called peacock if they were in reference to a person rather than an activity. While I doubt that many people are opposed to swimming, a statement such as "swimming is healthy" should be attributed to a notable source rather than made on the basis of the article author's subjective opinion and then presented as fact. At this point all I want to do is add some tags indicating where the article needs improvement. DQweny (talk) 00:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I've unprotected the page. -- œ^™ 03:14, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Added a reference for swimming as exercise --Sultec (talk) 03:29, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Drowning, locomotion, Trudgens

I have added 'locomotion' as a primary use of swimming - it seems silly to have the use of swimming as a means of travel from one point to another missing from the list. I'm also thinking of how to word the use 'avoidance of drowning', as this is a traditional reason for learning to swim - normally people learn to float persistently as part of the process of learning to swim, and the alternative of drowning is a major difference between being in water, and on dry land (where it doesn't necessarily matter if one can't walk).

Does anyone have a link or citation for the following?

Due to a British disregard for splashing, Trudgen employed a scissor kick instead of the front crawl's flutter kick.

It's the use of 'disregard' (disdain?) and the supposed reason for Trudgen's scissor kick that I'm wondering about. Some contradictions here between various WKP entries: Here it claims that Trudgens use of the flutter kick was a mistake. Here it claims that the Native American style of front crawl was the one that was considered excessively 'splashy'. Centrepull (talk) 13:47, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Risks section

Quite an extreme sport, huh? From personal experience I'd say that under normal conditions swimming itself isn't more dangerous than running, it's hard to get injured. Of course, when someone tries to run through jungles and swim in the Amazon nobody could predict the consequences, but one's again it's the matter of conditions and environment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.132.163.17 (talk) 08:56, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Make sure to always wear your water wings when making any plunges into the unfathomable depths of your neighborhood swimming pool. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 05:44, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

MISSING: Survival in/against Water, Human Swimming, Travel swimming

- Water kills. The human being who can't can't get out of the water eventually and certainly dies from in it. Depending on circumstances, death occurs due to drowning asphyxiation, hypothermia, impact trauma (in fast moving flood or river water), and occurs long before any serious risk of dehydration, starvation, exhaustion, and with enormously higher probability than due to predation.

- Swimming is a key survival skill in almost all incidents involving people entering water while alighting a disabled vessel or aircraft or falling accidentally in it from land, especially while in motor vehicles. It is also an essential rescue skill, and as such a prerequisite for several rescue-related professions.

- Travel is done by swimming with perhaps surprising frequency. Consider J.F. Kennedy and his sailors swimming island to island (not to mention his brother's claim of leaving Chappaquiddick by swimming), innumerable migrants swimming across rivers and straits, cases of political refugees swimming in the Baltic Sea, and many instances of people jumping in the water and swimming ashore from vessels not intended to reach land where they planned to go. Swimming travel is even featured in a recent motion picture "Welcome". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1314280/

Spamhog (talk) 14:35, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

wading redirect

wading redirects here. why? 98.206.155.53 (talk) 06:17, 8 October 2010 (UTC) ROTFL! good question! Spamhog (talk) 22:56, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Chlorine smell

Does anyone know of a natural way to get rid of the chlorine smell from your body after you have been for a swim at the pool? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.170.78.6 (talk) 04:26, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Hard saying; I can’t smell it. ―cobaltcigs 23:07, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Bad Article

How do you swim? Simple question, commonly associated with the topic, yet the article doesn't address it at all. No physics of swimming? Why? The article looks like a collection of statements which one might find by typing 'swimming' into a search engine. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 05:38, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Prevalence

I came to this article seeking information on how many people actually know how to swim, and found none outside of Sweden. ―cobaltcigs 23:07, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes. I wanted to know how extended a skill it is. I was surprised to find that adult friends from some countries barely can't swim but can skate. I supposed that the reverse would be more common. Could you dig up some data on swimming skill around the world? I guess that poor inland dry countries would have a low rate while rich coastal countries would have a high rate. --Error (talk) 15:35, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

It will probably be hard to find exhaustive information on general population, but there are some studies on schoolchildren. This one states that in 30 developed countries swimming is taught in compulsory education, that in Sweden and Germany 95% of children under 12 can swim, and that in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, 70% of children who finished primary school got no instruction in swimming and don't have minimal aquatic skills (Análisis estadístico (sobre encuestas poblacionales e investigación de campo) de accidentes en ambientes lacustres de la Provincia de Tucumán by Andrew Wheeler, José David Ruffino and Fernando Erimbau, though they do not quote the original studies these data came from).--Javierme (talk) 18:42, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

