Talk:EA (disambiguation)

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Japanese[edit]

this page was in japanise but now it is in english—Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.39.20.10 (talk • contribs) 13:49, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 30 January 2009[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was no consensus. --Aervanath (talk) 16:52, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

EA (disambiguation) → EA — The acronym should not disambiguate as an article page. — 121.96.111.196 (talk) 08:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Survey 30 January 2009[edit]

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.
  • Actually, The very first version of the page that was formerly at EA and is now at EA (disambiguation) a redirect to Electronic Arts. It stayed that way for six months until it was changed into a dab page. That page was moved to EA (disambiguation) on 23 April 2006, and EA again became a redirect to Electronic Arts. Not that ancient history really makes all that much of a difference in determination of primary topic though. Inertia is a poor substitute for evidence. older ≠ wiser 03:43, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct. These page moves and redirects make my head spin. --Una Smith (talk) 04:40, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Seems clear to me that it DOES have a primary subject (Electronic Arts). TJ Spyke 21:52, 30 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Never heard of it. --Una Smith (talk) 03:31, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You've never heard of one of the largest video game companies in the world? Publisher of the Madden NFL series, Need for Speed series, etc.? TJ Spyke 05:55, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Never heard of them either. I expected Electronic Arts to be about a college major in, um, Electronic Arts. --Una Smith (talk) 03:14, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The name came from the fact that the founder of the company wanted his workers to be treated like artists (which they are) rather than as just replaceable cogs like assembly line workers (which is how Atari was treating its employees). Kinda hard to imagine you've never heard of them even if you don't like video games, especially if you ever watch football or almost any TV in August (when Madden commericals air almost nonstop). The Madden Bowl also gets tons of coverage on ESPN every year. TJ Spyke 04:29, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as per Una Smith and PamD. There are many meanings in the acronym. Electronic Arts (gaming company), Eastern Airlines (defunct American airline) and more. ApprenticeFan (talk) 05:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I think primary meaning is the game company, so it's appropriate to hatnote the dab as a redirect result. 76.66.196.229 (talk)
  • Support. Many meanings of EA, no clear primary meaning. And by the way, I have never heard of Electronic Arts, Madden NFL, or Need for Speed either. I should think those terms are meaningful chiefly in the world of video games. •••Life of Riley (talk) 03:51, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. There is no obvious primary topic. (FWIW, I've never heard of Electronic Arts either. To me, EA means Endowment Assurance, from my professional background). NSH001 (talk) 13:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. "I think thats" and "I've heard ofs" aside, actual links to EA are overwhelmingly intended for Electronic Arts, which indicates that it is the primary topic. Dekimasuよ! 00:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • comment. That doesn't prove very much. I could go through the list and "correct" all the links to the redirect to pipe to the correct article, in an attempt to negate your point. That wouldn't prove very much either. All it shows is that, among the population of Wikipedia editors who use the acronym "EA" (and who are too lazy to pipe to the article), most of them use it to refer to the video games company. This is different from what we should be concerned with, namely the whole group of people world-wide who use Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. For an acronym to have a primary topic, there needs to be pretty overwhelming evidence that it's the principal meaning for this group. There are so many uses here I doubt that any single one (including Electronic Arts) has more then 10%-20% or so. Accordingly there is no primary topic, and EA should become a disambiguation page. NSH001 (talk) 00:14, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • If the page is moved, someone will have to fix all of those links to pipe them to the correct article. Usually it is considered courtesy for the person who wants to move the dab page to the plain title to do so. Doubting primary topic status is one thing, but there has been no evidence presented in favor of a move here. What percentage of people who reach Electronic Arts hit the link for the dab page? Dekimasuよ! 06:07, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • After checking myself, the answer to the question is: under 7% of those who type "EA" in the search bar subsequently click the link for "EA (disambiguation)". "EA" received 11609 hits in January; "EA (disambiguation)" received only 786. "Electronic Arts" itself received 49247. Noting this below as well. Dekimasuよ! 06:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Not so, because we don't know how many actually type "EA" in the search box. I suspect most of those hits come from users clicking links to the redirect from video-game articles, so this tells us nothing new. NSH001 (talk) 11:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Given the number of uses, I don't see a case for there being a primary use. I say this knowing someone who worked for the company. If you are into video gaming, this might be the primary use. But in general, especially for an encyclopedia, there is no primary use. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:07, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion 30 January 2009[edit]

