Talk:Ebert

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived 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.

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:08, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Ebert → Ebert (disambiguation) — I am proposing that this disambiguation page be moved so that the title Ebert can become a redirect to Roger Ebert, in accordance with the disambiguation guideline WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, which states: "Although a term may potentially refer to more than one topic, it is often the case that one of these topics is highly likely – much more likely than any other, and more likely than all the others combined – to be the subject being sought when a reader clicks the 'Go' button for that term. If there is such a topic, then it is called the primary topic for that term. If a primary topic exists, the term should be the title of (or redirect to) the article on that topic." I have posted evidence below that Roger Ebert fulfills these criteria as the primary topic for the term "Ebert.". Propaniac (talk) 15:10, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

• Supporting evidence. All pageview stats are found using [1].
  • Looking at the month of March 2009 to avoid skewing from recent events, in that month, Roger Ebert received 61,893 pageviews. All the other articles listed here received 11,580 pageviews combined, which includes 8,581 pageviews for Friedrich Ebert. For this reason, I suggest that if Ebert redirects to Roger's article, that the latter article have hatnote links to both the disambiguation page and to Friedrich Ebert. (Users searching for the latter article would have only one extra click, so they would be no more inconvenienced than they are now when sent to the disambiguation page.)
  • On days showing a spike in pageviews for Roger Ebert (presumably due to news events), there is also a spike in pageviews for Ebert, indicating that people looking for Roger's article are coming to the disambiguation page. This relationship is especially obvious in the past few months, particularly on January 8 (Ebert Roger Ebert), February 16 and 17 (Ebert Roger Ebert), and March 2 and 3 (Ebert Roger Ebert). I don't see any correlation in pageviews between the dab page and Friedrich Ebert or 3rd-most-popular Patrick Ebert.
  • Ebert is best known as half of the duo Siskel & Ebert (and later Ebert & Roeper), so it seems an easy assumption that he would be commonly identified by his surname only.
  • Roger Ebert clearly dominates search results for "Ebert" on Google.
  • Please note that the criteria here is not which topic is most important, or most notable, or any other subjective judgment of value; the criteria is which article is most likely to be sought by users under the title "Ebert." Propaniac (talk) 15:12, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose If anything I would regard Friedrich Ebert as the primary meaning of this name. PatGallacher (talk) 22:49, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

  This opinion has no apparent basis in any relevant criteria or guideline, nor does it indicate that the user has considered any relevant information. Propaniac (talk) 00:19, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  Well, I had never heard of the film critic before, I had heard of the German president, who was not just a figurehead president but one of the major figures of 20th century German politics. This proposed move could be an example of systemic bias on Wikipedia in favour of the US and popular culture, and recentism, which we ought to avoid, see WP:BIAS. Page hit counts aren't everything. PatGallacher (talk) 09:11, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  Page hit counts are pretty significant in determining which pages people are looking at, which is the central criteria here according to existing Wikipedia guidelines. Propaniac (talk) 15:47, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  The Wikipedia guideline says that there are no hard-and-fast rules for deciding this. People are entitled to exercise a degree of common sense, which will be better known in ten years' time? Also, these page hits do not even prove how many people initially searched for plain "Ebert", since the German president is often known by surname alone, but is the film critic? PatGallacher (talk) 17:47, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  A. Roger Ebert is an extremely well-known cultural figure in the United States. It is unlikely that a German president from several hundred years ago will become better-known by the average English speaker in the next ten years. B. Redirects and page locations can always be changed in the future to reflect changes in cultural norms. C. It doesn't matter how many people searched for "Ebert". D. I made four different arguments above to support that "Ebert" is more likely to be used to refer to Roger than any other usage. Maybe you could try actually reading them before asking that question. To me, it seems that "common sense" suggests that a topic which receives 7x as many views as another topic, is more likely to be the one that users are looking for. Propaniac (talk) 18:47, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  Rad. Let's do this then too: Goth subculture (45,106 hits) → Goth (9,895 hits), of which the two graphs look eerily similar, so people typing "Goth" were clearly looking for deathly-dudes. I mean really, it's quite obvious what the black-dressing, pale-faced peeps are looking for, right? It's pretty clear that more people are interested in "the scene" than "some people" who existed æons ago, with hits (35,734) to reflect their diminutive popularity. ...and ya know, we can "always change it back later". ₪— CelticWonder (T·C) " 20:37, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose as per note by PatGallacher. Friedrich Ebert and Roger Ebert both get a nearly equal 2.4 million GHits each. By that criterion, there would appear to be no primary topic, so it can be just as likely that one user is attempting to assert that the primary topic be an article about a person this user likes as opposed to the currently more-appropriate dab page. ₪— CelticWonder (T·C) " 06:15, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

