User talk:B Fizz/Primary Topic

Issues, round 1

I feel that the current wording of this editing guideline lacks concreteness. By exploring the concept a little more, I think that we can provide a better guide to deciding what the primary topic is.

• I have been involved in discussion of the redirection of Avatar (film). While most agree that Avatar should NOT point to Avatar (2009 film), there is nothing in the policy that embraces that notion. Perhaps we should add a clause stating that Wikipedia is not Google, and that traditional, longstanding meaning of a word is given preference in cases like this one.

• The argument has been raised that " The article title <ambiguous_title> is ambiguous and although a grand majority of readers will be looking for <popular_page>, the logicial redirect is to a disambiguation page, because again, the article title is ambiguous." When is it or is it not appropriate to send users to a disambiguation page, rather than forcing them to the more likely page, with a hatnote to the dab page?

• Systematic bias is also a related issue. When discussing the possibilities for a PT for Nazarene, some argued that almost everyone associates that word with Jesus of Nazareth. It was propsed that Nazarene redirect to Nazarene (title). I initially argued that the page view stats supported Church of the Nazarene as the appropriate PT. The question arose: who would ever type "Nazarene" into the search box, expecting to be redirected to the article on the church, or on Jesus, or on the sparsely-viewed Nazarene (title) article? We need to decide where the balance is between user-friendliness and encyclopedia-ness.

Discussion of Avatar (film) and Nazarene does not belong here; take it to the respective talk pages; I simply used these experiences to illustrate the ambiguity of our current guideline. I understand that a certain level of ambiguity is necessary, so the guideline can be adapted to each individual case, but I feel that we can reach a clearer consensus on on a few of these issues. ...but what do you think? ~BFizz 08:15, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the first point (we should consider what readers are likely to be looking for over the fairly long term, not right now). I don't understand the second point (the current wording of the primary topic guideline already seems to answer that question - we "force" them to use the more likely page when it's "much more likely...etc." that that's the page they'll be looking for (so when there are more winners than losers). I don't really understand the third question either: being user-friendly in this case isn't at odds with encyclopedia-ness - if we really think that people type Nazarene expecting to see an article on Jesus (unlikely I would have thought - why wouldn't they just type "Jesus") or on the Church (perhaps more likely), then we need to take account of that. --Kotniski (talk) 09:46, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

More than just requesting clarification, I am also calling into question the policy as it currently stands. Not that I disagree with it, but rather, I have based arguments on the policy, and have come out confused as to why others didn't agree with my conclusions. So I'm seeking to develop a guideline that I can refer to, and reference, and win arguments with. ;) Well, not "win" so much as "reach consensus with other editors more quickly and easily". ...but what do you think? ~BFizz 18:02, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

The first item is covered to some extent: If there is considerable good faith disagreement whether there is a primary topic or not, the default is no primary topic, correct?

In any event, my approach to this process would be a little different. Before deciding what the policy should be, identify the various issues we face with primary topic - what makes them useful?/what is the problem having them? Then we can have more intelligent discussions on how best to word a policy that best balances these items. I started User:Jwy/Primary Topics: Why and Which a while ago and was waiting until I had time to clean it up more - but I think it would be a more productive first step - rather than does both identifying the issues AND determining the policy (which is what you appear to be doing here). With such a document, even if we don't get to consensus on major changes to the policy, we have a way to education people about the issues without filling up several talk pages full of this information. (John User:Jwy talk) 21:04, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Jwy, your "why and which" thoughts are exactly what I am trying to get at. I sort of threw something out here haphazardly, hoping to spark discussion. Your thoughts are much more collected and distilled than mine. =) Within a week or so, I will take a hard look at what you've written and respond beyond what I've said here. Hopefully we can get some excitement and discussion going about it. ...but what do you think? ~BFizz 04:56, 25 January 2010 (UTC)