Any additional comments:
  • Does anyone have any evidence that Electronic Arts either is or is not the primary use of "EA"? Station1 (talk) 08:50, 31 January 2009 (UTC
    • Well, Googling from the UK, only 3 of the first 5 hits are Electronic Arts, the others being Environment Agency and Evangelical Alliance. Given the inherent bias of the internet towards electronic games etc, I don't think that shows primary usage. PamD (talk) 19:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Googling from their main site (the US based one), the first 10 results (the first page) all are about the game company [2]. TJ Spyke 20:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are many several things of EA. For example (Electronic Arts, Eastern Airlines, Earth Alliance, and more.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.96.114.248 (talk) 12:13, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Under 7% of those who type "EA" in the search bar subsequently click the link for "EA (disambiguation)". "EA" received 11609 hits in January; "EA (disambiguation)" received only 786. In December 2008, the percentage was lower: 736/13190=5.6%. "Electronic Arts" as a whole got over a hundred thousand hits in December and January, and the dab link was clicked roughly 1500 times. Dekimasuよ! 06:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • We don't know how many of those hits are from users typing "EA" in the search box. Most of them are likely to be from users clicking links to the redirect from video-game articles, so those percentages are almost certainly incorrect, and tell us nothing new. NSH001 (talk) 11:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • You are correct that not all those hits are necesarily from readers typing EA in the search box. Many may be from links. But that doesn't change the point that most readers landing on EA and redirected to Electronic Arts, for whatever reason, do not go on to the dab page. Station1 (talk) 18:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move August 2009[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was casting vote: move. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:29, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
EA (disambiguation) → EA — No obvious primary use for this acronym. The disambiguation page should be at EA. --NSH001 (talk) 18:26, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further explanation[edit]

Short acronyms having many possible meanings should normally be dab pages. In order for one particular use to be deemed a primary use (i.e., such that it displaces the dab page to "xx (disambiguation)"), the case needs to be overwhelming that it is the most commonly used instance of the acronym. To get a feel for this, I looked at all 260 of the two-character acronyms beginning with a vowel, including both lower-case (Xx) and upper-case (XX) variants. Some of the lower-case examples are words in their own right, and do not affect the argument. The dab page may be at either the lower- or upper-case variant, with a redirect from the other. Again, this makes no difference. The only examples where the dab page is not at either of the acronym pages are:

Were it not for the protracted argument about the naming of Aum, the dab page would almost certainly be at OM. Apart from OM and the dab pages with only a trivial number of entries, these are all obvious cases of primary use, and familiar to all educated adults. Not so with Electronic Arts, which is familiar only to video game enthusiasts, and to the usual groups of stakeholders in the company. Even among those familiar with the company, there must also be some doubt about whether they regard it as the primary meaning of the acronym.

I recently cleaned up all the incorrect mainspace links to EA, leaving only the two correct links. This removes the main practical objection to the move raised in the previous move request above. I think the way is now clear, at last, to move this disambiguation page to where it belongs, namely EA.

--NSH001 (talk) 18:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Survey August 2009[edit]