What do Teddy and mexicans have in common?

they both love swimming..  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.143.43.249 (talk) 11:13, 25 September 2011 (UTC) 

Calming effects on human from a pool of wter

I read an aticle a couple of years ago that described how "just looking at the water in a swimming pool, lake or river from your window can calm ow, doee anyone know of such an aticle? Thank you for your assitance. Susan 3-29-2012 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.244.85.25 (talk) 19:04, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Safety equipment and regulations

At the end of the Risks section there was the statement: "Around any pool area, safety equipment and supervision by personnel trained in rescue techniques is important. It is required at most competitive swimming meets, and is a zoning requirement for most residential pools in the United States." with the reference www.swimmingpool.com/safety/safety-equipment .

Some issues with this:

• The reference given does not say anything about zoning requirements or competitive swimming meets.

• It seems to make the unlikely claim that "... supervision by personnel trained in rescue techniques is... a zoning requirement for most residential pools in the United States".

• I think that not all people would agree on the importance of these safety regulations when swimming.

I have tried to fix, but it could do with some more work.

The same reference is used later in the article to support the statement: "Safety fencing and equipment is mandatory at public pools and a zoning requirement at most residential pools in the United States." where again it does not support "mandatory" and "requirement". I have not tried to fix this bit. FrankSier (talk) 23:43, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Children

It is always a good idea to have children become "water-safe" at a young age, so that there is less arguing in later years. In many cases, the child will not enjoy the water and will not take to it immediately. When having fun at the beach, parents cannot enjoy it as much if they have younger children... this will be true until they grow up. But, if the child is "water-safe" then you won't have to worry as much... I LOVE JACK!!!!

historical event suggestion, civil disobedience protest Australia beach

First off, I'm only here because upon looking up the word decollete, I ended up with A LOT of history and historical periods I was not very familiar, and fashions, like displaying bare breasts in dresses, being fashionable for a long period preceding the Victorian era. Following a "bathing machine" link among others, brought me here.

Suggestion: IF not part of the historical articles regarding beach clothing or nude sunbathing/swimming, I recall something I read many years ago that might be of interest to include among such articles and history.

I believe during a period of very prudish social pressures regarding beaches there was some sort of massive social protest on a beach in Australia. I think it might have been not against nude sunbathing but that they were banning swimming or enjoying beaches even clothed, or banning any beach activities on Sundays ... or something along these lines. I'm recalling some sort of massive protest[civil disobedience], I think on a Sunday, a protest against both churches and the laws banning beach activities. It's been decades since I read about this historical event, but believe that a large group of the public, men AND women, protested by going to the beach, and breaking not some sort of silly prudish law restricting even swimming by anyone or probably I suppose at the least, the ban on mixing the sexes. What I'm recalling is a massive group of men and women shedding all clothing and going for a swim, to protest the highly restrictive beach laws. It's been a LONG time since I read that, and the memory is fuzzy but I think what was so unusual about it was it was a LONG time ago, like 19century or early decades of the 20th perhaps and the protest was against something much more draconian than banning nudity but banning even clothed or mixed sexes on the beach, but somehow the protest ended up a nude swimming event with a great number of the public showing up and participating, thumbing their noses at the domination of the churches and repression of the government. My recollection is poor and perhaps I've been highly inaccurate about this protest, but if it could be found of what I've typed about here, it might be an interesting addition to this section of wikipedia regarding clothing and swimming and "morality" of the day.

~5~29~2014 PaC, not logged in because I'm not registered or "whatever" for this website.

Requested moves 2

The following discussion is an archived 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. While I think those in support have made a reasonable case for human swimming meeting the long-term significance criterion of primary topic, those in opposition have also made a good case that it does not meet the usage criterion. When the criteria are split like this and there is not a clear supermajority (6–4 by my count) either way then we end with no consensus. Jenks24 (talk) 16:16, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

---

• Human swimming → Swimming
• Swimming → Swimming (disambiguation)

– I can't shake the feeling that when people look up "swimming" they are thinking about the human activity. I grant that many links intend the sport of swimming, but the sport is a subtopic of the human activity of swimming. By comparison, Running is a primary topic article on the activity (generally), and there is a whole family of articles on competitive running events like Middle-distance running. Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 13:40, 25 August 2014 (UTC) bd2412 T 22:16, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment: It may be desirable to review the previous (2008–2009) discussion at Talk:Swimming when considering this suggestion. (That section is collapsed by default, so it's possible to not notice it.) —BarrelProof (talk) 23:29, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

