Talk:Lincoln

Lincoln (president)

Just thought I'd let everyone know that another user has started the Lincoln (president) experiment to see what happens Purplebackpack89 (talk) 22:08, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I like it better with the pipe as Abraham Lincoln. Piping is permitted due to technical limitations, which is exactly why we're making this change. Upon clicking on Abraham Lincoln, that's the page the user will end up on. Besides, once we gather some stats, we might decide to remove the experiment entirely. No need to confuse users in the meantime. If this isn't acceptable, I favor abandoning the test. UncleDouggie (talk) 01:07, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I do as well. I say maybe two-three weeks, then change it back. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 01:15, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

The reasoning for piping the link makes sense. I'd still recommend a test period of longer than a couple of weeks, because there's going to be a spike early on. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:23, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

OK...we now have about three weeks of data, and Lincoln (president) averages over 300 hits a day just from this page (the days where it's zero are when data's unavailable). That pretty much proves that people do go to this page looking for Abe. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 17:32, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

More than half of each days hits to the disambiguation page are then going through the president redirect (50.6% on Oct 11 to 73.7% on Oct 17, 57.4% overall for October through the 18th). So in addition to justifying its presence here, this also justifies listing it first and might also indicate that the dab page should be moved to Lincoln (disambiguation) so that the base name Lincoln can redirect to Abe (similar to how Churchill redirects to Winston). -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:47, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

You should suggest that it in a new thread. I'd support it, but I fear there'd be a Lincolnshire backlash against it Purplebackpack89 (talk) 18:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Forgive my ignorance, but how does one see this information? Gruntler (talk) 13:31, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

http://stats.grok.se/ is the place, and since I can't remember it easily either, I always go to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC to find it. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:34, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Hits for Lincoln (president) / Hits for Lincoln: October: 58%, November: 62%. Obvious primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:38, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

That's still ~40% of the people who come to this page who would be inconvenienced, that is not acceptable. The current set-up works, I don't see a need to change it. Nev1 (talk) 13:56, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Completely agree there, certainly no case for a primary topic Jeni ^(talk) 14:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Disagree with the two of you (Nev and Jeni; agree with J-H-J). Lincoln should probably redirect to Abe, or at the very least, have "Lincoln most commonly refers to Abraham Lincoln" at the top, which it clearly does. Also, this article needs to be kicked out of the Lincolnshire project. It's a disambiguation page, not an article about Lincolnshire, and putting leads to people biased in favor of Lincolnshire articles commenting on this. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 16:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

All visitors to this base-name dab are inconvenienced; they have to click through to the article they were looking for. If we change the arrangement to follow the guidelines (WP:PRIMARYTOPIC), then 60% of the readership will no longer be inconvenienced and 40% of the readership will still have the inconvenience. That is exactly acceptable, and indeed expected. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:38, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

How do you feel about removing it from the Lincolnshire project, to avoid an unnecessary Lincolnshire bias? Purplebackpack89 (talk) 16:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Removal of project designation

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

Projects are free to tag pages they feel is in their scope, they are similarly free to rate the importance as they see fit (if you disagree with this long-standing convention, raise the issue at the Village Pump or with the WikiProject Council). The tag and the stated importance has absolutely no bearing on the below WP:RM discussion, nor does it preclude any other project from adding a project tag. If you feel the Lincolnshire member has erred in rating this "high importance", then feel free to drop a note to the project - but do not change the rating yourself. If you feel that another project may want to tag this page, then feel free to drop a note for the project, but similarly do not add the project tag if you are not a member of the project. This discussion has consumed an inordinate amount of editor time and I am closing it as such. –xeno^talk 14:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

---

This page should be removed from the Lincolnshire project. Disambiguation pages are not members of a topic project, only WikiProject Disambiguation. Talk:Washington (disambiguation) is not a member of the projects on Washington, DC or the state of Washington, why should this be a member of the Lincolnshire project? Purplebackpack89 (talk) 17:28, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

No, stop being disruptive. If you feel that the Washington disambig should be in the Washington WikiProject, then go forth and do it. Jeni ^(talk) 17:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't call me disruptive, Jeni. The fact is that policy is with me on this one--as far I can tell, disambiguation pages should only be members of WikiProject disambiguation. If you can find a policy that supports your position, mention it. If not, you're the one that's being disruptive Purplebackpack89 (talk) 20:50, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Where's the policy that says a dab page can only be under one project? Nev1 (talk) 20:52, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

It's common pratice for dab pages to not be a member of other WikiProjects. I challenge you to find many more that are members of a non-dab project. To be perfectly honest, I think that the designation was merely made to give Lincolnshire people undue influence over this project. It needs to be removed Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:04, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

That's an interesting assumption of bad faith. You might have a point if the page redirected straight to Lincoln, Lincolnshire, but at the moment you just seem to have a vendetta, to be perfectly honest. I asked if you could find a policy to support your claim, and I will ask again: can you? Nev1 (talk) 21:10, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you support yours? Right now, all I'm going on is the precedent that almost all disambig pages are only tagged with the disambig project. It's blatently unfair for a project to be tagged with a project that only represents one line of the disambig page unless you have it tagged for projects associated with each line of the disamb page (and then we'd end up with this being tagged with 50-100 WikiProjects; Abe alone is a member of 8-10 WikiProjects). I left a message on the pump; I except to hear soon. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:15, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

As the one insisting that the banner be removed, the burden of proof (ie: providing the appropriate policy) is on you. I am not particularly attached to the banner, and don't really see the use of it, but your eagerness to get rid of it concerns me. Nev1 (talk) 21:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Purple, what's "unfair" about letting project do just what they want? Who is getting the short end of the stick in this situation? Is WikiProject Arkansas hurt by not having a banner here? Is anyone misinformed by that omission? -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:52, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the project banner is inappropriate. This page is not about Lincolnshire. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Lincoln is the county town of Lincolnshire, hence this page is very important to the project, even if it is a disambiguation page. Jeni ^(talk) 23:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

How? What on this page requires the attention of the Lincolnshire project? Or the biography Wikiproject, for that matter? -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The below discussion as an example, requires the attention of members of appropriate WikiProjects. It has been tagged as such for ages now with no problem until someone disruptive comes along screaming cabal (as mentioned on the ANI thread, nobody from the WikiProject has commented yet). Jeni ^(talk) 23:28, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree that screaming "cabal" is pointless and inappropriate. Don't worry; most admins know to ignore such rhetoric. In the same way, I'm ignoring your "someone disruptive" phrasing. I'm utterly uninterested in your characterizations of other editors, no matter how satisfied you may feel typing them.

I'm not aware of disambiguation pages being tagged with project banners in general. Is this usual practice? If so, I'm a little surprised, but willing to accept that. Perhaps in that case, WikiProject Nebraska should be added, too. Has anyone from WikiProject Disambiguation been notified of this discussion? -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:35, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The Disambiguation project has been notified, but I don't think Nebraska has, care to do the honours? Jeni ^(talk) 23:38, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Done. :) -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Now we are getting somewhere :) Jeni ^(talk) 23:52, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Section break

OK, for starters, somebody needs to mention in bold letters that there's an ANI going on about this. I think maybe we should wait on adding the Nebraska project or the Illinois project or the US Presidents project or the Civil War project or the Car project (those for Abe or the Lincoln automobile) until the ANI is decided Purplebackpack89 (talk) 23:42, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

ANI isn't for sorting out content disputes, that is the job of the talk page, I.E. here. Jeni ^(talk) 23:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec)I don't think anyone's doing anything hasty, or at least not irreversible. Bringing more people to the table probably won't hurt, and Lincoln, Nebraska is just as important to Nebraska as the original Lincoln is to Lincolnshire, no?