  • Oppose — The primary usage for EA is Electronic Arts. People looking Electronic Arts are more likely to just put EA than the full name, due to the company advertising themselves as EA. 『 ɠu¹ɖяy 』 ¤ • ¢ 19:00, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • comment This is a general encyclopedia, not a video gaming site. Most people who are not gamers will not have heard of Electronic Arts. This is not the case with the examples above, where even if they are not familiar with the subject, all educated adults can be expected to have heard of it. Electronic Arts does not meet this criterion, not by a long way, which is why it cannot be the primary use for this page. --NSH001 (talk) 17:57, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Too many different uses of this initialism for the EA page to redirect to Electronic Arts. Highspeed (talk) 03:02, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Electronic Arts is the primary meaning of the initials. TJ Spyke 23:59, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - "EA" appears to mean "Electronic Arts" for those who are interested in videogames and/or who watch American football or American television in August (from T J Spyke's statement above: "Kinda hard to imagine you've never heard of them even if you don't like video games, especially if you ever watch football or almost any TV in August (when Madden commericals air almost nonstop)."). For the remaining majority of English-speaking people on the planet, "EA" has a multiplicity of meanings, so the dab page should be at EA. PamD (talk) 07:32, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Primary topic already the target of the redirect. Having a multiplicity of meanings does not mean that there isn't a primary topic among the multiplicity. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:59, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    comment the bit about multiplicity is true, as I showed above in the case of UK, US, etc. What I am saying is that in the case of such pages, we cannot accept as the primary usage a meaning that most people (other than video gamers) are unlikely to have heard of. --NSH001 (talk) 16:22, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    If there is evidence that most non-video-gamers haven't heard of EA despite their advertising campaigns in channels that most people would be exposed to, sure. I've added evidence that there is a primary topic below. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Electronic Arts is often referred to simply as "EA", but they do not have sole ownership of the acronym. Anyone searching for them can easily find them via the disambiguation page. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 16:14, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Primary topic-ness is not about ownership. If being easily findable on a dab page were a criterion, no ambiguous phrase would have a primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Personally the first thing I think of when I hear "EA" is the video game company -- but that doesn't mean it's the primary usage of the acronym. It just means Electronic Arts has a good marketing department. Non-gamers wouldn't make such a mental jump. Equazcion (talk) 19:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Evidence. EA was visited 8215 times in July. EA (disambiguation) was visited 104 times in July (and 68 of those hits came on July 31 for some reason). Clearly, most of the people visiting EA found what they were looking for (the primary topic) without hitting the disambiguation page. Ignoring that primary topic would help the 100 visitors at the expense of the other 8000. (Stats from http://stats.grok.se/) -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know that such a poll should be prescriptive for us. Companies' popularity can fluctuate. Should we change where acronyms direct to depending on which trends are currently in? For an encyclopedia I don't think that's wise, even if it means that, for now, most people will need to perform an extra click to get where they're going. Equazcion (talk) 20:00, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The answer is, yes, the primary topic can change. The consensus wisdom for the encyclopedia is, where possible, to save "most people" the extra click by proper selection of a primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:01, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Unfortunately your numbers are off because the dab page was at plain EA from 25 Feb until 28 July (hence the jump at the end of July), despite the lack of consensus in the previous proposal. The basic rationale is sound, however. If you go back to January or earlier, you'll see only slightly less dramatic proportions. Station1 (talk) 20:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, thanks -- I just assumed that the previous RM had been observed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:01, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem with this argument is that it assumes all page views result from using the Wikipedia search box. That is very unlikely. Other alternatives are the reader clicks a link in an outside search engine, follows an external link, or follows an internal link. Outside search engines generally show enough of the target that the reader can pick the one they want before they click, so we have no data. External links we can do very little about, so are best ignored. Internal links we can fix, especially if they link to a disambiguation page. If most of the page views of Electronic Arts come via internal links, then putting the disambiguation page at EA actually improves the Wikipedia experience for all readers. EA has only two incoming links, neither link having to do with Electronic Arts. --Una Smith (talk) 05:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I do not understand the claim of improvement if most of the page views of Electronic Arts come via internal links. EA now has only two incoming links because the editor proposing this move fixed the many internal links for Electronic Arts that used to (correctly) use the redirect EA (contrary to WP:R#NOTBROKEN). -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:15, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    If most page views are via internal links, then putting the dab page at EA helps to ensure readers view the page they expect, because the internal links will be correct and direct. As for using an acronym in the linking article, that is poor style. --Una Smith (talk) 14:38, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Internal links can be correct whether or not they are direct (WP:R#NOTBROKEN) and whether or not there is a primary topic. Why is linking to "EA" poor style? (In the style guidelines, that is.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:14, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion August 2009[edit]

The previous links to the redirect were not incorrect -- see WP:R#NOTBROKEN. I also do not understand why your unscientific survey included only two-letter acronyms that begin with a vowel. But in any event, WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for any given two-letter pair (or any other title) is only informed by the use of that title, not by the placement of other titles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:53, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I am already familiar with WP:NOTBROKEN, and yes, you are mostly (there were one or two that did not relate to Electronic Arts) correct if you think EA should just be a redirect. But if you think, as I do, that EA should be a dab page, then they are most definitely incorrect. I have, in effect, followed the "honour code" in advance re changing links following the move of a dab page, but it does little harm even if the page is not moved. It has also helped to provide some evidence to satisfy my scientific curiosity regarding the page-hit evidence, which I will deal with elsewhere.
My "unscientific survey" was an attempt to gauge how significant (always a matter of judgement) an entry has to be in order to be regarded as the primary topic (and nothing whatsoever, as you allege, to do with the "placement of other titles"). Choosing the 5 vowels was a quick way of getting a manageable sample size as close as possible to the present case without having to examine all 1352 possible cases.
--NSH001 (talk) 08:04, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's not how it works. If you think it should be a dab page, then while it's a redirect they still are not broken, and do not become broken until there is consensus that it is a dab page -- and then they become broken because they are links to a disambiguation page. "Following the honor code in advance" is not following the honor code. Countering the "it does little harm" argument is exactly the point of WP:R#NOTBROKEN. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:19, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
EA was the dab page from 25 Feb until 28 July. If all but one or two of the (I assume many) incoming links were intended for Electronic Arts, that seems to me to be a strong indication that most editors consider Electronic Arts to be the primary use of EA. Station1 (talk) 19:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Most editors" (or "Most editors who edit without checking whether they are linking to a dab page") does not represent "Most readers". There are some people who know about video game companies, and some who don't: in the real world, I suggest that the latter predominate! PamD (talk) 19:21, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The question is what are most Wikipedia readers looking for, and (suggestions and anecdotes aside) the evidence points towards the video game company as the answer. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:02, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that is the question. I think the question was framed rather well by the original poster, when he referred to the average educated adult. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC says that traffic stats are not a determining factor. It also says "If there is extended discussion about which article truly is the primary topic, that may be a sign that there is in fact no primary topic, and that the disambiguation page should be located at the plain title with no '(disambiguation)'". I think this qualifies as an extended discussion, and evidence that the topic's status isn't clear cut enough to deem it primary.Equazcion (talk) 01:15, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The evidence appears clear enough to me, and there is no evidence to the contrary. Just as there is no bias for video game companies, there should be no bias against video game companies. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:19, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Analogous examples for companies being the primary topic of a two-letter acronym:

