Talk:James Bulger

On the lack of a primary topic

When I search for "James Bulger", whether as a web search or image search or video search, whether using Bing or Google, most of the first few things that pop up are about the criminal, not the toddler (despite the fact that I'm using an IP address in Europe, which might tilt my search results toward the person in Merseyside rather than the person in Massachusetts). The number of page views for the article about the criminal is also much higher than for the article about the death of the child. Although the criminal is more commonly known as "Whitey", he is also often referred to as James. The criminal has substantial historic significance when considering his long-term high profile, his relationship to the FBI, his relationship to his highly prominent politician brother, his longevity as a highly sought fugitive, and the major motion picture based on his story. I conclude that the term "James Bulger" is ambiguous – neither of these topics is primary, so the term needs disambiguation. —BarrelProof (talk) 04:00, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately this child is a household name in the UK. This is one of the most notorius murders in the late 20th centurery in the UK. Perhaps you should try a search for "Jamie Bulger", not his real name, but one the red top press gave him after his murder. A quick google search does not provide enough evidence to move this redirect.78.147.5.121 (talk) 21:09, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

The U.S. criminal is also very famous and has long-term significance, as I noted, and Wikipedia is written for world-wide use. Searching for "Jamie Bulger" would presumably not help identify whether "James Bulger" is ambiguous or not. This dab page is for "James Bulger", not "Jamie Bulger". This is what dab pages are for. Note that the Wikipedia article about the criminal was, for years, named James J. Bulger (which shows that "James" has certainly been used as his identifying name) and has been featured twice on the Wikipedia main page. Bulger was on the FBI Most Wanted list for 12 years and has been very well known for decades. He operated blatantly in South Boston while his brother was the President of the Massachusetts Senate and his brother was later forced to resign as President of the University of Massachusetts due to his relationship with him, and an FBI agent was convicted of serious crimes (racketeering, obstruction of justice and murder) for his dealings with him (not to mention his own convictions and his remarkable ability to elude capture). He figures so prominently in the history of South Boston that the article about the place talks about him. Two major motion pictures have been produced about him and his exploits – The Departed in 2006 directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, and Alec Baldwin (which won four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, and was Scorsese's first Oscar, and also won a Golden Globe Award), and Black Mass in 2015, starring Johnny Depp as him along with Kevin Bacon in a supporting role. He was also the topic of a 2014 CNN documentary film that has an article on Wikipedia and was featured at the Sundance Film Festival (and includes "James" in its title). He is not the average obscure criminal. He has been highly newsworthy for about 45 years so far. Like I said before, lots more people read the Wikipedia article about him than the article about the murder of the unfortunate toddler. —BarrelProof (talk) 00:41, 26 May 2016 (UTC)