None of the above opinions have even acknowledged the existing Wikipedia guideline, or the overwhelming evidence that this is a situation where the guideline applies. I'll certainly know that I shouldn't waste my time with reference to actual facts in my next Move Request, since 60,000 pageviews can be trumped with "Well, I've never heard of him" and a guideline that spells out the relevant criteria can be trumped with "No, I'm going to use different criteria." Propaniac (talk) 15:33, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Why don't you acknowledge that WP:PRIMARYTOPIC makes it very clear that the criteria it lists are just suggestions and that reasonable disagreement among editors typically indicates that there is no primary topic? The guideline could say that if one topic has 100 times as many page views as all others together then it is the primary topic. But it doesn't. And the reason is precisely that pop culture phenomena such as Pokémon cards or film critics are not supposed to be the primary topic when there is a key encyclopedic topic of the same name. Hans Adler 20:38, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, reasonable disagreements are possible, but that is not the case here because there have been no real arguments against the move that take the guideline into account. If 3 people say "Let's follow the guideline," and 3 people say "Let's do something else based on no real reason," that's not an argument to ignore the guideline. The beginning of the guideline is clear that the criteria for primary topic is the popularity of one topic over the others; there can often be reasonable disagreement about whether one topic is much more popular than the others. But that's not what the disagreement here is based on, because it's obvious that Roger Ebert is the primary topic by that criteria, and people are instead applying other criteria that serves no benefit to the Wikipedia community. Propaniac (talk) 22:52, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support move to Ebert (surname) -- it's a surname-holder list, not a disambiguation page. The primary topic for "Ebert" still holds based on the information provided though. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:06, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Wikipedia guidelines are just that, guidelines, not absolute rules, and need to be applied in light of common sense. Redirecting Ebert to Roger Ebert based solely on transitory (and probably localized) popularity would do a disservice to the broader Wikipedia readership. Moving to Ebert (surname) as proposed above might be a reasonable alternative. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:25, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  Note the alternative still involves pointing Ebert to Roger Ebert as the primary topic, based on non-transitory, non-localized usage of the Wikipedia readership. Catering to their usage would be doing a service, not a disservice. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:30, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  If 70,000 Americans are looking for one topic, and 7,000 Germans are looking for another, how does it benefit "the broader Wikipedia readership" to inconvenience the much larger group? Propaniac (talk) 18:53, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  This isn't an encyclopedia for Americans (of which I happen to be one), it's an encyclopedia for the world. How does it benefit the purposes of Wikipedia to inconvenience people who are looking for information about a President of Germany? --R'n'B (call me Russ) 18:55, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  Because it will be more convenient for the vast majority of users who are not looking for information about a president of Germany. Also, users who are looking for the president of Germany would not be inconvenienced more than they already are, because they would still have precisely one click to go to their target article. So the change would a) improve usability for a great majority of users; b) retain the same level of usability for the second-largest group; and c) add a small inconvenience to a very small minority of users. Opposing the change simply because most of the users who would benefit are American is silly, and opposing it because the small group that would have to click to the disambiguation page would be inconvenienced means that you are opposed to determining a primary topic for ANY disambiguated term. Propaniac (talk) 19:04, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  Sorry, I don't agree. I'm not opposing it because most the users who would benefit are American; I'm opposing it because making decisions based on popularity imparts a systematic bias to Wikipedia that we should avoid, even when it is simply a matter of navigation. Yes, it is worth one extra click to prevent bias. Call me silly all you want, it's not going to change my opinion. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:09, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  In other words, you are completely opposed to making any change that will help users to more easily navigate Wikipedia, if that change is based on a determination that users are more likely to be looking for one topic over another. If that's your stance, you are welcome to it, but it's the exact opposite of what we try to achieve with disambiguation, it is exactly contrary to our Wikipedia guidelines about disambiguation (you are not arguing for a "common sense" exception to the guideline; you are arguing that the guideline should be thrown out completely), and I hope that the admin who closes this discussion will recognize that your opinion has nothing to do with the merits of this specific request. Propaniac (talk) 19:21, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  Please stop telling me what I am saying. You and others can read what I wrote; it does not help anything for you to insist on putting words in my mouth. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 19:33, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  I'd also like to point out that Googling(.de) Ebert finally shows Roger after seven links to websites regarding Friedrich. The notion of systemic bias & recentism (concerning Roger's loss of voice for the entire duration of limited time reflected by http://stats.grok.se) is a wholly relevant argument against this proposed change, and the current dab serves its purpose well as it is, considering the "more than two" longer list of people. (WP:2DAB, WP:PT) ₪— CelticWonder (T·C) " 20:45, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  Celtic, that's the German Google. This is the English-language Wikipedia. It makes sense to use the English-language Google search. Propaniac (talk) 22:52, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Yet the German WP article for Ebert (currently a dab also) didn't have the audacity to make a prominent historical figure "primary" to a film critic. Why should a systemically biased inverse of such audacity be committed here? ₪— CelticWonder (T·C) " 23:57, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