As for ANI, that page is almost all hot air. A thread there is not a reason to shut down this talk page. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

How about we just leave it to the projects to decide what they think is important rather than being pompous and deciding we know what is best for other groups on wikipedia? I've seen project tagged DABs before (MilHist at least has a special page ranking for Disambig) but to each wikiproject their own. Really guys, let them decide their own business, we are not the spanish inquisition. I have no comfy chair. --Narson ~ Talk • 23:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I often add project banners to pages where they seem to be missing, so I'm interested enough in the question of when that's appropriate. Although my initial inclination was to remove the banners, I think I'm leaning towards letting them be. They do no harm, do they? -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Purpleback somewhere has said that it was me who added the lincs banner, when in fact it was added before myself or him had even edited the page. here. I'm sure if other wikiprojects felt they needed to monitor this page, then they would add themselves, as it stands others haven't, so we can presume they aren't interested. (comment partly copied from the ANI thread as its relevant) Jeni ^(talk) 23:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Our decision to keep or remove a banner certainly has nothing to do with who added it first. I think I'm coming to the position that the banners are good there, because as Jeni points out, WikiProject Nebraska might well be interested if this page is going to be moved or redirected. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:54, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

It is also worth noting that pages will have differing importances for various projects (as noted in our project banners). Some probably view pages that others might see as linked as having no merit to their chosen remit. And I agree GTBacchus, I'm all for adding them if I feel they are missing, but to remove I'd probably just post on their talk saying 'Is this meant to be?' then walk away. I must admit, despite all this hoohah, I still find it difficult to care about project banners. Though that might be tinged by my banner hatred from having done too many Wikiproject MilHist assessment drives. --Narson ~ Talk • 23:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The consensus on ANI was that keeping the banners wasn't a good idea. WP:ANI. If we add banners, we have to add banners that represent all the lines (and I've heard we need at least 47 to do that), not banners that just represent a few lines and have a narrow interest. If we keep only some of the banners, it's a violation of POV. Also, Jeni misread my comment--my comment was that she reverted my bold edit. Strongly oppose keeping any banner except disambiguationPurplebackpackonthetrail (talk) 14:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

(1) ANI is not where solutions come from; it's where hot air comes from. (2) There is no such thing as a consensus in one place if it clearly doesn't extend any further than that one place. Consensus is not consensus when there's good faith disagreement. (3) NPOV applies to articles. Adding project banners to a talk page does not affect the neutrality of any article, and is not a POV issue. (4) The idea that we "have to include" a banner for every line of the page is quite silly. Projects may put their banners where they want, and no suicide pacts are involved. Some projects include "disambiguation" as an article class, and others don't. (5) There is strong precedent for adding project banners to dab pages, and it hasn't caused any problems, neutrality-related or otherwise. Some projects include "disambiguation" as an article class, and others don't.

Unless you're ready to show how the lack of certain banners on this page leads to the encyclopedia being less neutral for readers, I'm not buying it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It should be noted that purpleback has resorted to individual canvassing on this subject.[1] Jeni ^(talk) 18:32, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Another blatent lie by Jeni. The user had commented on the discussion on ANI; I thought he should comment here. Retract it, or I will report you again to ANI Purplebackpack89 (talk) 20:29, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I will not be retracting, it was a factual statement backed up by a diff for evidence. Jeni ^(talk) 21:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Importance to WikiProjects

• That a disambiguation page is part of a project is unusual, but possibly acceptable. That the page is rated as being of "high-importance" to a project raises my alarm bells about the purposes of that project--JimWae (talk) 20:36, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

So far no one from WP:Lincolnshire has commented in this discussion (the membership list is here); they don't seem to have any nefarious purpose. Nev1 (talk) 20:41, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

If they don't care, they wouldn't care if we eliminated the page from the project. As it was said by HJ Mitchell in the ANI, either we have 47 projects to represent all the links or just the disambiguation project. I favor the latter Purplebackpack89 (talk) 20:45, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps, but you should ask them rather than make guesses. It costs nothing and there's no urgency; it's not as if it's affecting the article. Nev1 (talk) 20:49, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

WikiProjects are typically given wide latitude to to set their scope as they see fit. Adding projects en masse that don't necessarily want to monitor this page as some way to counter-balance some purported bias that is present by having the Licolnshire banner here is silly. –xeno^talk 20:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

There is a response on the WikiProjects talk page. Jeni ^(talk) 21:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I share JimWae's concern about why is Lincoln high-importance as a disam page. Regardless of what the projects say, there should't be projects tagged on disambig pages unless they represent all the links. We either need to have 1 project or 47 projects, all of which are NA importance. Remember that any editor can tag or assess for a project, regardless of whether or not he's a member. Purplebackpackonthetrail (talk) 21:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Again, this is a fairly ridiculous solution to a non-issue. WikiProjects are free to tag pages as they see fit. That the Lincolnshire projects feels this page is of high-importance is something they alone may determine. Perhaps it is high-importance because this DAB page is the primary path to the article? In any case, we should not concern ourselves with this, nor should we do something ridiculous like sloughing this dab page onto projects that might not want to monitor it. –xeno^talk 21:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You have been told a million times by a million people that if a WikiProject wishes to tag a page, they can. If any of the other WikiProjects decide that this page is relevant to them, they can tag it if they wish. If WikiProject Lincolnshire decide this is a high importance article to them, then they may tag it as high importance, if they decide its a low importance article, then they may tag it as low importance. It's pretty simple logic that Wikipedia has lasted on for many years before someone decided to cry wolf. Jeni ^(talk) 21:30, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Welcome to the Jeni calling Purplebackpack names show! I'm gonna repeat what JimWae said: You don't tag disambiguation pages high importance. Your edit has been reverted. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:57, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Failing to see you show any sort of policy yet again (no surprise there really). All I see is tenuous and POINTy editing. Jeni ^(talk) 22:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not the one that draped my profile in the Union Jack. It says on the template "This project does not require a rating on the project's scale". The template was generated by--wait for it--the project itself! If the project wanted to rate disambiguation pages for importance, they shouldn't have made that appear. Therefore, the rating should be NA. You are the POV one Purplebackpack89 (talk) 22:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

...And they've decided to set one in this case. It's their banner - please leave it be. –xeno^talk 22:10, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh my god, you are seriously using up any ounce of good faith which I may have had left. PLEASE ACTUALLY READ THINGS! This project does not require a rating on the project's scale, hence it isn't rated, its rated as a disambig article, not a stub, start, C B GA, A or FA. Importance is completely different to the articles rating. Get a grip, seriously. Jeni ^(talk) 22:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I've reverted (Acctually, I see Xeno beat me to it). This is now heading towards blatant disruption. Try to acctually get things decided before you run off on one of your ill thought out edits Purplebackpack. Also, I notice you are now trying to say that WikiProject Lincolnshire shouldn't get a say here on their talk page. Really, all this combined with your offensive comments on JHunterJ's page is leaving a poor taste in my mouth. As Jeni points out, it is referring to the rating scale when it speaks of not needing a rating. If you waited for comment before your contentious edits, you would end up in fewer arguments. --Narson ~ Talk • 22:15, 4 January 2010 (UTC) (EC)

1. 1) JHJ's talk page comments have nothing to do with you; #2) In the past, there . Note above that I am not the only editor concerned. IMO, there's something very, very, very fishy about a that doesn't concern or, or even the most hit one, tagging the page, and then listing it as high-importance when only a handful of disam pages on the whole project are tagged. I personally feel that it should be unrated, and probably untagged, unless any other affilated project can be tagged and rated however. Jeni's interpretation is actually wrong here, it refers to both class and importance Purplebackpack89 (talk) 22:22, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

No, Jeni's assessment is spot-on. The verbiage you're clinging to refers to the quality-class rating. Which is why it's on the quality-class line-item. Any project that wants to have this dab page in their scope is free to tag it as they see fit (as I've said numerous times), but we should leave it up to them. Filling the page up with project banners just to try and drown out the Lincolnshire banner is ridiculousness in the extreme. Also, as Nev1 pointed out at my talk page, you seem to be the only one who feels that their rating of this page as "high importance" grants any kind of prejudice in terms of the below WP:RM discussion (which looks to be heading soundly towards no consensus, FWIW). Please, let this drop, it's a huge waste of everyone's time here. –xeno^talk 22:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Your blatant prejudices have everything to do with me when you are tossing around baseless accusations of cabals and other nonsense, especially when they step far over the line of what is acceptable. You don't get to make uncivil PAs just because they are on a talk page for a user. --Narson ~ Talk • 22:29, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• The page was tagged high July 12, 2009 - when the "article" was primarily about Lincoln, Lincolnshire. This is no longer the case & the high-importance tag should be considered obsolete --JimWae (talk) 22:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Could you please explain which part of this (the state of the article on 12 July 2009), is primarily about Lincoln, Lincolnshire? You don't seem to be getting the fact that if the wikiproject no longer feel this is of high importance to them, then they can change it themselves. Jeni ^(talk) 22:32, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
• This Jul 12 edit was by the same person who 3 minutes later tagged the article as high importance to the project. I have not made any comment on who can (nor on who cannot) change the importance level - but the designation is clearly obsolete in comparison with the time it was added--JimWae (talk) 23:04, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