• I see, but it doesn't change my view. After all, I have spent the last five years disambiguating incoming links to Swimming, and virtually every single one has intended some kind of human swimming, whether as a general topic or as a sport. Consensus can change, and I believe there is reason for that to happen here. bd2412 T 23:36, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support - we have WP:WORLDVIEW, but don't need WP:SPECIESVIEW, the primary audience for this article will probably be mums taking kids to first swimming lessons who aren't interested in how hippos do it. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:50, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose In this case, we not only have non-human swimming,we also have competiting primary topics, such as the sport of swimming, which is different from the human activity that is more generalized. Also; fish swimming is frequently discussed by humans, and in technological circles, swimming as a form of locomotion different from propellers/jets/paddles (the form used by cetaceans and fish). The saying "swimming upstream" is in reference to fish, and not humans. The primary audience of Wikipedia are humans, but we should endevour to point out that humans are not the sole proprietors of various activities and bodyparts, instead a generalized concept article should be the first landing point, or failing that, a disambiguation page. Should an article include treatment on the human subject, it should be a section and not the focus of the intro/initial overview sections. There is a misconception in the world that many things humans have or do are solely human, and we should not encourage such misconceptions. Placing overview articles or sections first would greatly educate the world on that matter. With this case, we have a disambiguation page leading to the sport, general human activity, and even more generalized locomotion, which is the best thing to do here. -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 05:26, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
  • If all of the primary uses of the term revolve around related concepts of motion through water, doesn't that make the general idea of Swimming a WP:DABCONCEPT? bd2412 T 13:43, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
    • Our broad concept article aquatic locomotion is even broader than "swimming" as it covers other types of biological aquatic locomotion in addition to swimming. So I think a disambiguation page works in this case as it will lead to the broader concept article, as well as the more specific concepts of the sport and the general human activity. -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 06:24, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. Based on usage, traffic stats say that Swimming (sport) [2] has way more traffic than Human swimming.[3] I need to see actual evidence that when people look up "swimming", most of them "are thinking about the human activity", or evidence that shows that "the primary audience for this article will probably be mums taking kids to first swimming lesson". The traffic stats instead show that the primary audience is for the sport. And the comparison to the running page seems more like a WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument because while Swimming (sport) is an entire separate, overview article on the sport, Running (sport) is a redirect and there seems to be no separate, central overview article on the competitive sport of running. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:54, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
  • WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is primarily about whether material is notable enough to be included in the encyclopedia, not about title disputes; this is because our principles on article titles include Consistency, which obviously requires us to look at "other stuff". bd2412 T 15:45, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. Making the main page for swimming about the awkward locomotion of a non-aquatic primate would be like making the main page for terrestrial locomotion about sidewinding snakes. HCA (talk) 13:18, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Umm, what? Did you know that humans are the main focus of the encyclopedia? Red Slash 19:33, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Show me an official policy stating that. If no such policy exists, then the prevalence of a flaw does not make it a default policy. HCA (talk) 21:29, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

The prevalence of articles focused on human activities probably derives from the WP:PRIMARY TOPIC that identifies as a key determiner of the primary topic: "Usage in English reliable sources demonstrated with Google web, news, scholar, or book searches". You don't have to look for very long to discover that the overwhelmingly vast majority of real world sources about "swimming" are about swimming by humans, making this the primary topic by any reasonable reading of that policy. bd2412 T 00:34, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

• Support. The primary association of wikt:Swimming is the general concept of human swimming, for which we have this summary-style article, which would save us from sorting out incoming links. Animal swimming is not always called like that, and aquatic locomotion covers that already. Finally, swimming sport is the most popular aspect of swimming, but it should not be at this title, as it represents only a subset of the general concept. The current setup is error-prone in terms of linking and arriving at a wrong page when searching (I'd really expect this article or the sport one, but not a dab page). No such user (talk) 19:41, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