--JHunterJ (talk) 23:08, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This nicely illustrates my point: these are all very large, well-known multinational companies that most people have heard of, and no-one, I think, would dispute their primary topic status. I had never heard of Electronic Arts until I saw it here. I have never seen it advertised on television, nor heard it advertised on radio. I have never heard it mentioned in business/investment programmes on radio/TV; I have never heard any of my friends, family, acquaintances or business colleagues mention it in conversation. I have never encountered any of its products (but I am not a video/computer gamer, unless you count minesweeper, I suppose). I have never seen it mentioned in a newspaper article. This company has made absolutely no impression whatsoever, zilch, nada, nichts, nothing. I would not be devoting so much time and effort to this if I did not think the idea of this company being the primary topic so preposterous (especially so, as this is the type of debate I normally try to avoid as an unproductive waste of time).
--NSH001 (talk) 08:04, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But primary topic is also not determine by what a single editor has or hasn't heard of. There are many primary topics covering entities I have never heard of either. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pageview statistics for July: General Electric 62,890; Electronic Arts 53,050; Hewlett Packard 47,294; BP 34,832. The pattern for June is the same. WP readers view Electronic Arts as much or more than articles where no one would dispute primary topic status (and without benefit from the two-letter redirect during this period). And I'm not sure why we should discriminate against video gamers. Station1 (talk) 19:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's not an issue of discrimination. It's not like we're saying an electric company deserves to be a primary topic more than a game company. It's more like GE is a household name while EA is esoteric. Equazcion (talk) 20:12, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But if 50-60K users per month are viewing the article about EA, more than HP or BP, why are you assuming EA is more esoteric than HP or BP? Station1 (talk) 20:50, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why would you assume otherwise? That discrepancy could (and I'll bet does) just say more about Wikipedia's demographic than it does about which company is actually more prominent in the minds of the general public. Besides which it's not an assumption, it's more of an anecdotal conclusion. My parents know what HP is. They don't know what EA is. I think a lot of people here could say the same thing. Equazcion (talk) 20:55, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that I'm not assuming anything. I'm looking at evidence suggested at WP:PRIMARYTOPIC such as pageviews and incoming links, not anecdotal evidence. It doesn't matter whether or not I or my family or most of the world have heard of EA. The question is, What is the primary use of the article title EA on Wikipedia? Station1 (talk) 21:25, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

arbitrary break[edit]