  You are failing to give a reason why it is obsolete? There is a large chunk of people above who think that that it *is* appropriate, and you are making no attempt to give any reason why it isnt? As has been said many times above, if WikiProject Lincolnshire felt that this article was no longer of high importance, then someone from the project would come along and change it, not somebody with no connection with the WikiProject at all. Jeni ^(talk) 23:15, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with JimWae that the tag needs to be trashed, whether the project cares or not. By the way, for someone who isn't a Lincolnshire member (albeit one that has admitted to following all Lincolnshire/all England articles), you certainly defend WikiProject Lincolnshire member's actions, regardless of whether they're right. Also, it should be noted that the person who tagged this article high importance POV pushed in article edits, always placing Lincoln, Lincolnshire at the top while burying Abraham Lincoln Purplebackpack89 (talk) 23:10, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• Please give one reason why this disambiguation article should have high importance to the project--JimWae (talk) 23:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

It is rather obvious that whatever response is given will be disagreed with. In the same way your arguments are disagreed with. So what purpose does this serve? --Narson ~ Talk • 23:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• I've mentioned before somewhere (not sure where, this whole discussion has become fragmented in so many different places!) that Lincoln is the county town of Lincolnshire, so is quite possibly one of the most (if not the most) important articles to the Lincolnshire Wikiproject. As the Lincolnshire Wikiproject has decided to include appropriate disambiguation pages under its umbrella under the disambiguation rating, it follows that the main route for people trying to get to Lincoln, Lincolnshire would also be a high importance. Jeni ^(talk) 00:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

By the same logic I could argue that it's high priority for the Nebraska (capital) and Illinois (top-importance figure and first city named for said figure) WikiProjects. How about a reason why it and only it should be top importance? If there is no such reason, then either. Also, "because the folks at the Lincolnshire Project said so" isn't a reason Purplebackpack89 (talk) 00:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

If you feel it is a high priority for those WikiProjects, why don't you pop over there and ask them if they wish to include it? I'm sure they'd be polite enough to give you an answer either way. And yes, "because the folks at the Lincolnshire Project said so" is a perfectly good reason, its important enough to them tag it as such, and it doesn't actually affect you in any way shape or form, so to be honest, I'm not even sure why you are spouting off so much hot air. Jeni ^(talk) 00:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Further comments

Anybody going to comment that the Lincolnshire tag and rating were placed by a POV pusher? Purplebackpack89 (talk) 00:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Ahh, I see, so now you are attacking someone who isn't even involved in the discussion. Who's next? Jimbo? I'm just wondering which low you will stoop to next. Jeni ^(talk) 00:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Purple, the placement of the banner on this page has nothing to do with who placed it. Your calling them a "POV pusher" simply identifies you as someone who's happy enough to stoop to name-calling. How about you don't do that? If you continue to make ad hominem remarks, you'll be blocked for it. Don't do it. "Comment on the content, not the contributor"; you know the rule. Follow it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah. So it's alright for Jeni to call names, as she did below, but not for me. Nice double standard Purplebackpack89 (talk) 01:55, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

No. It's not remotely alright. How many wrongs do you think make a right? I'm happy enough to warn Jeni when I see her attack you, but your actions are your responsibility. "She started it" is an excuse you would best leave behind you in elementary school. Is this gonna be a problem? Respond to insults by rising above it, not be insulting back. This is basic.

Jeni - you're reading here. I am equal opportunity when it comes to ad hominem remarks. They're always completely unacceptable, so don't give Purple anything to complain about, yeah? -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I propose that the link to Lincoln, Lincolnshire be piped to the redirect at Lincoln (city in Lincolnshire, England) to ascertain how much traffic to that page goes through this one. This is the same procedure used for the link to Abraham Lincoln. --JimWae (talk) 02:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Oppose. That's silly. Following silliness with further silliness is juvenile behavior. You're better than that JimWae. Let your light shine, baby. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:11, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Not so silly. There are claims being made that this disambiguation page might be THE most important page for the project. The high-importance tag was put in when an editor had just made the "article" be primarily about that place. There have been numerous attempts to have this page be primarily about that one place. The tag is obviously obsolete & no longer relevant in the same way. The redirect will do no harm, give everyone a chance to cool down, and provide data to that can be used to assess claims being made here--JimWae (talk) 02:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

What's the harm in having this page tagged as high importance by that project? I can't see that it does anything negative. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:20, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

This is bizarre, what does it matter if WP:Lincolnshire think the page is important? How does it effect you? So far, it hasn't effected the dab page and this discussion has generated more heat than light. Nev1 (talk) 02:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

How does it affect anyone? How are we a worse encyclopedia with the banner there? This makes very little sense to me. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:29, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Why not?

Question: Why shouldn't WikiProjects be allowed to tag whichever talk pages they want, however they want? Is there any harm to the encyclopedia itself? -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, we are just arguing with one person here, and going round in circles. It seems to be pretty obvious where the consensus is, so perhaps we should now just let this thread die its death? Jeni ^(talk) 10:55, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

If you accept a critic, this whole thread is incredibly long for such a trivial issue. I may understand it for a discussion about whenever moving or not the disambiguation, but this? Project templates do not provide "ownership" of pages to projects: they simply inform that a project is interested in it. The "interest" at a disambiguation page may be to make sure that the entry is properly written and the casual reader can properly find the desired page, well, that's a legitimate desire for a project. But in short: for people uninvolved with the project, it does not make any difference at all if the tag stays or not (it is also located at the talk page, the casual reader will not be distracted by it), so there's really no compeling reason not to let the project tag it as desired if they are interested in it. MBelgrano (talk) 13:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Requested move

Lincoln → Lincoln (disambiguation) — The primary topic on Wikipedia of "Lincoln" is Abraham Lincoln, as illustrated by the traffic through the Lincoln (president) redirect created to determine how the readership uses this disambiguation page. — JHunterJ (talk) 16:41, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Survey

• Agree. Also, that page should only be a member of the disamb project. Would also cite GoogleScholar hits--129,000 for Abraham Lincoln against only 18,100 for Lincoln, Lincolnshire.Purplebackpack89 (talk) 16:44, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support as nom.
  • http://stats.grok.se/en/200910/Lincoln = 17,158
  • http://stats.grok.se/en/200910/Lincoln_(president) = 9942
  • http://stats.grok.se/en/200911/Lincoln = 16,345
  • http://stats.grok.se/en/200911/Lincoln_(president) = 10,144

Hits for Lincoln (president) / Hits for Lincoln: October: 58%, November: 62%. Obvious primary topic. Lincolnshire, Nebraska, and automobile links, for comparison, are properly linked from other articles in addition to being linked from this page, but their counts for November:

• http://stats.grok.se/en/200911/Abraham_Lincoln = 403,992
• http://stats.grok.se/en/200911/Lincoln,_Nebraska = 16,373
• http://stats.grok.se/en/200911/Lincoln_(automobile) = 14,523
• http://stats.grok.se/en/200911/Lincoln,_Lincolnshire = 9432

Clear and obvious primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:53, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

• Strongly disagree. There is only one entity in the universe commonly known as "Lincoln" without qualification, and that is the ancient city in England. Abraham Lincoln is adequately described as such, or as "President Lincoln". The blind use of traffic statistics to determine the structure of this encyclopedia is supported neither by wikipedia policy nor by common sense; no doubt a substantial proportion of the traffic is made up by American school students doing projects. The current structure is not perfect; this ridiculous proposal would make it worse. SamuelTheGhost (talk) 17:11, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

First off, the view that Lincoln, England is the only Lincoln. Second of all, the purpose of disambs and redirects is to make navigation of the project easiest for the greatest number of people (be they American students or whomever), not to enshine a historical city that is somewhat obscure on the world stage. This view is supported at WP:DISAMBIGUATION, which says that primary topic may be determined by traffic hits and GoogleScholar searches, both of which are heavily in favor of Lincoln. I challenge you to find a policy that says otherwise. Purplebackpack89 (talk), a history major.

