User:Andrewa/Primary Topic RfC

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

This page obsoletes User:Andrewa/The third draft regarding avoiding primary topic and the older User:Andrewa/Why primary topic is to be avoided and User:Andrewa/Let us abolish the whole concept of primary topic. Some sections of those pages remain relevant but are not likely to be updated further.

In that all pages belong to the whole project, any user may edit this one. But it's generally more helpful (and polite) to discuss the proposed change on its talk page first.

This page in a nutshell: Perhaps the time is right for an RfC to deprecate Primary Topic

Proposal

Primary Topic should be deprecated.

All new articles should be created at unambiguous names.
All article moves should be to unambiguous names.
All new DABs should be created at their base names unless this would require moving an existing article for which there is no other reason for a move.

Primary Topic should be retained as a valid reason for keeping an existing article at an ambiguous base name.

DAB pages

The disambiguator (disambiguation) should be retained and will still be extensively used.

All new disambiguation pages will have either a name or a redirect using this disambiguator.
- In many cases, the base name will be the name of the DAB, and a redirect will be created.
- If an existing article remains at the base name, the name of the DAB will be disambiguated with (disambiguation).
Existing disambiguation pages will only be moved if the base name becomes available because of another move.
- If the article at the base name is no longer the Primary Topic, it will be moved, and the DAB moved to the base name.
- If the common name of the article at the base name changes, then it will be moved, and the DAB may then be moved to the base name, or if the article remains the Primary Topic a new Primary Redirect should be created.
- In theory the name could become available when the article at the base name is deleted... but this is probably not going to happen.

Rationale

Improve the chance of readers finding the article they want.
Reduce the number of mouse clicks required to find the correct article.
Reduce the number of article moves.
Reduce mislinkings within Wikipedia.
Preserve existing links both internal and incoming.

Some of this is highly counter intuitive

It is regularly (and naturally) assumed that having an article at the base name always makes that article easier to find. In fact when specific scenarios are considered, this turns out not to be the case at all; Having an article at an ambiguous name generally makes it harder to find. Most often it merely increases the number of mouse clicks required, but sometimes it even makes it less likely that the article will be found at all.

This is all highly counter intuitive, and explains why the concept of Primary Topic has gone unchallenged for so long.

Over the years it has also been assumed and often stated that having the Primary Topic article at the base name decreases the number of mouse clicks that people will need to find it. It was perhaps not stated but probably also assumed that this also reduces the number of times the correct article won't be found at all. Both assumptions are false.

And it has been assumed but not stated that the time to find an article is most closely related to the number of mouse clicks required. This assumption collapses after even the slightest examination.

The inconvenience of loading a small page, whether a DAB or a short article with a hatnote, that clearly and immediately leads to the right article by an unambiguous name is trivial; The extra mouse click is not a problem at all. This is a win.
The inconvenience of loading a large wrong article is anything but trivial; It may even make Wikipedia unusable for some users. This is a loss.
- This may be caused by mislinkings within Wikipedia or by broken incoming external links. Both are to be avoided.
The inconvenience of not finding the right article because it is at an ambiguous name is worse still. It again makes Wikipedia unusable. This is of course a loss.
- This occurs whenever a person is looking for an article which is at an ambiguous name (presumably because it has been agreed it is the Primary Topic) that they recognise but which they assume has another meaning (ie for them another topic is primary), and there is no redirect from an unambiguous name to the article they want. There is currently no policy or procedure to prevent or even reduce the likelihood of this.

But some of it is obvious

Reducing the number of article moves is on the other hand obviously desirable, other things being equal. Article moves which represent a change of Primary Topic from one topic to another are particularly undesirable. The result of such a move is that all incoming external links to the base name now point to the wrong article.

Similarly, making better use of our existing facilities for finding, fixing and preventing mislinkings within Wikipedia is an obvious benefit. The most obvious of these is the message sent to an editor's user page if they wikilink from an article to a DAB. If they link to the base name and it's the wrong article, they get no warning, and the many thousands of wrong Wikilinks created to New York and intended for the city but pointed to the state show that often, editors do not check. But if an ambiguous base name points to a DAB, the software can and will check for them.

Test cases

See User:Andrewa/P T test cases.

Details

Scope

This proposal is for Primary Topic to be avoided but not abandoned; It would remain in force for existing articles. That is, this change of policy would not of itself result in the move of any existing article, as such moves would often be counterproductive. It would only have any effect on the name of any existing article if its name came under discussion for some other reason, and the article was to be moved anyway as a result. In that case, the new policy could and often would affect the choice of the new title for the old article.

So it is not proposed to disambiguate the title of any existing article currently at its base name just because Primary Topic is deprecated. Primary Topic, and the desire not to unnecessarily break links, would continue to be sufficient justification for keeping articles such as mathematics and London at their long-standing base names. And, it is not necessary to create a DAB at the base name whenever the creation of a new article makes a previously unambiguous name ambiguous. This would only happen if the existing article was no longer the Primary Topic.

Rather, this proposal is just to eliminate Primary Topic for new pages and redirects, and for existing pages that are proposed for a move for some other reason (including ones proposed for a move from the base name on the grounds that they are not now the Primary Topic, whether or not they once were). For many articles this stability will be indefinite. Seen in terms of our bottom line of reader experience, it is unlikely that there will ever be reason enough to move well-established articles such as mathematics.

How we would start a new encyclopedia from scratch, without the many articles to be grandfathered in this way, is a problem we do not need to solve or even consider. We do have this asset, and can and should use it.

And it is a growing asset. We cannot predict, when we create a new article at an unambiguous name, whether that name will sooner or later become ambiguous, and do not need to. An article at an unambiguous name is trivially the Primary Topic of that name. If the name later becomes ambiguous, then a case needs to be made to move the article, and consensus obtained that it is no longer the Primary Topic. Just like any other article. Keep it simple!

Primary redirects

Primary redirects should follow the same rules. If an existing primary redirect is still valid, then it remains. But otherwise, any redirected ambiguous term should redirect to a DAB.

Specific changes

Discuss at User talk:Andrewa/Primary Topic RfC#Specific changes to guidelines and policies

Only three changes of procedure and practice are required, but these need to be reflected in several different policies and guidelines.

New article names should be unambiguous

Whenever a new article is created, it should be at an unambiguous name, even if the new article is agreed to be the Primary Topic of an ambiguous name.

Article moves should be to unambiguous names

Whenever an article is moved, it should be to an unambiguous name.

A redirect at an ambiguous name should point to a DAB

Primary redirects are relatively harmless as long as a hatnote is in place to take the reader to the DAB with one more mouse click (and then to the right article with one more). But no more should be created.

Alternatives

Navigation could be improved:

By adopting a policy that whenever an article is at an ambiguous name, there must be a redirect from some unambiguous name for the topic of the article. At present many such exist, but normally only because the article has been moved from the unambiguous name at some stage. We should not rely on such accidents of history.
By adopting a policy that whenever an article is at an ambiguous name, that article must be relatively short so as not to inconvenience those who arrive at it by accident. This could for example be achieved by splitting any long sections into their own articles and linking by a Main template, leaving just a summary. If the long section is justified then normally, so will a separate article be.
By adopting a policy that whenever a Wikilink in an article points to an article at an ambiguous name, it should be piped via an unambiguous redirect.

None of this is of course necessary if this proposal is adopted. But they are useful workarounds to lessen the impact if it is not.