Can category name be changed?

I was wondering if it is possible to change the name of a category. The category in question is called "dentophobia" (health>mental health>disorders>anxiety>phobias>dentophobia; see also Health>dentistry>dentophobia). The problem is that nobody actually uses this term (apart from a handful of sites and dmoz). It is generally referred to as "dental phobia" (to give you some idea, typing "dental phobia" into google gives about 33,700 results (or 12,100 when used in parentheses), whereas "dentophobia" yields only 1910 hits (most of which are directories using dmoz results).

Is it possible for the category name to be changed? I've repeatedly tried to e-mail dmoz about this, but have received no reply.

Many thanks in advance for your help!

It's always open to discussion.

but http://psychology.about.com/cs/glossaries/g/Dentophobia.htm ?

http://dmoz.org/Health/Mental_Health/Disorders/Anxiety/Phobias

All the subcategories of that are labeled in the same style.

I think your request won't be honored as it isn't out of line with how all the other phobias are named.

The Yahoo directory refers to it as "dental phobia". So do looksmart, JoeAnt, all other directories I've come across, and all the sites which actually refer to the topic in question (as their main topic). psychology.about.com is an exception and appears defunct (as do most of the about.com's).

Any possibility of changing it? I know that a lot of phobias have pretty weird names, but as this one is quite common and usually referred to as "dental phobia", I'd be really grateful if it could be changed

It may be hard to get it changed, since DSM-IV considers dentophobia a valid name [although it does appear that they very slightly favour dental phobia].

Dental phobia is the term favoured in the relevant literature. For example, if you do searches on "dental phobia" vs "dentophobia" on PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi), you'll find 1090 hits for "dental phobia" but only 4 for "dentophobia". This suggests that the medical community has agreed on the use of the term "dental phobia". Furthermore, the 4 search results for "dentophobia" are from the 1960s and 1970s. Ever since, the term has not been used by the medical and psychiatric establishment, at least not in a research context.

Does this make a difference in renaming the category?

Probably not.

Why "probably not"? Considering that so many volunteers put all this time and effort into maintaining the dmoz, should it not be up-to-date and use currently accepted terminology? The term "dentophobia" is obviously a relic from the 60s and 70s, which is not in use today (by either health professionals or consumers). It is usually used in an "amusing facts" context, much as that oddity of the English language, "collective nouns", many of which were made up for fun and have never been in common usage (e. g. "an ambush of widows", "a galaxy of governesses", "a babble of barbers").

I would really appreciate if the category name could be changed to reflect current consensus.

Many thanks in advance !

I realize that you are concerned about this one name, but you must understand that editors will absolutely NOT consider this one name in isolation. Its relationship to other parallel names in the directory, and consistency with the authority from which they all were drawn will be the overriding factor.

If you'd like to suggest an authority which would give current names for ALL the parallel subcategories, that would give editors something to work with. Until that is done, we really won't consider proceeding any further.

agoraphobia > agoraphobia (common usage)
altophobia > fear of heights
arachnophobia > arachnophobia (common usage)
aviophobia > fear of flying
claustrophobia > claustrophobia (common usage)
dentophobia > dental phobia
emetophobia > emetophobia (common usage)
hypsiphobia should be moved into fear of heights (formerly altophobia)
social phobia > social phobia
telephonophobia > rarely referred to, but can remain as the only entry mentions this term

Does this help?

What's wrong with the Greek-root names? The meaning is clear and is easy to look up if not.

suggest an authority

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You haven't suggested an authority.

The meaning may be clear for some very well-educated individuals, but I was hoping that the dmoz would serve all members of the internet community.

Which kind of authority would be acceptable (in terms of qualifications etc.)?

I'm getting a little desparate here... I do believe that there is a good case for changing the category name. Is it really that hard?

We believe that you believe there is a good case for changing the category name. But your faith is not something we'll act on.

You can try to show a good case.

Obviously, we're going to prefer all the names to be in a similar form (as they are now.)

The question is not whether some of them have common English names -- that may be granted at the outset.

The question is whether the names as given need to be changed because the scientific names are no longer used.

As for an authority, we're open to suggestion. If this case is as clear-cut as you believe, there will be MANY authorities.