Re WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, the proper comparison is not the claimed primary topic vs the dab page, but rather that topic vs other topics. Above, someone notes Electronic Arts was viewed 8000 times in July; well Eastern Air Lines (a defunct airline with the code EA) was viewed 11163. A dab page should be viewed almost never, and in my experience dab pages are viewed less often when they occupy the ambiguous base name and all incoming links are disambiguated. That is the ideal. If the dab page occupied EA, there would be no need for a hatnote about it on Electronic Arts. --Una Smith (talk) 05:57, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Electronic Arts brands itself EA. Eastern Air Lines did not brand itself EA. How do you "experience" dab page view frequency? If elimination of hatnotes is the ideal, then no primary topic should occupy the base name. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:19, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is of no concern here what any company "brands" itself, and within the article Electronic Arts EA can be used to mean Electronic Arts. The question is, is Electronic Arts the primary topic of "EA". Clearly, it is not. --Una Smith (talk) 14:34, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My experience concerns disambiguating incoming links to dab pages, and seeing the result in number of page views. That EA (disambiguation) is getting hundreds of page views per month tells me an excessive number of readers who end up on Electronic Arts do not intend to be there. --Una Smith (talk) 14:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But it's not getting hundreds of page views per month. The "excessive number" is the thousands of readers reaching the page they want (Electronic Arts) from the "EA" redirect, and that's the "excessive number" that would be impeded bu ignoring the primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:50, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Una is right, it is getting hundreds of hits a month; so far (up to 23 August) it has received 548 hits this month. --NSH001 (talk) 18:24, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
True, but EA is getting thousands of hits: 5,960 this month. The current setup inconveniences hundreds of viewers, but if the situation is reversed, thousands will be inconvenienced (roughly 10 times as many). Station1 (talk) 19:42, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've just looked at the traffic stats for Ea (small a), and it reports exactly the same figures as for EA, including the same figures for each day. Obviously a bug somewhere. I'm about to go to bed now, but maybe someone could investigate this further? --NSH001 (talk) 21:46, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The program does not differentiate based on case. However Ea redirected to EA (disambiguation) prior to 25 Feb, and since EA (disambiguation) got a small fraction of the hits of EA/Ea, the hits on Ea are relatively insignificant. I do favor redirecting Ea to the dab page, though, or moving the dab page to Ea as suggested in the previous proposal. Station1 (talk) 22:41, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Is it picking up EA, or Ea, or is it aggregating the two? Or is there really a bug somewhere? In order to interpret the stats correctly, it is important to know this. --NSH001 (talk) 06:59, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Another query: do you know if it is attempting to avoid double-counting on redirects? It obviously counts hits on the redirect page, but does it then count 1 on the target page, or does it count zero to avoid double-counting? If the latter, then that would make a significant difference to the interpretation of the stats. Thanks. --NSH001 (talk) 11:00, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Getting 548 hits this month is not getting "hundreds of hits per month" -- look at the previous months (104, 80-odd, 80-odd). Of course the hits on the dab page went up when the proposed move was proposed -- and that has absolutely no bearing on the determination of the primary topic. Sheesh. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:16, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
JHJ, the dab page was at EA for most of those earlier months, so not surprising that EA (disambiguation) gets very few hits in that period. Station1 even pointed this out to you, and you thanked him for it. The effect of this discussion is minimal in comparison. Sheesh indeed. --NSH001 (talk) 06:40, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As mentioned above, the dab page was at plain EA from 25 Feb to 28 July so looking at those months is meaningless. Dab page hits were in fact in the high hundreds before Feb. But the important point is that they were a small fraction of the 10,000+ monthly hits on EA/Ea, indicating that 90% of the people landing on EA did not want something other than Electronic Arts. Station1 (talk) 22:41, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's an incorrect comparison. The correct comparison is page hits on Electronic Arts vs page hits on all other articles to which EA could redirect. --Una Smith (talk) 23:51, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
They're both correct; they just tell you two different things. The former tells you that most of the 10K+ people clicking on EA wind up where they expect to be; the latter is an indication that Electronic Arts is primary use of the abbreviation on WP. Station1 (talk) 00:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No. Page view stats do not tell us where readers go from the dab page. All we can do is estimate where they go, and to do that we can look at the page view stats for each article listed on the dab page. --Una Smith (talk) 14:38, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Electronic Arts was viewed 53,050 times in July (not 8,000). Nothing else is close. Station1 (talk) 19:42, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Una Smith was mis-stating my count of the hits on "EA" (not "Electronic Arts"). -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:20, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Page view stats for 2009 and page view stats for 2008 show the page views for EA (disambiguation) declined by an order of magnitude during early 2009, during the time the dab page had the page name EA and its links were disambiguated. That tells me the incoming links to EA did need to be disambiguated. Page view stats for July 2009 and August 2009 show the effect of moving the dab page from EA back to EA (disambiguation): estimating by eyeball, it appears the daily number of page views is 20, so about 600 per month. Readers don't visit a page with "(disambiguation)" in its name by accident, so those 600 page views per month reflect readers who we know are not on the page they want. To me, that is a rather high cost of one article's "branding". --Una Smith (talk) 23:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If 600 users have to click through Electronic Arts to the dab page and then to the article they want (current set up), those 1200 clicks are better than the 10,000 clicks of 10,000 people having to click through the dab page to get to Electronic Arts (proposed set up). The cost is not high, and it's not a cost of branding, it's the cost of primary usageness. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:29, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why would so many readers pass through the dab page? Where would they be coming from? What is the basis for this speculation? --Una Smith (talk) 14:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Because the proposal is to put a disambiguation page in their way. They'd be coming from "EA" in the Go box (and from the return of not-broken direct links to EA from articles). -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:44, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Traffic stats[edit]

Traffic stats for September 2009:

  • Hits on EA: 6249.
  • Hits on EA (video game company): 4230

This means that just over 2/3 of the readers coming to the disambiguation page "EA" are actually trying to reach the page "Electronic Arts", a clear indication of a primary topic (the video game company redirect is only linked form the dab page). Ea, Biscay, got 112 hits (including those who don't hit the dab page). Electricity Association got 86 hits.

