Talk:Pierre (disambiguation)

Requested move 18 December 2023

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: No consensus. Editors did not reach consensus about whether there is a primary topic, based on reasonably differing views of the weight and interpretation of the clickstream data and page views, and of the nature of the name page – to some degree an article, some degree a list, and some degree navigational in function – in applying the primary topic analysis. (closed by non-admin page mover) Adumbrativus (talk) 04:22, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

---

• Pierre (disambiguation) → Pierre
• Pierre → Pierre (name)

– No primary topic, although the name may be the origin of the city's name the city has 7,268 views though it could be somewhat discounted as US cities have the state in the title as common usage, The Pierre has 3,387, the song has 1,378, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities has 364, the penguin has 105 and the restaurant has 45 compared with only 2,280 for the name[[1]]. Also note that Frwiki has the DAB page at the base name so its unlikely that in English there is a primary topic and Plwiki has the city at the base name. In terms of usage its clear that the name isn't primary and while the name may be primary by long-term significance the city is a state capital so also has long-term significance especially in an encyclopedia. The article should probably be split to Pierre (given name) and Pierre (surname). Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:36, 18 December 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 22:15, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

• Split per nom , to separate given name and surname articles. The edit history can move to "(name)" which would point back to the disambiguation page, which would list the given name and surname articles -- 65.92.247.90 (talk) 05:04, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose, the long-term significance of the name is overwhelming. There's way too many articles of persons with the name Pierre that I think it's best if the name is at base.--Ortizesp (talk) 05:23, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
• https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Pierre indicates the hatnote was the #1 link in the article in October, but with only 89 identified clickstreams over a total traffic of 3.1k. https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Pierre_%28disambiguation%29 in turn shows most of that was for the town in South Dakota, 37. But if we're assessing the potential for readers we need to also look at the equivalent mass views for Pierre where we can compare the 350/day traffic for the Pierre, SD and 150/day for the hotel The Pierre with 5150/day for Pierre Poilievre, 4450/day for Pierre Trudeau, 3250/day for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, 3150/day for Georges St-Pierre, 1250/day for Pierre Agostini, 1200/day for Pierre Gasly, 875/day for Pierre Curie... I've only gone down the lists to #7 and the ratio is already around 40 to 1; with the long tail of 140 vs 15, and the fact that people just stop adding entries to a list after it's in the hundreds, it's probably much worse.
  The claim that the term Pierre is so ambiguous in the mind of the average English reader that we need to split up navigation and add extra clicks before people can read biographies is just not supported by the available statistics. If we were still in the 10 to 1 range, I'd be happy to analyze further, but this seems unlikely to produce meaningful results. (Oppose)
  In fact the position of the hatnote at #1 in the clickstreams is probably better attributed to it being on the very top, while the rest of the list is so large that it's just objectively worse for quick navigation. IOW maybe we should be thinking about how to reformat the list so that the entries that clearly attract a lot of reader interest aren't buried in it. --Joy (talk) 11:10, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

  Here's an overview of stats from the monthly page views ([2]) and the clickstream archive:

  November '23

  Pierre incoming 3029, disamb incoming 145

  • Pierre Pierre_(disambiguation) link 91 (~3%)
  • Pierre_(disambiguation) Pierre,_South_Dakota link 41 (~28% local total, up to ~45% via Pierre)
  • Pierre_(disambiguation) Pierre link 14 (~10% local total, up to ~15% via Pierre)

  December '23

  Pierre incoming 3258, disamb incoming 163

  • Pierre Pierre_(disambiguation) link 104 (~3.4%)
  • Pierre_(disambiguation) Pierre,_South_Dakota link 47 (~29% local total, up to ~45% via Pierre)
  • Pierre_(disambiguation) Pierre link 10 (~6% local total, up to ~21% via Pierre)

  The pattern persists: there just isn't a whole lot of traffic to the hatnote; roughly half of what there is is looking for the SD city; and roughly a fifth of what there is could be among the people going right back to the biography list. The solution to any navigation problem that we might have here is to put the SD city in the first hatnote, everything else would be absolute overkill. --Joy (talk) 08:50, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

  Note also how at [3], with logarithmic scale turned on, the views of the disambiguation page do not correlate to the views of the city. This is probably because our typical American reader is reasonably comfortable with using the convention of listing the state name after the toponym. It doesn't disqualify the city from consideration at all, but it puts it in context where it's more similar to how a typical English reader is reasonably comfortable trying to navigate to a biography using the full name rather than just part of a name, while still using the latter method sometimes. --Joy (talk) 12:20, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. The name is the very clear primary topic by long-term significance. Nothing else comes close. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:01, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

  Over a state capital? Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:35, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

  A minor state capital that most people outside the state will never have heard of? Versus one of the most common of all French names? Yes, absolutely. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:32, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  When even the French Wikipedia has a DAB at the base name? If the name isn't primary in French I see no reason why it would be in English, yes Fr wiki has more DABs but if the name was that primary it would still be at the base name on Fr like say Nancy, the city is. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:13, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

  Practice on other wikis varies, so this means nothing. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:52, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  That's probably because apparently the word "pierre" has another very common ambiguous meaning in French, "stone". Do notice how they proceed to list the stone meanings, the biographies, and then toponymy; they don't try to split out the list of biographies putting it further from view for the French readers. --Joy (talk) 12:17, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support. The name page is just a list of people with the name. Practically nothing links to the "Pierre" name page - mostly mistakes (e.g. to restaurant, town). A rather pointless page frankly. "Pierre" should direct to the more useful disambiguation page. Not sure I'd split the name page up though. Walrasiad (talk) 02:44, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