Lincoln is the only "Lincoln" which doesn't have a qualification. That's because it was the original Lincoln, and Abraham Lincoln was indirectly named after it, not vice versa. The purpose of disambs and redirects is to make navigation of the project adequately easy for everyone, which is not the same as your wrong formulation. Your sneering at Lincoln as "somewhat obscure on the world stage" tells us a lot about you, but does nothing to advance this discussion. WP:Dab describes traffic statistics as one of "Tools that may help determine a primary topic, but are not determining factors". SamuelTheGhost (talk) 17:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Primary topic isn't about the "only entity in the universe", and the traffic stats show that the claim is incorrect in any event -- the U.S. president is more often meant by the phrase "Lincoln" without qualification than any other entity in the universe. Please see WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose - No primary topic - more POV pushing. Jeni ^(talk) 17:52, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  Other than your personal proximity to Lincolnshire (which I assume is leading you to this POV-pushing), do you have anything that actually contradicts the evidence above? -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:57, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  Actually, you'll find that I am nowhere near Lincolnshire, next question? The stats speak for themselves. Jeni ^(talk) 17:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  Your userpage claims you are British. That is near Lincolnshire, in the Wikipedia scale of things. I agree, the stats speak for themselves, and are in favor of the move. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:03, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  There was me thinking an administrator would actually know better than to discount an opinion based on location ;-) It also states on your userpage that you assume good faith? I can easily see that isn't true, so I strongly suggest you remove that. Jeni ^(talk) 18:06, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  I was supposed to assume that your assumption of bad faith ("more POV pushing") was in good faith? No, that's not was that badge means. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:08, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  JHunterJ, one might be inclined to ask why you are pushing so hard for a move. American bias perchance? Or are you exempt? Nev1 (talk) 19:01, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  Navigational utility bias. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  Of course, making up technical crap to justify your bias. You are blinded by it and cannot accept people disagreeing with you. Nev1 (talk) 19:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  None of the technical "crap" is made up; you can verify the data yourself, and have no contradictory data to provide. It is just as obvious to me that you are ignoring the data to justify your own bias. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:39, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  I can read the stats, but "navigational utility" is a neologism that you have concocted. Yes, the point of dab pages is to help readers navigate Wikipedia, but you couldn't just say that, you have to use a pompous phrase. Nev1 (talk) 19:44, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  "Utility" means usefulness. "Navigational" is an adjective that means "relating to getting around". "Navigational utility" is therefore: usefulness for getting around. There's nothing pompous about that - it is plain English - nor do I think this is the first time I've seen it. Google's seen it over 1000 times. In any case, criticizing another editor's word choice seems particularly pointless, off-topic, and unhelpful. Surely we don't have to descend to that? -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:01, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

<---To Jeni: The fact is, you accuse people of being disruptive and pushing POV, but you POV push and disrupt as much or more as they do. To Nev: Your accusation that Hunter made up is blatently untrue. Traffic hits are a perfectly accept

Read what I said before drawing conclusions. I never doubted the stats. Nev1 (talk) 21:03, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

You said above that Hunter concocted the concept of navigational utility Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:17, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

A neologism is a newly coined word or phrase. It may tax your comprehension skills, but my comment said that JHunterJ had coined a pompous new phrase for something which could have been explained in plain English. The concept behind the phrase concocted to give his position more legitimacy than belligerence, as I sated, is not new. When looking at the principle, it seems absurd to claim that further inconveniencing over 40% of the people who come to this page is "navigational utility". Exactly what are you not getting? Nev1 (talk) 21:22, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not getting your need to bash Hunter and me rather than point to an actual policy that supports your argument. I can understand your words perfectly; I'm in college. And it's not 'over 40%, it's 38% Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:27, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Not to interupt this bickering, but it is 42 for one month, 38 for the other. The result for all data is 40.0471599558... percent not going for the Lincoln (President) option. --Narson ~ Talk • 21:34, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

• oppose other options appear to be within an order of magnititude or so so Abraham Lincoln while perhaps the single most popular use of Lincoln on wikipedia at this time doesn't really overwelm the other options.©Geni 18:28, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  What other option is within an order of magnitude? None of the data above indicates that. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:52, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  Other in general. Per the priciple of least suprise people looking for the president getting a disambiguation page generates less supprise that people looking for the car getting a president.20:01, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  Minor point here JHunterJ, but we don't know the orders of magnitude, because we don't know what portion of the Lincoln, Lincolnshire and other page viewers were going to those via this disambig page. It would only take one to be 950 in october, for example, to be one order of magnitude from Lincoln being used for the president (The hit statistics for the pages in general are meaningless because no-one disputes that Abraham Lincoln is a popular page, only that the use of Lincoln to refer to it.) --Narson ~ Talk • 20:39, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  Yep; that's why I noted in the earlier discussion that the comparable redirects would need to be created in order to draw those conclusions. Since they weren't, I have to again question how you determined that other options appear to be within an order of magnitude. If you go by page hits on the target pages, none of them are within an order of magnitude, and I don't know what else you could use. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Were it a larger majority for Abraham Lincoln, perhaps. But we are talking about now 60 v 40. So you are talking about doubly inconveniencing 40% of users for the benefit of only 60% based on a statistical sampling of two (Really guys, two months of data? While I'm not saying more months would show something different, it is an oddly low sample). I do not find the solid claim in policy that some of the supporters find, I find vagueness and suggestions on methods to help users come to a consensus decision (Providing more information into the decision making process). Even if one were to accept their argument, which I do not, it is also rather clear to me that this solution would be absurd, and assuming that the wiki community as a whole is not absurd, I must assume that we are therefore misapplying process or that the process is wrong in this situation (Which is itself covered in WP:IGNORE). --Narson ~ Talk • 18:54, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  It is 60 for one use vs. 40 for all the other uses combined, not 60 for one and 40 for another. We are talking about removing the inconvenience for half again as many readers at the increase in inconvenience of only 40% of the readers. The sampling is also daily (around 60 data points), not monthly -- the numbers I listed were monthly roll-ups, but you will find similar proportions on each of the sample days. What's absurd about helping the majority of the readers? -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  Two months isn't the relevant statistic. 34,000 users hitting this page is the relevant statistic. It's an enormous sample. Gruntler (talk) 20:02, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  Regardless, we are still only talking about a 60/40 split. Were it 60/40 with one clear alternative, I'd certainly be happier. As it is, with 60/40 with various contenders for second place you are talking about almost half the people coming to this page being doubly inconvenienced rather than a blanket inconvenience. (As an aside, I'm wary of this whole Lincoln, Lincolnshire title anyway. The counties are not sovereign entities, it should be a parenthesised disambig. Or be Lincoln, England. That is an issue for the geography people though, if thats their MOS it is their MOS). I fully understand the argument that JHunterJ puts forward (Albeit rather put off by the apparantly forcefulness he feels necessary) I simply disagree in this case that the good done outweights the bad. Sheer maths tells us, ok, it will be 80 bad clicks rather than 100 bad clicks but it ignores the disaproportionate nature of those aditional clicks. Were we talking about the inconvenience of a vast minority to the majority, or were we talking about no additional inconvenience to the vast majority of the minority and only additional burden to a few, then I believe the 'common good' argument wins through. This is not the case here. I would also refute PurpleBack's nonsense about google hits and remind him that for the vast majority of Lincoln the city's existance, there was neither internet nor print media of any volume. People are also far more likely to write essays that reference Abraham Lincoln than they do Lincoln a city. Why? Because social history is less likely to sell than some nice good history about the big men of the world (Frankly, I prefer my history in the form of great men and maps, but I'm just like that) --Narson ~ Talk • 20:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  The apparent forcefulness is, from my perspective, just a statement of the facts gathered since the last time this went around. And, in the case of November, it's an improvement of at least 3943 clicks: giving up 10,144 clicks in exchange for 6201 clicks. So we're talking about removing the inconvenience from the majority without unduly burdening the other readers. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose As I state above, further inconveniencing 40% of the people who come to this page is not acceptable. Nev1 (talk) 19:09, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  As I stated above, inconveniencing 60% of the people who are currently forced to come to this page unnecessarily is less acceptable. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  Read what I said, it would further inconvenience people, that is not acceptable whichever way you cut it. Nev1 (talk) 19:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  The current arrangement further inconveniences people beyond what the expected (primary topic at the base name) would. That's the way it's supposed to be cut. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:39, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  A 3:2 split is pretty slim; I stick by what I said. Nev1 (talk) 19:44, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  Remember that this is a 3:2 split between one page against 50-100 other pages. When comparing it to any other single page, it's more like 3:1 Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