It's time (again) to move this page out of the way of the readers. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:43, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, EA (video game company) has incoming links, including interwiki links. That will inflate the page views on the redirect. Too bad. --Una Smith (talk) 22:04, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
These stats are also dubious because prior to the page move in late August 2009 the page EA was occupied by a redirect to the article about the company. When where incoming Wikipedia links repaired? Were there (are there still) incoming links from outside Wikipedia? --Una Smith (talk) 22:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I just repaired incoming links to EA (video game company), also the incoming links to EA, most of which intended Electronic Arts. If we are to use redirects to monitor where readers go from dab pages, we'll need to use redirects that disambiguating editors can recognize, so they do not make links to these redirects. --Una Smith (talk) 23:06, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Incoming wikilinks to "EA" are part of the criteria for determining primary topic - those users of the page also help determine the usage of the term. Similarly for external links. The stats above for September are clean, since those numbers are after the move you mention. I don't know when the new links to "EA (video game company)" were added. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
External links to Wikipedia from web pages, blogs, etc. don't count; they are left over from when EA was an article. Hits that result from search engines do count, sort of; it takes a while for Google and other search engines to catch up.
There were 3 new links to the redirect, made in November and December. All 3 linking articles got a lot of page views in 2009: DAO 46700, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning 127477, Pure Data 43926. That would tend to skew the data for the later months. Indeed, redirect page views as a percentage of dab page views were 68% in September, 69% in October, 70% in November, 75% in December, and 80% in January so far. I also repaired 8 links to the dab, 7 intending Electronic Arts. --Una Smith (talk) 00:57, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why do you say they don't count? They indicate usage, which is why primary topic is about. 7/8 links intending Electronic Arts also further indicates the primary topic being the video game company. Yes, the experimental stats for the test redirect for December and part of November (whenever the link was introduced) would be improperly skewed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:16, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
High page view stats due to the recent location (page name) of an article on Wikipedia is a kind of recentism, and using these stats as a basis for decisions here encourages the attitude that whichever article manages to occupy the page name for the longest time somehow "earns" it. That attitude in turn encourages edit warring and disputes. I think primary topics should be identified based on usage in reliable sources. Unfortunately, the experiment of using a redirect to watch link transits is so easy to manipulate. So are incoming links. --Una Smith (talk) 03:08, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Primary topic determination does not currently depend on reliable sources, only on Wikipedia usage. And I believe that is the correct determination. Reliable sources is for article content. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:56, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Primary topic determination does NOT depend only on Wikipedia usage statistics. It is one factor, and unfortunately because of the simplistic appeal of numerical data, it sometimes carries far too much weight. The Wikipedia project is about building the best free encyclopedia possible. It is not just a web site to be optimized for its online readers. older ≠ wiser 00:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I did say "usage", and not "usage statistics". Primary topic determination, at least as it's currently put forth, depends on the topic being much more used. (In this case, though, optimizing for its online readers does not appear to conflict with building the best free encyclopedia, but I've never claimed the statistics determined the optimum.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 03:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
JHunterJ, you say "Wikipedia usage" determines the primary topic. How do you define "Wikipedia usage"? --Una Smith (talk) 07:44, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What is the significance of the distinction if when discussing Wikipedia usage you present traffic statistics as evidence? older ≠ wiser 10:53, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Editors determine, evidence supports (or informs), not evidence determines, editors support. I do not define "Wikipedia usage" any differently than the normal English definitions of those words. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:19, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
JHunterJ, would you say an article that gets a simple majority of links out from a dab page qualifies as primary topic? --Una Smith (talk) 15:31, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not necessarily. If there are two topics and one gets 51% of the links out and the other gets 49%, I would say there's no primary topic. If one gets 51% and 49 others each get 1%, I'd say there was a primary topic. I do not have a mathematical definition of where the line lies in between those two, though. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:36, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move (May 2010)[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Page moved; general consensus is that Electronic Arts is the primary topic. Ucucha 19:00, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


EA → EA (disambiguation) — to allow EA to redirect to the primary topic, Electronic Arts, per above traffic stats from September 2009, As well as these from the past three months (hits for EA (video game company) / hits for EA):