You can keep sharing with us trivia about German Google and German Wikipedia, but it still has nothing to do with anything. I assume German Wikipedia has its own standards for organization that may or may not have any relation to what we use on this project. Propaniac (talk) 00:52, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose per the results gathered by Celtic Wonder (and WP:CSB. The Google searches that give slightly higher results for Friedrich are evidence that Roger is not unambiguously the most popular Ebert. Keep it a disambiguation. True, current Wikipedia users look for Roger more, but we're not merely writing a Wikipedia for the people who already use it. --GRuban (talk) 20:27, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  The question is not whether Roger Ebert or Friedrich Ebert is more "popular"; the question is which is most likely to be searched as by just "Ebert." And when you search for just "Ebert," it takes several pages to find anything related to Friedrich and not Roger. Propaniac (talk) 22:52, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose, but support move to Ebert (surname). Unsurprisingly, Friedrich Ebert has 4 times as many Google Books hits as Roger Ebert, a figure I have never heard of before.
  • Friedrich Ebert was at the head of Germany during the critical transition from the German Empire (where he was Chancellor for a day in 1918 when the Kaiser had to flee to the Netherlands) and served 6 years as the president of the Weimar Republic. In Germany, all sorts of big streets, squares, bridges, houses and an influential trust are still named after him. Of course he is on the list of WP:Wikipedia 1.0 topics and has a Britannica article, since he is a core encyclopedic topic.
  • Roger Ebert is a film critic. That says it all, but let's add that he is not on the Wikipedia 1.0 list and does not have a Britannica article. Children also don't learn at school about him, and I guess there aren't many streets named after him even in the US. These things are also not likely to change after his death.

  WP:PRIMARYTOPIC makes it very clear that the primary topic is a result of discussion, and that things such as page view statistics or Google hits are merely criteria we may consider. If one topic is encyclopedic beyond any doubt because it's part of world history, and the other is a mayfly, then it's simply not enough for the mayfly to be 7 times more popular. If Roger Ebert had 50 times as many views as Friedrich Ebert there might be a point, but not with 7 times as many views.

