Talk:AJAX

Redirects

This page has been moved around a lot, so I thought it should have a place to discuss the issues. In particular, it has moved several times from pointing to Ajax (programming) to Ajax.

When I moved it, I wrote in the edit summary: When capitalized, this generally refers to Javascript + XML rather than Greek mythology.

Delfuego moved it to point at Ajax, writing: Since there's a well-settled debate on the Ajax (programming) page regarding the mistake of all-caps, I'd say this should still go to the general Ajax page.

This is my response. I don't have my heart set on Ajax (programming), but it seems the obvious choice:

• First, there's no "well-settled debate" on Ajax (programming) or its talk page. Instead there's one person's statement that it should not be capitalized, and one footnote in the page that says it's not an acronym.
• Second, use of AJAX to mean the programming technologies is widespread. Rightly or wrongly, it's common.
• Third, it is quite rare to see the Greek hero's name spelled AJAX, though perhaps ΑΙΑΣ would be justifiable since miniscules were a fairly recent invention. Likewise, none of the other entries in the disambig page are commonly spelled in all capitals, and most of them are fairly obscure.
• Fourth, people typing AJAX into the search bar are very likely—overwhelmingly, I would expect—to want Ajax (programming).

Now since I'm not dead-set on this, I'm fine if there's a consensus which disagrees with me. I'd rather discuss this than vote on it, though. If I'm convinced that I did the wrong thing in changing the redirect, I'll change it back myself. I don't think my first and second points are particularly assailable, but if evidence refuting my third or fourth arguments was brought up I'd likely agree. CRGreathouse (t | c) 04:23, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

• I don't particularly care enough to fight anyone on this, but one thing: you aren't looking in the right place for the AJAX vs. Ajax debate. Look here, on the archived page -- it was pretty well fleshed-out and the consensus was that AJAX isn't right. Also, your presumption that people searching for Ajax are either hunting for the programming term or the Greek hero isn't quite tenable, since there are 34 different Ajax references on the aggregation page, and who's to say whether someone who types it in is looking for the cleanser product, the video game, the flush toilet... hence it making much, much more sense to push the user to the aggregation page and let him or her make his choice. I'd think that you should need to support your contention that users are "very likely -- overwhelmingly, [you] would expect -- to want Ajax (programming)" with something even mildly resembling evidence before making this change, but alas. Jason t c 03:23, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah. In that case there was more debate than I saw, and I was mistaken on that. I didn't see the archive.

As for evidence... I'm not sure how to go about this. On a Google search for the term Ajax (since Google is case-insensitive), of the first 10 results, 6 used it in all capitals and all six of these were about the programming term. A Yahoo search turned up this page (which I discount for obvius reasons). Of the other nine results, 2 used the term in all capitals; both were about the programming term. MSN Search had 5/5 which used the all-capital term about programming. There are other metrics, to be sure, but I think I'm fairly justified in the statement. CRGreathouse (t | c) 04:32, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

• According to this article AJAX is one of the most cited articles on wikipedia... probably not people are hoping for a redirect to the disambig page. So though | Ajax is not an acronym and we shouldn't really refer to it as AJAX in articles it increases the usefulness of wikipedia for this page to redirect to Ajax (programming). Artw 23:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)