  • February 2010: 4633/6178
  • March 2010: 5203/7452
  • April 2010: 4476/9121
  • Feb-Apr 2010: 14312/22751 = 63%. [ JHunterJ (talk) ADDED NOTE ON 14:34, 21 May 2010 (UTC): There are the hit counts for the redirect created on this dab page and the hit counts for the dab page itself, so the ratio is the ratio of users using EA to get to the game company among all users looking for one of the ambiguous EA topics.] This evidence supports the assertion that Electronic Arts is the primary topic of EA. JHunterJ (talk) 11:33, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Survey[edit]

  • Support as nominator. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:33, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Oppose almost 40% are looking for something other than the video game company, that's a significant number.--Labattblueboy (talk) 20:24, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure I understand the significance of it. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: "more likely than all the others combined". All others combined = 37%, video game company = 63%, more likely than all others combined. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What is the next highest traffic page with an EA acronym? If you're talking less than 10% than I would be more inclined to support.--Labattblueboy (talk) 16:55, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know. You can use http://stats.grok.se/ to investigate. Since I know it is less than 37%, the actual number between 1-37% wouldn't actually change the primacy of the video game's traffic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:06, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Oppose 100 percent. As there are no primary topic. Therefore, there are many "EA" initial-isms like "Eastern Airlines", "Engine Alliance", and more... ApprenticeFan work 11:45, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I understand and agree that there are other EA initialisms. Can you explain how you came to the conclusion that the one used most often (the one that meets the criteria of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC) is not the primary topic though? -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:19, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Right, EA has several initialisms on the page -- that means that there's ambiguity that needs to be resolved. No one disagrees with that. The question is, is one of those several initialisms a topic that the Wikipedia readership primarily intends when they use "EA" (WP:PRIMARYTOPIC)? If the answer is yes (and it appears that it is), the disambiguation page continues to exist, but at EA (disambiguation), so that EA can redirect to the primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:07, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

*Oppose - as someone who does not play video games or watch American television, I had never heard of "Electronic Arts" before this discussion: EA might mean Eastern Airlines or Environment Agency perhaps. I find it difficult to believe that on a worldwide scale this company is the primary usage of such a polyvalent pair of letters. PamD (talk) 13:58, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An individual editor's anecdotal experience or awareness of the primary topic is not one of the criteria for determining a primary topic though. You might be surprised to discover that the primary usage is a meaning with which you are unfamiliar, but your surprise shouldn't make it difficult to believe the evidence. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:02, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was still trying to counter the arguments put forward in earlier discussions such as "Kinda hard to imagine you've never heard of them even if you don't like video games, especially if you ever watch football or almost any TV in August (when Madden commericals air almost nonstop)."! But in fact having now read more carefully the results of your experiment, I'll withdraw my opposition. It does indeed appear that the world of WP readers is more skewed towards Americans and videogamers than I'd have thought. But, I suggest that Ea should still redirect to the dab page. PamD (talk) 14:18, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for that strike, PamD. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:34, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support per statistics. The question here is not "Can EA refer to multiple topics?", it's "Are users much more likely to be using EA, and this disambiguation page, to reach Electronic Arts than to reach any other topic?" (In accordance with our guideline on this situation.) The statistics presented by the nominator indicate that this is in fact the case. Propaniac (talk) 14:11, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Per JHJ's statistical evidence --Cybercobra (talk) 14:34, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom. Why make every user go through the dab page when we can send 60%+ of them to the article they want with the first click?--ShelfSkewed Talk 15:10, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. In this case, the traffic stats are compelling, especially when coupled with a lack of any rival as determined by any measure. older ≠ wiser 18:57, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for the reasons stated in the discussion below. --NSH002 (talk) 22:28, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The reasons stated in the discussion below appear to be your reasons for a proposed change to the guidelines. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:42, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes and no. Yes, they are reasons for possible changes to the guidelines. No, because other editors may wish to consider those arguments in deciding on this proposed move. --NSH002 (talk) 18:04, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I hope not. That has been an on-going problem with primary topic moves, editors and closing admins relying on arguments that are not based on the guidelines. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:27, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