• Support for the simple reason that 60% is bigger than 40%. The whole point of this page is as an aid to navigation. If Abraham Lincoln were the target, users would, on net, have to do less clicking to get to where they want to go. I'm not sure why any of the other arguments being made on whether "Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England" is actually the only Lincoln without a qualification while "Lincoln, Nebraska, USA" and "Abraham Lincoln" are somehow not used without qualification, or which Lincoln came first or the like, matter at all. Gruntler (talk) 20:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose The forty percent of people not looking for Abe will be far more inconvenienced by having to wait for the presidential page to load and render. Ian Spackman (talk) 21:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

See my comment below. "inconvenience" might roughly correlate to "clicks." (John User:Jwy talk) 22:11, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I don’t think they do. The major inconvenience is the time spent in waiting for for pages to render and then working out what to click. Even on my pretty decent broadband connection it would be a major hassle to have the presidential page en route to the sheep or the football team or the textile I was looking for. Imagine what it would be like on a mobile in Mombassa. Ian Spackman (talk) 23:05, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Each click corresponds to a page load and its rendering. Granted dab pages probably load and render faster as they are smaller and don't have images, but that's why I said roughly. (John User:Jwy talk) 23:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Not even roughly if my maths are meaningful;-) Take ten people and assume that 6 are looking for the president and 4 are looking for something else. Currently each of them is having to load one 38,950 byte page and make one click before getting where they want to be. That’s a total disambiguation overload of 389,500 bytes plus 10 clicks. If we make this a redirect with a hatnote then 6 people will get straight where they want to be, but the other four will have to load one 429,899 byte page followed by one 38,950 byte page and make two clicks. That’s a disambiguation overload for ten people of 1,875,396 bytes plus eight clicks. So what we would get is a 20% click reduction (good) but a 381% bandwidth increase (far less good). And that is ignoring images. Ian Spackman (talk) 00:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

That's a good analysis. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

That's an excellent point, truly. Thanks. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Clearly, on net, clicks are the important criteria for high bandwidth users, and bytes matter more low bandwidth users. Question: would a low-bandwidth user actually have to load the whole Abraham Lincoln page? The link to the disambiguation page would be at the top, of course, so it should be one of the first things they see, at which point they could click away without having to load the whole page. I guess this might be browser-dependent? Anyone know? Gruntler (talk) 18:57, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. President Abraham Lincoln may be found by entering "President Lincoln" or "Abraham Lincoln", and for those too lazy to do so, the disambiguation page is only a click away, but President Abraham Lincoln is not primarily known as Lincoln. Retaining a disambiguation page as the primary topic also allows editors to monitor that links point to where they are intended, which helps readers too. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:50, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Not primarily just Lincoln, but often enough. I understand the second issue, but think 10% greater than %50 (60%) outweighs that (but you've heard me express similar sentiments before!). (John User:Jwy talk) 22:09, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

• Support - if more than half the people entering Lincoln are looking for the president, the total number of clicks to get to the desired article by people entering Lincoln would be maximized: if 100 people enter Lincoln, 60 people need to click once and 40 people need to click three times. If it comes to a dab page, 100 people have to click twice: 200 to 180 for all readers. I know the numbers don't cover everything, but any one topic >> 50% is a primary topic in my book. And mellow out (yes, Californian), people. Keep away from attacks! (John User:Jwy talk) 21:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  That analysis is sound, mathematically, but I'm not sure that minimizing total clicks is the idea. Having a dab page here makes sense to me. I think what tips the balance away from your argument for me, Jwy, is that the article on the American president isn't called Lincoln (US president). The title of that article isn't the word we're disambiguating here. Does that make any sense? -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:18, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  The article on the president, though, is ambiguous with "Lincoln", since he is commonly referred to by the single name. That's its sense here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

  (You know, there are two distinct ways to thread conversations. Either one makes sense, but I don't understand hybrids. One *, two **s.... next is three ***s. If someone follows a * with a *:, then the next one is *::. Why mix the two? Play with your mouse, clicking on bullets, and you'll see why it makes sense.)

  I'm pretty sure I took your point here into consideration. My point stands. Since the article on the president is not called Lincoln (blah), I give things that are called "Lincoln" greater weight. Your mileage may vary. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:40, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

  (I didn't understand why you didn't follow the pattern of the rest of this conversation, where only the !votes were bulleted, not the responses.) I took you point into consideration and my point stands as well. The disambiguation guidelines treat redirects like Lincoln (president) with the weight you describe. And even without the redirect, the ordering on the disambiguation page is by likelihood, and the most likely topic here (and the primary topic) is Abraham Lincoln. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

  (I dunno why I did that. Now I've made this particular line of dialogue consistent, with one bullet followed by colons.) I agree that the president should be at the top of the list (as he is). I just don't agree that this page should redirect to him. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:57, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• Comment This 60-40 split is generous to the non-Abe pages. There are a significant number of hits from non-users (ie us). And it's likely that there are a fair number who come to this page and then get distracted and close their browser or decide they're more interested in cookies or have Vista crash on them or whatever. At any rate, I don't know what the "real" ratio would be but it's certainly higher than 60%. Gruntler (talk) 23:37, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Actually agree with you, people from this talk page would affect the ratio, but in the opposite way to which you describe, they'd be clicking the (president) link out of interest (as I did earlier). Based on that I'd suggest the ratio would be lower than 60%. (well, after all, we are getting pedantic and technical) Jeni ^(talk) 23:42, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
    • I know more about Abraham Lincoln than I do about Lincolnshire, so my click "out of interest" goes in the opposite direction, coming from this discussion. I'm not sure how that affects our statistics, which are a bit foggy anyway, it would seem. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
      • The mathematics assumes that the 60/40 split is correct for those entering "Lincoln" - and we are disambiguation what they enter to get them to the information they are looking for, not article titles per se. Its possible that Lincoln might primarily called "Abraham Lincoln" but still be (just for argument) the ONLY article someone typing "Lincoln" would expect. Would we want to have a dab page then (see Reagan)? I present this information to make sure its all thought through. I can still see the decision going against the president, but want it to be an informed decision. (John User:Jwy talk) 00:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
        • Yeah, I worked out the same mathematics, using (50+x)/(50-x) rather than 60/40. If x is any positive number, no matter how small, redirecting to Abraham Lincoln will result in fewer total clicks. I just don't think that's the only important consideration. In this case, there are things that are called, simply, "Lincoln", and I think that gives those topics extra weight. It's not a mathematical determination, I admit. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:05, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The point was that people who come here and click nothing, such as people arguing on the talk page, drive down Abraham Lincoln's percentage. Gruntler (talk) 17:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• Definitely oppose. The fewer clicks argument is superficially plausible, but only superficially. Redirecting will result in more inconvenience as it takes a lot longer to load the proposed redirect target than this one. Would putting Abe at the top of the list here help readers? If the answer is yes - and it seems like it probably is - then do it and forget the guidelinecruft. Angus McLellan (Talk) 02:38, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  • He's already at the top of the list. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Read my proposal below. He should be alone at the top, since nothing else on this page gets anywhere near as many hits as he does Purplebackpackonthetrail (talk) 14:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

What does that help, though? Are readers seeking one of the non-top set being hindered by setting the top set as it is currently? -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah. What actual problem are we trying to solve here. If it ain't broke... you know how the saying goes. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Oppose and weld permanently in place with a seven ton weight on top. Leave it alone. Mr Stephen (talk) 16:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but you need a better reason than that, or your vote should be discounted Purplebackpack89 (talk) 20:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I consider myself lucky not to have speech recognition software. Those within earshot of me commented that I had spoken for the full minute without deviation or hesitation, though, if infixes were included, there had been some repetition. I remember when the Lincoln article was about the city. To accommodate the dim, and in the spirit of compromise, it was moved to a disambig with the original (both WP & RL) meaning spelled out at the head. Some warned that this was merely the start of a ratchet process that would see Lincoln turned into a redirect for the benefit of [self-censored]; the warners were batted down as being 'against compromise', 'uncollegaiate', 'failing to AGF'—where are they now? WP:CCC but the sight of a group appearing to accepting compromise only as an intermediate step then coming back—again and again—to gradually work the position to the thing they favour leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth. [no more from me] Mr Stephen (talk) 20:59, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Editors and readers who disagree with you are not "dim". That may be the least pointed of the personal attacks in this discussion, but it's still not helpful. Wikipedia is indeed gradually improved, with changes made from the way things used to be. That shouldn't leave a nasty taste in the mouth. The "compromise" earlier to move the non-primary-topic off of the base name should not have been taken to be a permanent treaty. This should be gradually (or swiftly) worked into the position that best serves the encyclopedia (that is, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC). -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with JHunter on this, characterisng those who disagree as dim purely because they disagree is really not on, in many cases one can easily understand the opposing argument, I understand where JHunterJ is coming from on this, though I disagree with his application I can none the less respect him and his arument. I also look forward to JHunterJ's admonishment of the offensive remarks of his compatriot in this debate, however. It seems a little crass to berate the wrongdoings of those you disagree with while protecting the folly of others. --Narson ~ Talk • 14:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the more-pointed attacks of Purplebackpack89 and Jeni were the ones I was comparing Mr Stephen's too when I called it the "least pointed". Since they had already been admonished, I saw no reason to pile on here. (I had already tsked Purplebackpack89 on my own talk page.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:34, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I was swayed from my original support to neutral by the bandwidth argument. I was swayed back to support after reading WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. This situation seems to precisely fit the letter of that guideline, as Abraham Lincoln is "much more used than any other topic covered in Wikipedia to which the same word(s) may also refer." (I doubt any other individual topic even gets 10% of usage.) Gruntler (talk) 17:47, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