If common usage is the sole concern, I think fans of beauty treatments might be surprised by what Facial should re-direct to. HCA (talk) 00:15, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Of course it is not the sole concern; however, we're discussing usage in the prestigious, encyclopedic register. All dictionaries provide definitions similar to "To move through water by means of the limbs, fins, or tail." [4], and the concept of swimming is apparently worthy of encyclopedic treatment. Now, the concept is broad indeed, and can be taken to mean, from broadest to narrowest, 1) animal or human (or even machine) movement in water 2) only human movement in water and 3) sport based on 2. Presently, we haven't decided which one is primary and displayed a dab page, which is IMO the worst solution, violating WP:DABCONCEPT and the principle of least astonishment, so let's pick one of the three. In the nominator's opinion, with which I agree, the sport is too narrow, and the general locomotion too wide to take the primary spot; we are human-centric encyclopedia. Also by my opinion, 'human swimming' is the default, unmarked meaning of the word swimming. No such user (talk) 08:30, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I think that it is worth noting that disambiguation pages are merely a navigational device. The intent of a disambiguation page is to get the reader as quickly as possible to the topic for which they search. In this case, everyone seems to agree that there are only three significant topics by this title: the human activity of swimming; the same activity, engaged in as a sport; and the more general animal activity of swimming. All other meanings are minuscule in comparison. Right now, readers who type in "Swimming", no matter what they are looking for, find themselves on a disambiguation page with a set of options to search through and click on. If this move goes forward, those same readers will find themselves on the page on "Human" swimming (which, undoubtedly will be what a substantial number were looking for), with a hatnote linking to Swimming (sport) and Aquatic locomotion, and further indicating that there are a few relatively obscure media titles sharing this name. Readers who are looking for any of the three titles of most interest will not be astonished to find themselves at an article on human swimming, and will still be one click away from the article on the sport and the article on the animal practice. bd2412 T 14:14, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

• Strong support and perhaps the merger of some content from the sport page into this page. (I think there would still be an article on competitive swimming, however.) Clearly the primary topic is about people swimming, duh. Red Slash 19:33, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
• Strong Support. People looking for swimming mostly look for human swimming. Animal swimming is a side topic . --- Chris 73 | Talk 14:27, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Are they looking for human swimming in general or swimming (sport) ? If they're looking for the sport, they won't want this article. Thus a disambiguation page is better. -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 05:22, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
    • Is the sport of swimming not a kind of human swimming? It's a subtopic, and one that should be covered in the article on human swimming. bd2412 T 11:49, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
      • Human swimming is just a form of aquatic locomotion, so if you go that route, we just use the aquatic locomotion article, which would also cover the forms of locomotion that aquatic robotics try to simulate from biological systems, and fish, which is also a pretty common form of swimming when people talk about swimming. -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 05:03, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose – per the various points made above, this assertion of primarytopic doesn't hold water. Dicklyon (talk) 04:15, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
• Support move, since I agree that looking at sources shows that by a massive degree the primary topic is swimming done by humans, whether done for sport, leisure, or out of lifesaving necessity. I'm surprised this is even an issue, since any person coming to this page would see that topic and not be surprised by it. - WPGA2345 - ☛ 02:32, 30 August 2014 (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.

Possible new move proposal

Following this move result which established consensus that swimming (sport) needed no further disambiguation, I think it might be worth reopening the human swimming → swimming discussion.

The point that doesn't seem to have been made before (or have I missed it?) is that swimming as an article title is a noun, not a verb. In that context, I think the primary meaning is the human activity, with no more disambiguation required.

But before raising this as a formal RM I thought I'd seek informal comment here. Andrewa (talk) 02:41, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

• At the very least, no one says, "let's go human swimming", or "this lake is a great place for human swimming", or "Joe really enjoys human swimming". bd2412 T 04:50, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Quite so. If someone said "Brick is really good at swimming" I'd assume that Brick was a person (funny animals and similar excepted of course). On the other hand if they said "Brick is a good swimmer" then Brick might be a person, or equally a Golden Retriever. We use the verb equally for animals, "I saw a black snake swimming in the creek", but not the noun, and our article titles are nouns. That's my point. Andrewa (talk) 05:30, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Read the talk page section directly above this. We don't need to have the same discussion every few months. HCA (talk) 16:49, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

• We do if broader community participation is required to obtain a more stable result. Perhaps an RfC is in order, where no title is given the presumption of correctness, and a straightforward assessment of broad community preference can be ascertained without bias favoring mere momentum. bd2412 T 21:03, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

US bias

All navies and marines require recruits to be able to swim. Why refer to the United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard alone?Royalcourtier (talk) 08:18, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 24 October 2017

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: moved. Wikipedia has an inherent bias towards humans. This is OK; last I checked, the majority of our readers are human. Jenks24 (talk) 09:53, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

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• Human swimming → Swimming
• Swimming → Swimming (disambiguation)