  Finally, from WP:PRIMARYTOPIC: "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." The word may is stressed here to prevent gaming/stonewalling. That's obviously not what is going on here. A lot of people are unhappy with the move request because it doesn't respect Wikipedia as a general-purpose encyclopedia, as opposed to a pop culture one. This proves that there is no primary topic. Hans Adler 20:28, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  As I explained above, the guideline is referring to disagreement about which, if any, article is much more popular than the others, not about which criteria should be applied to determining a primary topic. The beginning of the guideline is clear that "the most popular topic" = the primary topic. Propaniac (talk) 22:52, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  Your use of quotation marks is rather unorthodox, since the word "popular" does not appear even once in the primary topic guideline. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 23:08, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  I was responding to a user who had, as I read it, used "popular" to mean lots of pageviews, so I was using it in the same way. You're probably right I should have left them out of my last sentence; I didn't mean to imply I was quoting. Propaniac (talk) 23:40, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  (ec) You have a problem with reading comprehension that is unfortunately very common: You read what you want to read. I don't think there is anything I can do about that. Hans Adler 23:09, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  Yes, I read the statement (quoting) "If there is such a topic, then it is called the primary topic for that term" to mean that the definition of a primary topic is one that meets that criteria. As the guideline goes on to say, there can be disagreement about which topic is the primary topic, meaning which topic meets the stated criteria. The guideline is wholly consistent about the definition of the primary topic. Propaniac (talk) 23:40, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  You are cherry-picking. Like most Wikipedia guidelines this one contradicts itself. It also says: "Tools that may help to support the determination of a primary topic in a discussion, but are not determining factors, include: [...]" (my italics). And it must be interpreted in the general context of this being an encyclopedia, not a TV schedule magazine. Hans Adler 23:52, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

  Yes, it is saying these are tools that may help to indicate which usage is the most likely search target for the term. The guideline never suggests that the primary topic is anything but the most likely search target for the term, but since there is no 100% definitive way to measure which topic users are clicking on when they arrive at a disambiguation page, discussion is often necessary and reasonable people can disagree. (By the way, may I suggest that you might be interested in reading some of the Roger Ebert article sometime? While I'd never suggest that his notability is equal to a president's--and that was never up for debate here--I suspect you'd be surprised to learn of his cultural impact in the United States, given your continued unwarranted derision. For example, he was the first person to win a Pulitzer Prize for film criticism.) Propaniac (talk) 00:52, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

  (ec) I'm assuming you're suggesting that Hans should read up on this article you seem to like so much because you ignorantly think he just simply doesn't understand your pov that Roger has had a "cultural impact in the United States". I gleefully point out that, as another American, I have NO interest in reading about Roger, I intentionally have ignored his "critiques" of movies in the past as they're usually STUPID and highly biased, and I didn't even know until today that he hadn't been doing televised reviews for four years (I intentionally don't have television) which would more than account for the recent heightened hit totals. Hypothetically, if I was haphazardly searching in an encyclopedia for a surname with multiple uses to learn about history, for example, I wouldn't want to be greeted with some dude I've never heard of that's there only because of an incidental current events hit-totals increase, and could potentially be offended if a prominent historical figure was placed behind him (either via hatnote or secondary dab) simply because of this factor alone. ₪— CelticWonder (T·C) " 01:31, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

  I suggested that he might be interested in reading the article because his comments indicated he was unfamiliar with the topic and making inaccurate assumptions. I have no idea what you expect anyone to do with this rant, except perhaps to conclude that your opinion in this discussion is biased because of your opinions about Roger Ebert's work (which you feel the need to share even though they have absolutely no place here), but that's not for me to decide. Propaniac (talk) 12:36, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

  Good point about the Pulitzer prize. I had no idea, even though I looked at the article, which looks thoroughly uninteresting. It hides this important fact in a section called "Style of critique and personal tastes", so it's hard to guess without looking at the infobox (which I rarely do). But this still doesn't change the fact that it would be inappropriate to redirect Ebert to the film critic. The problem is that anybody who is looking for the politician and instead finds a film critic they have never heard of will doubt our sanity. Hans Adler 01:18, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

  Well, how about that? We do agree on something (that the Roger Ebert article is not as good as it could be). Propaniac (talk) 12:36, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

  • Why move to (surname)? If every reasonable contender for the use of Ebert is as a surname, we don't need the extra parenthetical. --GRuban (talk) 20:54, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
    • True. I didn't think this through. Hans Adler 22:38, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Initially I had been inclined to weakly support, based on parallels with recent discussions at Talk:Leno (disambiguation). However, I wasn't really aware of the German politicians. Thanks to the evidence put forward here by CelticWonder and others, I don't think there is a clearcut case for the film critic as being the primary topic. In particular, I think the evidence would need to be particularly overwhelming to make the surname redirect to a particular person. older ≠ wiser 21:03, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

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.