  If that guideline didn't exist, and you were arguing this case based simply on merit, would the bandwidth argument win out? I mean, it makes a lot of sense - don't make people load a really heavy page in order to get to a light one. I'd say it makes more sense than following a guideline just because it's written down. If the ideas underlying PRIMARYTOPIC don't actually make sense in this context, then we ignore that guideline. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

There should be a strong presumption in favor of following guidelines, for obvious reasons. I don't see a strong reason the guideline shouldn't apply here. The bandwidth argument is decent, but it's balanced by the clicks argument. I don't see either of those arguments being so decisively stronger than the other as to justify invoking IAR. Gruntler (talk) 18:51, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

A "strong presumption in favor of following guidelines"? That is far from obvious, so far that it's contrary to the spirit of this project. You should never follow guidelines here blindly, but always consider whether the guideline makes sense in a particular context. Specific decisions always trump abstract general ones. Read WP:WIARM, and never apply guidelines unless you can argue that they're right in that context. Every single edit I've ever made to this site has been an invocation of IAR. It's not a last resort; it's where we start, always. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:25, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Like all guidelines, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is on a page which says at the top that "it is best treated with common sense". It is not common sense to take a narrow and legalistic reading of the guideline whilst ignoring issues of bandwidth and disambiguation, and to read the guideline as literally as Gruntler takes it. Gruntler's reading means that if one topic gets 10% of hits and 18 others get 5% each, that we go ahead and inconvenience 90% of readers. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:36, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the situation you have invented is one where common sense would dictate that we should apply IAR. In your made-up situation, I would agree that a disambiguation page would be best. In this situation, I do not see how it is obvious common sense that we should inconvenience 60% in order to convenience 40%. And no I am not ignoring bandwidth, I am treating it as one of several considerations. The various considerations do not strongly point toward a single solution, so guidelines apply. That is what guidelines are for! Gruntler (talk) 23:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose, disambiguation pages are navigational aids. In it's current form, people can find whatever they are searching for. What real benefit is there from moving this, and using a hat-note when redirecting to one article from the list? I do not really see a benefit from the change, as effectively you are guessing what the user is looking for, then giving them the option of "Oh did we guess wrong? Check here", rather than saying right from the start "Could you clarify what your looking for?". Apologies if I just don't get the argument, but reading the discussion so far my view is that it is fine as it is for the end user. --Taelus (talk) 00:49, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  The benefit is that the majority of users who are all looking for the same article (Abraham Lincoln) do not have to go through the disambiguation page. If we shouldn't guess what the user is looking for (an informed, educated guess, BTW), then again, Russia should be a disambiguation page, not an article about the country that we're guessing is what the reader is looking for. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  What Taelus says is admirably right and sensible. If JHunterJ thinks that the disambiguation of Russia is such a mess, which it is, why doesn't he divert his attention to sorting that out, and do us all a favor/favour? SamuelTheGhost (talk) 15:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  You have that backwards. The point is, if you and Taelus think that any ambiguity is best addressed by putting a disambiguation page at the base name, why don't you divert your attention to sorting the other places where that is not the case (e.g., Russia, Pele, Ford, etc., etc.) ? JHunterJ thinks putting the primary topic at Russia (the current arrangement) is the right thing to do, so it doesn't need to be sorted out. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:34, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose I would think of Lincoln, the division of Ford, as a highly likely target. 76.66.197.17 (talk) 06:31, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  Yes, that's why it's listed early on the page. But the president is still a much more likely target, as the data shows. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose I can see no advantage in this change. Being born and bred in Lincolnshire I clearly want to go to Lincoln, Lincolnshire when I type Lincoln. If I wanted the President I would type President Lincoln or Abraham Lincoln, NEVER Lincoln. Please leave as is which is the best of both worlds. Dsergeant (talk) 07:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is about what benefits the readership as a whole, not what benefits you, being born and bred in Lincolnshire. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Hunter. Remember that only a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of Wikipedia users are born and bred in Lincolnshire Purplebackpack89 (talk) 17:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

And it doesn't actually matter how many users were born in Lincolnshire, no relevance here at all. Jeni ^(talk) 17:26, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• Support: I'm not from either the US or Britain, and Abraham Lincoln is far the highest use of the "Lincoln" name I have heard. MBelgrano (talk) 15:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support, per the obvious statistics, as well as one of the main oppose reasons seems to be, "But in Britain, we really think of Lincoln as an old town." I mean, when you add up ALL the other usages, it still isn't as much as Abraham Lincoln. Why is this even a controversial thing? UnitAnode 15:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose — Abraham Lincoln clearly is not the primary topic of Lincoln. The redirect Lincoln (president) gets slightly more than half the page views of the dab page, about 200/day in all. Abraham Lincoln gets over 4000/day. So, very few readers who view Abraham Lincoln get there via the dab page and redirect. By the way, page views on established dab pages are sensitive to recentism: they result from recent editing of Wikipedia articles. The dab page has 59 incoming links from mainspace; it's about time to repair those incoming links. --Una Smith (talk) 16:35, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  The page count hits of Abraham Lincoln do not have any relevance. There are two decisions:

  1. What is the proper title for the article about Abraham Lincoln?
  2. What is the primary topic (if any) of "lincoln"?

  The answer to the second is determined by which topic ambiguous with "lincoln" is used much more than any of the others by the Wikipedia readership as a whole (so the people hitting Lincoln when they want the article on Abraham Lincoln). The number of people who reach Abraham Lincoln's article by paths which aren't ambiguous with "lincoln" (e.g., "The Great Emancipator" or "Abraham Lincoln" or any of the bajillion wikilinks to the article) don't matter for determining the primary topic of "lincoln" -- this is exactly why it was important to create Lincoln (president), since the overwhelming number of hits for Abraham by itself doesn't indicate that it's the primary topic of "lincoln". -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:56, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  User:JHunterJ does not see the relevance, so I will try to make the relevance more apparent.

  (1) In some cases, the dab page get a very large number of page views compared to page views of the articles listed on it. In some cases this happens even after repair of all incoming links to the dab page. Such stats suggest that a primary topic exists, at least transiently. This is especially likely if the dab page has occupied the ambiguous base name for many years; a dab page that is moved to an ambiguous base name may get many page views due to incoming links from outside wikipedia.

  (2) The page view stats of Lincoln vs Abraham Lincoln and Lincoln (president) show very clearly that Lincoln does not have a primary topic. The vast majority readers wanting Abraham Lincoln get there without going through Lincoln, and at most 60% of readers who go through Lincoln go to Abraham Lincoln.