– Three years after the failure of #Requested move 2, let's try again: human swimming is the default, unmarked meaning of the word "swimming". Thus, it should occupy the undisambiguated title, Swimming, per WP:BROADCONCEPT: if the primary meaning of a term proposed for disambiguation is a broad concept [...], then the page located at that title should be an article describing it, and not a disambiguation page. There are two possible competitors, aquatic locomotion of animals, an even broader topic but only casually referred to as "swimming", and swimming (sport), a more popular article, however, about a subtopic of swimming. To quote a comment from the last debate, the primary topic is swimming done by humans, whether done for sport, leisure, or out of lifesaving necessity. I'm surprised this is even an issue, since any person coming to this page would see that topic and not be surprised by it. No such user (talk) 13:57, 24 October 2017 (UTC) --Relisting. Steel1943 (talk) 15:01, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

OPPOSE - The primary meaning of "swimming" is the locomotion of an organism through the water. We use the word whether it's a human, a duck, a fish, a snake, or a squid. Point to any of them moving through the water and ask any random person what they're doing, and the answer will be simply be "swimming". The repeated efforts to force an ill-conceived anthropocentric bias onto the article titles on this subject are tiresome and unproductive. Work on something on WP that improves it, not sends it backwards. HCA (talk) 14:02, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

• Even so, "locomotion of an organism through the water" is a WP:DABCONCEPT, not an ambiguous concept. I propose that we merge Human swimming into Aquatic locomotion and move the combined article to Swimming. This would be consistent with our treatment of Running and Walking. bd2412 T 14:14, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment: I have formally proposed this at Talk:Aquatic locomotion#Proposed merge below. bd2412 T 14:33, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

• Partial support as long as aquatic locomotion is a different article, it may be best to keep the article at Human swimming to avoid tiresome content debates. That said, I support moving Swimming to Swimming (disambiguation) and making it a redirect to Human swimming; I don't feel merging the articles is an improvement. power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:49, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support. This is the common meaning of the term "swimming". Aquatic locomotion (i.e. swimming in non-humans, may sometimes be called swimming), but it's a stretch to say it's anywhere near the primary meaning for the term. In terms of page views,[5] Swimming (sport) is the leader by some margin, but as noted above, it is clearly a subtopic of this article, and with a promiment hatnote, readers looking for that article are still one click away through a hatnote. This is the broad concept article of which that is a subtopic. Aquatic locomotion is way off and a clear distant third in page views, with other topics behind that.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:32, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Definitons of "Swim" or "Swimming" in the OED, Collins, and Merriam Webster all either do not specify a given taxon (Collins), specifically list other species as well (OED), or remain taxonomically uncommitted while making specific reference to anatomical features not present in humans (e.g. fins, tail) (Webster). Clearly the "common meaning" is not human-specific, otherwise why does every major dictionary either leave taxon ambiguous or directly or indirectly include animals in their definition? HCA (talk) 17:25, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Even if the common meaning is not human-specific, it is not ambiguous either, per WP:DABCONCEPT. This is not like "Mercury", which could just as easily be a planet, or an element, or a Roman god. bd2412 T 17:53, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 18:07, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
• Support. Best outcome, since the term is clearly not ambiguous, and there will likely never be a more clearly delineated primary topic. bd2412 T 18:18, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
• Support This is the clear primary meaning of the term. When used in reference to non-humans, there are several terms used and "swimming" is probably inaccurate in most cases. Aquatic locomotion is a great alternative. I'd also suggest we look at renaming swimming (sport) to competitive swimming as a more natural disambig and to make it very distinct from this article. -- Netoholic @ 09:24, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

"When used in reference to non-humans, there are several terms used and "swimming" is probably inaccurate in most cases." This is flatly false and without any basis. The scientific literature uses "swimming" for everything from whales to people to fish to flatworms to bacteria. HCA (talk) 13:27, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

How many of the 145,000 results for bacteria swimming return articles about bacterial diseases which are caught when humans are swimming rather than discuss the act of swimming by bacteria? Enclosing the phrase in quotes "bacteria swimming" yields only 983 results. I think that exposes a flaw in your method. To compare, human swimming has 782,000 results and "human swimming" yields 1030 results. Even using your method, I've shown that the topic of swimming related to humans is overwhelmingly dominant in comparison. -- Netoholic @ 18:42, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Really? Because you just proved there are as roughly as many articles about human swimming as there are about an organism so small most people aren't even aware it swims (and, given the differences in Reynolds number, is more like moving through honey). Oh, and let's be thorough in this comparison: 1030 results for "human swimming versus "fish swimming" with 24,300 results. So yes, let's go by numbers and have swimming redirect to fish locomotion. HCA (talk) 19:24, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