Obviously, the other web directories don't count and can't count as authorities. ODP editors are frequently reminded of how much specialized editorial experience the ODP has, compared to ANY of the others. Taxonomically, we've been in the leader in many ways for at least three years now.

Name a standard printed reference.

"The question is whether the names as given need to be changed because the scientific names are no longer used."

Just because they're Greek doesn't mean they're "scientific", as will be pointed out in any "abnormal psychology" university course on phobias. Most of the are not commonly used by either psychologists or psychiatrists (there are obvious exceptions, such as agoraphobia, emetophobia, or arachnophobia, as pointed out before).

According to David Hill MSc Psych, "The naming of phobias is not very scientific: some are referred to with modern names, some with Greek names and some with a mixture of the two." (www.btinternet.com/~davhill/phobias.htm).

No authority that I know of would refer to Greek-root phobia descriptions as "scientific". "In most instances the words... are neologisms (made-up words) coined to demonstrate a grasp of Greek word roots rather than descriptions of an actual condition. Only a few of the following terms occur in the medical literature." (http://www.informationheadquarters.com/List_of_phobias.shtml). This statement reflects current thinking on phobia naming. (Again, agoraphobia is a notable exception, as it's the only phobia referred to by a Greek name in DSM-IV).

In the context of dental phobia, I would consider those individuals and research teams who publish scientific studies on the subject in reputable medical journals as experts in their field. As pointed out before, all research papers (over 1000) published since the late 1970s refer to it as "dental phobia". See PubMed, the servcie of the National Library of Medicine (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi).

I would regard the people who published these studies as authorities. They've all been published in print publications and therefore can be considered "standard printed referenced". Considering that a few thousand of them appear to have reached a consensus and do not refer to it as "dentophobia", would it be possible to have the category renamed?

You wouldn't have a website optimized for "dental phobia" would you? Would a category name change really make that much difference in SEO endeavors? I can't see any other reason for the desperation you're showing.

I've been asked by the administrators/editors to make a case. That's all I did, and I still believe that there are good reasons for changing the category name.
This thread is a valid discussion and I would prefer if people could refrain from becoming personal and accusing others of showing "desperation".

dfc said:

This thread is a valid discussion and I would prefer if people could refrain from becoming personal and accusing others of showing "desperation".

Click to expand...

dfc said:

I'm getting a little desparate here... I do believe that there is a good case for changing the category name. Is it really that hard?

Click to expand...

Sorry to mention this, but you were the one who said a few posts back that you were getting desperate

yes, that's true - in the context of "getting desperate for a reply".
However, this is off-topic. I still fail to see why the category name can't be changed. Could someone please respond to my previous reply:

"The question is whether the names as given need to be changed because the scientific names are no longer used."

Just because they're Greek doesn't mean they're "scientific", as will be pointed out in any "abnormal psychology" university course on phobias. Most of the are not commonly used by either psychologists or psychiatrists (there are obvious exceptions, such as agoraphobia, emetophobia, or arachnophobia, as pointed out before).

According to David Hill MSc Psych, "The naming of phobias is not very scientific: some are referred to with modern names, some with Greek names and some with a mixture of the two." (www.btinternet.com/~davhill/phobias.htm).

No authority that I know of would refer to Greek-root phobia descriptions as "scientific". "In most instances the words... are neologisms (made-up words) coined to demonstrate a grasp of Greek word roots rather than descriptions of an actual condition. Only a few of the following terms occur in the medical literature." (http://www.informationheadquarters....f_phobias.shtml). This statement reflects current thinking on phobia naming. (Again, agoraphobia is a notable exception, as it's the only phobia referred to by a Greek name in DSM-IV).

In the context of dental phobia, I would consider those individuals and research teams who publish scientific studies on the subject in reputable medical journals as experts in their field. As pointed out before, all research papers (over 1000) published since the late 1970s refer to it as "dental phobia". See PubMed, the servcie of the National Library of Medicine (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi).

I would regard the people who published these studies as authorities. They've all been published in print publications and therefore can be considered "standard printed referenced". Considering that a few thousand of them appear to have reached a consensus and do not refer to it as "dentophobia", would it be possible to have the category renamed?

Many thanks!

No, we won't change the category names on the consideration of your allegation. Flat won't.

The most that we would consider doing is passing the relevant authorities back to our internal editor's forums. If I understand you correctly, you're suggesting DSM-IV is such an authority?