  It is at most 60% of readers because some of those readers may want more than one article. Some readers intentionally read dab pages, to find related topics. "Who else is named Lincoln? What places are named Lincoln? Are they named for Abraham Lincoln?" One dab page view may equal more than one article page view. We can estimate what readers do, but to say they are "inconvenienced" is POV. --Una Smith (talk) 18:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  Yes, the stats are only the stats, and we make assumptions about what generated them. However, since User:Una Smith does not see the difference between the different stats, I will try to make the difference more apparent. the answer to the question "What do most people search with when looking for the article on Abraham Lincoln" (WP:COMMONNAME) is still unrelated to the answer to the question "Which article are people looking for "lincoln" looking for?" (WP:PRIMARYTOPIC). As a parallel, the primary topic for "The Great Emancipator" is the article at Abraham Lincoln, even though the percentage of readers at Abraham Lincoln who reached there through "The Great Emancipator" is probably very small. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  User:JHunterJ is mistaken: nowhere did I deny a difference. I assert that these two different stats both are relevant. The first stat is relevant in that it establishes that this dab page is rather insignificant, hence so is this discussion. The second stat establishes that at most 60% of the (comparatively few) readers who view the dab, also use the one redirect.--Una Smith (talk) 18:26, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  The primary topic for "The Great Emancipator" is the article at Abraham Lincoln, even though the percentage of readers at Abraham Lincoln who reached there through "The Great Emancipator" is probably very small. The percentage of Abraham Lincoln readers who use "The Great Emancipator" is not relevant to the determination of the primary topic for "The Great Emancipator". And 60% is comparatively many, since it is 50% more than all the others combined (40%).-- JHunterJ (talk) 19:06, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• (ec)60% to me is near the line, so I can't agree that the primary topic choice is clear. And reducing "inconvenience" is one of the goals here, I think. Its hard to quantify, otherwise some percentage of this discussion would be done a long time ago. I'll have to think of the external links argument. I think Google does a good job of disambiguating wikipedia, but haven't given it too much thought yet. (John User:Jwy talk) 18:14, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  I would say 60% is far from a clear primary topic. --Una Smith (talk) 18:26, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose as inconveniencing 40% (give or take) of readers typing "Lincoln" by causing them to load a very large page rather than a lightweight dab is not acceptable. Let's not forget that this is not a binary question between the president and the place in England, there is also the vehicle make, among many others, to consider. Note also that the disambiguation page appears to represent a mere 2.8% of the traffic to the Abraham Lincoln article. –xeno^talk 17:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Alternate proposal

If the redirect fails, I propose that we do away with the multiple first hit thing we have now, and have just one thing at the top: Lincoln most oftenly refers to Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, similar to the header on the Jefferson and Franklin pages. Abe 'clearly has enough for that. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:00, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we should deal with one proposal at a time? It might otherwise start to look like a bit of a points scoring exercise. --Narson ~ Talk • 21:21, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Also bear in mind that consensus on this was reached on this subject not so long ago in one of the sections above. Given that it didn't go fully in your favor I can see why you are so desperate to disrupt things further. Jeni ^(talk) 21:46, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me, but I didn't start the thread about changing this. JHunterJ, who's a mop, did. Stop accusing me of disruption--you're the disruptive POV pusher, not me Purplebackpack89 (talk) 21:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Responding to name-calling with name-calling is just as bad as name-calling. Please let it drop, and stop calling each other names. We're here to talk about an article, not about each other. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

There is a consensus on two things:

1. Abraham Lincoln is more viewed than any other Lincoln page
2. A bunch of people don't want Lincoln to redirect to Abe

That's why I think that instead of the five things at the top we have now, we just have Abraham Lincoln at the top, and put the rest of the things in their respective categories (Lincoln, Nebraska under American cities; Lincoln, England under English cities; Lincoln (surname) under names; and Lincoln car under the other stuff). No effect whatsoever on clicks. Purplebackpack89 (talk) 01:28, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear there's not consensus to demote Lincoln, Lincolnshire from the top of the page. Do you really think that's gonna fly? -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:42, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Placement of articles on the page has never been mentioned. The fact is the primary function of the page--what 60% of the people want to do--is go to Abraham Lincoln. Purplebackpackonthetrail (talk) 14:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Now it's been mentioned. Does having 3 or 4 links at the top, with Abe at the very top, do a disservice to any readers? -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:01, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Oppose This move smacks of US-centrism, which we should oppose, along with several other forms of centrism. Abraham Lincoln may be the best-known meaning, but the English city isn't far behind, and would be regarded by some people as the primary meaning. It is a historically important city with some cultural associations e.g. it gives its name to one of the largest English counties, Robin Hood and his Merry Men dressed in Lincoln green, there were several warships called HMS Lincoln, also the Avro Lincoln bomber, all of which took their name from the English city not the US president. In cases like this which could cause cultural friction we should be cautious about taking sides. PatGallacher (talk) 16:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Primary topic status or a higher location on the dab page is not an "honor" (or even an honour), it should simply be a reflection of how readers use Wikipedia. Yes, there are rare cases where cultural friction tweaks the structure, but I don't think this is one of them, frankly. I think it still useful to focus on how best to help the users who enter "Lincoln" in the search box. (John User:Jwy talk) 16:21, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The best way to help them is to give them a simple, compact disambiguation page which loads quickly. Doing that has the added bonus of enabling all the links to whichever Lincoln they are interested in can be easily disambiguated if necessary. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be advocating for the removal of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC entirely then. If there are ever any ambiguous articles, the base name should always be the disambiguation page, and we should move things like Russia to Russia (nation)? I disagree with the conclusion your argument is pointing toward. Primary topic is the primary topic, whether a U.S.-related topic, UK-related topic, old, new, or otherwise. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia is not a rules-game, advocating something in one context that goes against a guideline does not imply that the guideline should be scrapped in a more general setting. PRIMARYTOPIC usually makes perfect sense. In this case, it might not. If that's so, then in this case, we ignore it, and that's just fine. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:03, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Russia is a longer article than Abraham Lincoln. Advocating that Abraham Lincoln is so long that it would be helpful to ignore its primary-topicness in favor of leaving the disambiguation page at the base name so that all readers of "Lincoln" must go to a simple, compact disambiguation page which loads quickly and whichever Lincoln they are interested in can then be easily disambiguated would apply more to sending readers of "Russia" to a simple, compact disambiguation page which loads quickly and whichever Russia they are interested in can then be easily disambiguated. Pointing out the absurdity of an argument is not rules-gaming. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:53, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I never said you're rules-gaming; you're not. I don't comment on contributors, but on content. Thanks.

We make decisions on a case-by-case basis, so if you think Russia should be set up differently, I'll see you there. In this case, I simply think that it makes sense to have Lincoln as a disambiguation page. That's my opinion, okay? You don't have to agree. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Re You seem to be advocating for the removal of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC entirely then. Like BrownHairedGirl I draw the line at 10X ("order of magnitude"). That does not mean I totally disregard or would discard WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. (Let me be the first to mention those two old bugaboos London and Paris.) In my experience, articles that get 10X the page views of any other candidate on a dab page often are accepted as the primary topic. Rarely have there been redirects available to sample the behavior of readers who view dab pages. Had there not been Lincoln (president), I might have accepted Abraham Lincoln as the clear primary topic. Page view stats for all of 2009:

• 5184230 Abraham Lincoln (example link)
• 83295 Lincoln, Lincolnshire
• 141152 Lincoln (automobile)
• 174335 Lincoln, Nebraska
• 392 Lincoln (surname) (new page)

What this experiment has demonstrated is that (1) the bare Lincoln arguably is not a common name of Abraham Lincoln; and (2) consequently that despite having arguably 10X page views of the other articles combined, Abraham Lincoln is not the primary topic of Lincoln. --Una Smith (talk) 19:28, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