I am using your methods to point out the flaw in your methods. Let's take this search result: swimming -whale -whales -shark -sharks -fish -eel -eels -bacteria -flatworm -flatworms -dog -dogs -cat -cats -rat -rats -mouse -mice -HCA at 899,000 results. I've apparently eliminated all your major examples and then some. What remains must be almost all discussions of human relevance, right? -- Netoholic @ 01:50, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

That you think this constitutes a rebuttal demonstrates why your opinion is not worth listening to. HCA (talk) 15:31, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

• Request for sources So far, we have multiple assertions that "swimming" primarily refers to human movement in the water, yet not a single source was been cited in support of that. The only sources posted so far, by me, flatly disprove this claim. If the "support" side wants any credibility whatsoever, sources are required. "I feel like it" isn't a valid support for a position. HCA (talk) 13:30, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Is there any doubt that "swimming" primarily refers to "movement in water", and that the movement in water most relevant to our human readers is likely to be human movement? bd2412 T 14:22, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
    • I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that our editors and readers are likely to be humans and so wikipedia exhibiting a slight human bias is acceptable. -- Netoholic @ 18:42, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
• Support per WP:COMMONSENSE, WP:CONCISE, and WP:PRIMARY. Animal swimming is covered at Aquatic locomotion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  20:11, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
• Strong support until monkeys start using WP Red Slash 14:41, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

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Proposed merge

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Not merged – I think it's safe to say that the proposal isn't gaining any traction, so I'm closing despite having !voted. No such user (talk) 15:49, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

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Moved from Talk:Aquatic locomotion

Pursuant to the discussion above, "locomotion of an organism through the water" is a WP:DABCONCEPT, not an ambiguous concept, and specifically not a concept ambiguous to "human swimming". I propose that we merge Human swimming into Aquatic locomotion and move the combined article to Swimming (with the existing disambiguation page to be moved to Swimming (disambiguation)). This would be consistent with our treatment of Running and Walking. bd2412 T 14:32, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

• The problem is that would either require a dramatic reduction in human-specific content, or would result in yet another supposedly broad biology page being overwhelmed with human-specific data. Both Running and Walking are poor examples to follow for exactly this reason, and showcase the problems of this approach (such as defining running by a suspended phase, which is false in a wide number of cases in quadrupeds). HCA (talk) 17:27, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

• A merge would not require any reduction at all in human-specific content. It would merely be a combination of the content. There is nothing wrong with having a large amount of human-specific content in an encyclopedia written by humans. In any case, human swimming is already properly classified as a subtopic of aquatic locomotion. The articles at least should be structured to make that clear. bd2412 T 19:28, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

• Comment. Since the two discussions (RM and merge) are closely related, and commenting on merge proposal already began here, I moved it here, left a notification, and refactored per WP:TPG. While it's more common to have merge discussion at the target page, it can be held at any place. No such user (talk) 07:23, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose merge – Aquatic locomotion is largely about the huge range of adaptations aquatic animals have evolved to move in their natural environment. That is quite different from the relatively awkward and inefficient techniques humans must learn to move in an environment that no longer is natural to them. As HCA has pointed out above, it is not a good idea to allow human swimming to somewhat overpower the general article on aquatic locomotion. --Epipelagic (talk) 08:45, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose – having read both articles, I think that the merge is an attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole. Per Epipelagic, two topics are so disparate that the end result would look quite artificial. While the all-species approach sort-of, debatably, works for running and walking, human learned swimming is very different than one of aquatic species; it would be quite uncanny to have sections on "Recreation", "Risks", "Lessons" and "Equipment" along with "Micro-organisms", "Invertebrates" and "Secondary evolution". No such user (talk) 13:30, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

  For what it's worth, Britannica [6] has merged topics of human swimming and swimming (sport) into one article. I don't advocate that either, as the result in our case would IMO be overlong, but at least the narrative is much more natural. No such user (talk) 13:32, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose per No such user. The present three articles is the best approach for treating the separate subjects separately. Human swimming doesn't have enough in common with general animal swimming to make it a useful broad concept, and there's enough here that we should retain it. The best approach is to simply move the dab page and make Human swimming the primary topic, as per the above move request.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:36, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. While it is possible to have a merged article (see, e.g., Walking which is mostly but not entirely about humans), it would make the article unwieldy, and just necessitate another split later.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  20:13, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

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