  • Hm... Your argument (probably incorrectly) assumes that "EA" is the only way users reaching the "EA (video game company)". How do the viewership numbers for the other members of the dab page shape up? –xenotalk 13:30, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Since that redirect was created to be used from the disambiguation page specifically to enable those statistics to be collected, you're right about the assumption, but wrong about "probably incorrectly". The other 37% can be shaped up by the other members of the dab any number of ways, all of which still leave the 63% (primary) using the video game company. You can use http://stats.grok.se/ to see what that division is, though, if you like. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:54, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Ahhh... One of those little experimenty-type deals like they did at Lincoln. Objection withdrawn. –xenotalk 13:57, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Based on the arguments above so far, if the consensus is that there is no primary topic here, that would indicate that the disambiguation guidelines should be changed to reflect how consensus is actually formed in the wild: "Primary topic is not determined by the usage of the majority of the readership; instead, if individual editors think different topics are significant, or if any one editor has never heard of the topic that the majority of readers are looking for, or if there are many ambiguous topics regardless of which one is used most often, then there is no primary topic." I hope that isn't the case. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:09, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think that the guidelines need to be changed on the basis of the arguments referred to by JHJ, and I don't think anyone is arguing that case. But just to go back to the question of ease of navigation, there is an important point that seems to have been overlooked. When I'm looking for an article that I know can also be abbreviated by an acronym, it is actually quicker to enter the acronym in the search box, and then click on the required link in the dab page, than it is to enter the full name of the article in the search box. This advantage is destroyed if, instead, the acronym redirects to a large page, loaded down with images and templates as well as substantial text. So we have a trade-off: 60% of users are forced to make an extra click (taking negligible time), or the other 40% are forced to wait while a large, unwanted article appears, and then have to click twice more, once on the hatnote, then again on the dab page. Which is worse? (On my home connection, Electronic Arts takes about 6 seconds to load, and at my local public library, it takes about 10 seconds to load - the dab page comes up in well under a second.) It seems to me there is a good case for modifying the guidelines, certainly for two-letter acronyms, possibly also for three-letter acronyms. --NSH002 (talk) 22:26, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    You should see if there is consensus for your proposal for a change in the guidelines, then. I don't think there is. FM, NY, and AD, for instance, rightly have primary topics, as do FBI and USA. Two-letter acronyms and three-letter acronyms are currently subject to the same guidelines for primary topic as any other titles. "Destroyed" is a strong word there, but certainly the convenience for one group is given up for the convenience of others with every decision about placement of ambiguous topic articles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:11, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Please don't falsely ascribe views to me that I don't hold. I don't believe, and have never said, that none of these acronyms should ever have a primary topic. You should already be aware of that from the earlier discussion, and FWIW I agree with you on the examples you've just given. --NSH002 (talk) 18:18, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I can't tell which views you hold, except by reading the views you post. I apologize if I'm forgetting an earlier discussion. Can you please clarify what "It seems to me there is a good case for modifying the guidelines, certainly for two-letter acronyms, possibly also for three-letter acronyms." means in this context then? I took it to mean that you wanted two- and possibly three-letter disambiguations pages to occupy the base name even when the usual primary topic guidelines would indicate a primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:25, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • IP is an acronym for Internet Protocol, see Talk:IP#Requested move. ApprenticeFan work 00:15, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It's true that "IP" is an acronym for "Internet Protocol". Even though that's true, iIt may or may not be true that "Internet Protocol" is the primary topic of "IP" on Wikipedia. Whether that is or isn't primary topic of "IP", it may or may not be true that "EA" has a primary topic (from a guidelines perspective). Some titles have primary topics; some titles don't. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:22, 22 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would say that Eastern Airlines would have a high primacy value pre-collapse of the airline, and that EA for Electronic Arts may be temporally biased. 76.66.193.224 (talk) 00:18, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Based on what? -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:46, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

First line - don't pipe[edit]

WP:MOSDAB says "When the ambiguous term has a primary topic but that article has a different title (so that the term is the title of a redirect), the primary topic line normally uses the redirect to link to that article:" and gives an example where the bolded first word is the redirect at Danzig leading to article at Gdansk. So our first word here should stay at EA, going via the redirect, and not be piped as [[Electronic Arts|EA]]. PamD (talk) 08:01, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Effective altruism sources[edit]

This is just a dump of ELs in case someone decides to fight over the inclusion of the article.

https://www.eaglobal.org/

https://www.reddit.com/r/EffectiveAltruism/search?q=EA&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all

http://effective-altruism.com/ ("EA blogs")

http://www.vox.com/2015/8/10/9124145/effective-altruism-global-ai

http://wiki.effectivealtruismhub.com/index.php?title=Effective_Altruism_Wiki

etc. K.Bog 08:11, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Please use one or more of these to support the newly-added statement in the article that says the abbreviation is used. For the dab page, all that's needed is that the abbreviation is included in the article page, reliably sourced. PamD 10:32, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Abbreviation is already frequently used in the citations and related terms (e.g. EA global) in the linked article. No need to specifically point it out. K.Bog 12:45, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 2019[edit]

EA (disambiguation) ---> EA because not everybody fans Electronic Arts' games and stuff. Others who want something that's EA and type it into the URL but get redirected to Electronic Arts may be kinda confused because they haven't heard of Electronic Arts before. Besides, though 95% of searches for EA are about Electronic Arts, it is NOT the primary topic for EA. Barracuda41 (talk) 01:34, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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