Talk:MRDA

Requested move 28 February 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Participants were not convinced that "Mandy Rice-Davies applies" is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for this acronym. (closed by non-admin page mover) ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:39, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

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MRDA → MRDA (disambiguation) – WP:DABNAME. The primary topic for MRDA is "Mandy Rice-Davies Applies", a phrase denoting the quotation "Well he would, wouldn't he?", per the reliable sources cited in that article. Thus, MRDA should redirect there. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:22, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Disambiguation has been notified of this discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:24, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

OpposeWhat evidence is there that this is the primary topic? page views certainly don't even hint that this phrase is the primary topic. older ≠ wiser 23:28, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

That's because it's a redirect. This is more representative. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 23:45, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Well he would, wouldn't he? was created from a redirect 27 December 2023, so page views can't really tell the full story here. Well he would, wouldn't he? was also on the front page recently with a DYK, was just promoted to GA, and is at FAC, so that distorts things further. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:45, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

There's still nothing remotely convincing in the page views for any period that the saying is the primary topic for the initialism. older ≠ wiser 02:04, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

• Support - the only one that clinches higher views (by razor-thin margins) is Mitsubishi Motors, but the MRDA-related bit of that is only a subsection of the article. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 23:48, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. Pageviews are interesting: Well he would, wouldn't he? got a huge one-day spike of 12,000 views on 2 February, probably in response to an incoming link from a topical website, but the traffic was not from its incoming redirects that might be abbreviated as MRDA. Apart from that one day, Myanmar Royal Dragon Army gets more page views than Well he would, wouldn't he?, even adding in its redirects, and seems more likely to be the topic the reader is seeking. Search results are mainly about roller derby. MRDA has no primary topic and the dab should stay at the base name. Certes (talk) 23:57, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

  There are several days where Well he would, wouldn't he? gets more views than the Myanmar Royal Dragon Army. It's easier to see on a logarithmic scale. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:17, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  I agree that Myanmar Royal Dragon Army isn't a primary topic. For Rice-Davies, being the most popular topic on several days isn't enough; it needs both to be much more likely than any other single topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for MRDA; and to have substantially greater enduring notability and educational value than any other topic associated with MRDA. I still don't think Rice-Davies or any other topic passes both tests, but let's see what consensus develops. Certes (talk) 13:23, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  I mentioned the spike at VPT and was told what happened: Well he would, wouldn't he? was linked from the Main Page as a DYK for one day (Wikipedia:Recent additions#2 February 2024). That explains its surprisingly high page views. Certes (talk) 17:39, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  PTOPIC notes: "In most cases, the topic that is primary with respect to usage is also primary with respect to long-term significance; in many other cases, only one sense of primacy is relevant." I believe that PT2 is clearly met here, given the coverage of the phrase and Mandy Rice-Davies applies in reliable sources. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:48, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  I think we would all agree that MRDA is used to mean Mandy Rice Davies applies, but I don't think it's clear that it is so much more used in the common parlance that a reader is much more likely to be searching for the phrase than any other use of the abbreviation. For instance, searching gbooks or gscholar (reasonable indicators of long-term significance) for simply "MRDA" do not bring up Mandy Rice-Davies in the first few pages of results, for me. And, as has been discussed, viewership statistics support that interpretation. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 23:14, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per Certes. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:11, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. There doesn't seem to be a primary topic here. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 17:25, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. And I've known of Mandy Rice-Davies and her quip for 60 years. WP:PTOPICs always collect silly links, and making this PTOPIC would collect sillier links than most. Narky Blert (talk) 19:48, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.