All else being equal, based on the article page views I would have expected 90% or more of dab page readers to link out via Lincoln (president). And if WP:COMMONNAME were a factor I would have expected more like 100%. But the actual number is at most 60%. Isn't that interesting? To me, that suggests we should do many more experiments like this, and perhaps also not allow so many articles to command ambiguous base names and redirects under claims of WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. --Una Smith (talk) 19:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Another experiment currently going on: EA and EA (video game company)/Electronic Arts. Completely agree that the common name of the topic of Abraham Lincoln is Abraham Lincoln, and that is what the article should be titled, but still irrelevant (no "consequently") to the primary topic of "lincoln" -- common name is not a factor of primary topic, so I'm not sure what you're basing that expectation on. The 10x is certainly suitable for individual editors to use but isn't part of the guidelines, and there's no data here to determine how many hits-through-the-disambiguation-page the other topics are getting, in order to make that comparison. One topic getting 10x the hits of all other topics combined, which is the measure I guess you're using, is a tougher row to hoe (although easier to measure, as we can here), and if that's what the primary topic guidelines should reflect, then the guidelines should be updated. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Guidelines describe what we do, not prescribe what we may do. So I say what I do, and why. Disagreement here over the relevance of WP:COMMONNAME seems to turn on interpretation of "common": prevalent vs vernacular? The most prevalent name of Abraham Lincoln is Abraham Lincoln. So why is Abraham Lincoln even listed on Lincoln? Answer: because we have the notion of a vernacular (or a jargon) use of Lincoln to mean Abraham Lincoln. I would like to limit WP:COMMONNAME to the sense of prevalent, and move the guidelines about vernacular names from WP:COMMONNAME to WP:DAB and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. --Una Smith (talk) 22:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I cannot parse the distinction you're implying. The prevalent name of President Lincoln is Abraham Lincoln, so the article is titled that. The topic covered by that article is ambiguous with "lincoln", so the dab page lists it. If the topic covered by that article is the primary use of "lincoln", then the dab page should not be at the base name. The guidelines for "what should this article be titled" (take a topic and determine a name) are naturally different from the guidelines for "what article should we show for this title" (take a name and determine a topic). But if you're proposing a change to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, we don't have to hash it out here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The whole point of the Lincoln (president) redirect was to use a scientific method to circumvent the possibility of "US-centric bias." Nobody is arguing that the redirect to Abe Lincoln should be put in place because he's more important. The issue (about which I am personally undecided) is whether the ~60% of users who appear to arrive here looking for a particular topic is a large enough majority to justify the redirect. Some of the opponents to the redirect may want to consider whether they would feel differently if the topic sought by 60% of users were one of the other usages. Propaniac (talk) 18:21, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

If it was 60-40 Lincoln, Lincolnshire, I'd be fine with Lincoln redirecting there. But it ain't. It's 60-40 Abraham Lincoln Purplebackpack89 (talk) 20:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

If it was 60-40 in favour of Lincoln, Lincolnshire, 40% of people would still be inconvenienced. This doesn't address the issue raised by Ian Spackman. Nev1 (talk) 21:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Whenever there is a primary topic for an ambiguous title, there will be a percentage of people inconvenienced more than the (larger) percentage of people "convenienced". This is normal. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:12, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

And that is precisely why I always ague that the primary topic concept should be applied only when the large percentage is significantly larger, to reflect the the asymmetry of convenience/inconvenience. Applying a 50%+1 logic is too crude, because the gain to the majority is much less than the loss to minority ... and crucially this narrow majoritarianism also ignores the importance of disambiguating links. One of the really disappointing things about these "primary topic" discussions is the number of editors whose posts entirely ignore the benefit to all readers of maintaining a mechanism which allows links to be easily disambiguated. Some editors posts seem to imply that the only issue at stake here is readers who enter a term in a search box. What about those who follow a link which has not been properly disambiguated because the majoritarian choice of a "primary topic" has disabled the mechanisms used to identify and fix such links? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:27, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

No "50%+1" logic has been applied, just the logic of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: "much more used than any other topic". The use of Lincoln for Abraham Lincoln is more than a narrow majority; it gets 50% more use through this page than all the other topics combined, whether they reach this page through the search box or through a link to the dab page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd suggest that people are going to have different interpretations of 'Much more' (Hence the order of magnitudes argument above by...I'm afraid I don't recall the contributor, apologies to them) --Narson ~ Talk • 00:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Right, the "orders of magnitude" claim by Geni doesn't actually reflect anything. There's no data or other reason for the claim. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

YOu believe that less than 900 hits are coming through here for Lincoln, Lincolnshire or the other Lincolns? I'm fairly sure one one of them will be getting the 6 percent required to be within an order of magnitude. Unfotunatly the experiment wasn't set up to provide a complete set of data, so we just have to use some nowse or wait for data to be available. --Narson ~ Talk • 01:05, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Which is what I said, that there's no data or other reason for the claim that other options appear to be within an order of magnitude. But yes, given the extent of the list and the proportion of hits, I believe that fewer than 10% of Lincoln, Lincolnshire's 9K November hits were from this page, if beliefs are appearances. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:49, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I personally believe this whole "order of magnitude" stuff is trash...If people look for Abraham from Lincoln 3-4x times as much as any one other page containing Lincoln from here, it's the primary topic. That, I think, can be more easily proven (and more likely proven correct)

Oppose I believe that the linking of 'Lincoln' directly to Abraham Lincoln is wrong, whilst it is most likely more popular than the others, it defeats the object of Disambiguation and I feel it is an unnecessary move. On top of this the inability to tag the Lincoln (disambiguation) article is an unusual move, disambiguation pages can be assessed in the same way as any normal articles by any WP. If you think differently then perhaps you ought to take it up with Wikipedia:Editorial Team 1.0. 95jb14 (talk) 21:06, 5 January 2010 (UTC).

My thoughts

It would be interesting to see an actual scientific survey about what springs to mind for people when they hear the word "Lincoln." I would bet everything I own that in every country other than the U.K., it would overwhelmingly be Pres. Lincoln. And I think that even in the U.K., he would hold either a slim majority or a significant minority. That's why the above back-and-forth seems so odd to me. The statistics say to do it; the guidelines say to do it; common sense says to do it. Yet, because of the loud protestations of our U.K. colleagues, we don't do it? I'm sorry, but WP:CONSENSUS isn't a hammer, and it shouldn't (and doesn't) override common sense, other guidelines, and IAR (which exists for the betterment of the project). UnitAnode 16:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd advise against making that bet - for me, just the word with no context brings to mind the vehicle make. –xeno^talk 16:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

<sigh> That's why it would be interesting to have an actual scientific survey, instead of just WP user's views. Or, in the alternative, perhaps we could look at the fact that the hits alone tell us that most people wouldn't share your thoughts when they hear or see the word "Lincoln." UnitAnode 16:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately we have only the Lincoln (president) redirect as far as stats go (and also note comments above about poisoning of the data due to participants here). I do note that Lincoln (automobile) has been viewed 14881 times in 200912 [2], nearly as many times as the dab page and that the dab page accounts for only 2.8% of the traffic to Abraham Lincoln. –xeno^talk 16:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Replying to Unitanode, who wrote above: "Yet, because of the loud protestations of our U.K. colleagues, we don't do it?" I would differ with that point. I'm not from the U.K., and I think the page should be kept as is. I hold that opinion because, while Abraham Lincoln is primary, and belongs at the very top of the dab page, there are these cities and this car model that are called simply "Lincoln". The president, on the other hand, is "Abraham Lincoln". For me, that gives the things that are called simply "Lincoln" greater weight.

I'm posting this from North Texas, where I was born and raised; I really don't think this is about where various editors are from, at least not at its core. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

There's been talk of testing some of the other main links with made up, unused redirects: I propose:

• Pipe Lincoln, Lincolnshire out of the this page via Lincoln (city in England)
• Pipe Lincoln, Nebraska out of this page via Lincoln in Nebraska
• Pipe Lincoln (automobile) out of this page via Lincoln (American car)

Purplebackpack89 (talk) 16:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Sure, we could do this to get more detailed stats. But would the result change anything? It seems to me this whole debate boils down to two questions about how to identify the clear primary topic: (1) is it one article vs any one other article, or one article vs all other candidates; and (2) is it a simple majority of 50%, or is it 2X, 3X, or 10X? --Una Smith (talk) 18:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree. If we do such an experiment, we should decide what the results would mean ahead of time, otherwise it would be uselessl. (John User:Jwy talk) 18:17, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• I think this would be very useful. I also think that there needs to be an "X result means Y decision" decided beforehand, so as to minimize the drama afterwards, and to preclude some of the users above from shouting "disruptive" once the results come in. The decision based on the results needs to be binding, not fluid. UnitAnode 18:39, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  (ec) I think it would be interesting, but I can guess at two possible problems: (a) I'd rather not have things boiled down to a mathematical formula, because those tend to be used as weapons in other discussions (just as above some felt that I was brandishing the traffic stats a little too vigorously), and (b) there would be another indeterminate discussion trying to push & pull the formula one way or the other. If the move request above fails, despite its obviousness to me, I'm content to let this lie until it rises up organically again. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• These experiments are unscientific and also prone to gaming, so I don't think further disruption of the dab page by making funny links is necessary. –xeno^talk 18:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  Prone to gaming, yes, and I agree with the conclusion, but unscientific how? -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:53, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  Because (by virtue of gaming, curiosity, or boredom) the experimenters are polluting the results by clicking through the links. –xeno^talk 18:55, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  OK. You're using "unscientific" for "imperfect control". Different than how I would have used it. Cheers. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:00, 5 January 2010 (UTC)