  Why does it matter what links to here, when clickstream statistics tell us clearly that e.g. in October 84.67% of the traffic for "Pierre" was from external search engines and from no referrer lookups? Indeed, if these mistaken links are in the remaining 15% of traffic, that means that an even higher ratio of traffic might not want those destinations. And out of this organic traffic, over 2600 views, less than 100 realized they were in the wrong place and went for the top hatnote link. What exactly would constitute a more useful navigation layout, what do we expect the true picture of readership to be - if this isn't it? --Joy (talk) 08:32, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

  The name page gets around 20% of page views despite being at the base name. Yes the views of the people listed there contributes to the primacy of the name as noted at Talk:Charlotte but when the name article has around 20% of views it doesn't seem likely its primary even when you discount for the statename being common usage and the definite article for the hotel. Moving the DAB would probably be most helpful to readers as they could select the city, name or hotel etc. While someone looking for an individual with the name would need 2 clicks its unlikely people would expect to be taken straight there and it would mean users looking for something else like the city wouldn't need 2 clicks. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:13, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

  Well, I don't quite see the point of using this "20%" in this context, it doesn't make sense if you compare it to known primary topics, let's take Churchill (primary redirect to Winston) for example: the views for just Churchill don't compare favorably to the views for the tank, the place in Manitoba or the film at all - but that has no bearing on the fact that the average English reader strongly associates the term Churchill with Winston and they most likely aren't particularly aware of the existence of those others, which of course doesn't mean that a lot of people very well are. And if you then add Winston to the graph, suddently the picture looks quite a bit different. The selection of what contributes to a primacy is not a secondary matter, it's integral to any such argument. --Joy (talk) 07:56, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

  BTW in the interest of fairness let's actually try to examine that matter over there with the criteria that I mentioned before. The comparison of the primary redirect and its destination in page views last year since 2015 - interestingly, more recently it's become way less clear that there's a primary topic rationale there than it used to be. From the last three months of clickstreams:

  • clickstream-enwiki-2023-08.tsv:Winston_Churchill Churchill_(disambiguation) link 331
  • clickstream-enwiki-2023-08.tsv:Churchill_(disambiguation) Winston_Churchill link 20
  • clickstream-enwiki-2023-09.tsv:Winston_Churchill Churchill_(disambiguation) link 310
  • clickstream-enwiki-2023-09.tsv:Churchill_(disambiguation) Winston_Churchill link 25
  • clickstream-enwiki-2023-10.tsv:Winston_Churchill Churchill_(disambiguation) link 364
  • clickstream-enwiki-2023-10.tsv:Churchill_(disambiguation) Winston_Churchill link 17

  So in those three months the hatnote seems to have gotten 331/1006 to the list (~33%) and possibly some of those were among the 20 that came back; 310/1064 (~29%) and likewise for the 25; and 364/1263 (~30%) and likewise for the 17. So there's an argument to be made that something's wrong there, too. Bear with me for a moment more, and let's look at where this leads us: WikiNav shows that the most common place where these readers are then navigating to, however, isn't just the tank or the Canadian town or the film, but the surname, and then weirdly enough the title article related to John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. If we put these two topics back into the page views comparison from before, like this, at least the title article looks comparable, but the surname looks absolutely abysmal at the very bottom of the graph - yet it's the #1 thing these readers were looking for. The relevant entries from the last three months of clickstreams for that:

  • clickstream-enwiki-2023-08.tsv:Churchill_(disambiguation) Churchill_(surname) link 58
  • clickstream-enwiki-2023-08.tsv:Churchill_(disambiguation) Duke_of_Marlborough_(title) link 43
  • clickstream-enwiki-2023-09.tsv:Churchill_(disambiguation) Churchill_(surname) link 48
  • clickstream-enwiki-2023-09.tsv:Churchill_(disambiguation) Duke_of_Marlborough_(title) link 34
  • clickstream-enwiki-2023-10.tsv:Churchill_(disambiguation) Churchill_(surname) link 51
  • clickstream-enwiki-2023-10.tsv:Churchill_(disambiguation) Duke_of_Marlborough_(title) link 38

  And in turn we can question why do we see such a focus on that particular avenue of navigation - probably because the people themselves aren't listed in that list (due to WP:NAMELIST), yet the readers are using their names to try to navigate to these articles. There could well be some difference between surnames and given names and specifically Pierre and Churchill, but I think that with the overall statistics of 40:1 in this case, there isn't enough proof here that people don't want to see those biographies. --Joy (talk) 08:18, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

  The clickstream data suggests around 31.34% of readers clicked on the DAB which is quite high, while a few may have licked on the link just because its the first link its quite possible some readers just went back to the search box and searched again. The name article has 2,289 views compared with 108[[4]] for the DAB which is a bit concerning (though less so for a SI article) due to many readers getting the the name article by other means which again suggests there is likely no primary topic. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:08, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

  Wait, where are you seeing this 31.34%? --Joy (talk) 19:39, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

  Oh I think I got it now, it's 89 outgoing clickstreams to Pierre (disambiguation) divided by 284 total outgoing views. But that calculation is too crude, it ignores the (huge) difference between the incoming and the outgoing views (3.1k vs 0.3k), and there's a variety of possible reasons why readers won't navigate further, and not nearly all of them mean that they'd be better off reading what's behind the hatnote up front. --Joy (talk) 19:46, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

  I don't quite know what you mean by readers just going back to the search box and searching again being an argument for disambiguation... this wouldn't be distinct in the clickstream data (WikiNav), IOW it would be shown in the same graphs. I don't think the explicit links inside Wikipedia are e.g. surreptitiously tagged in a way that only these clicks enter the clickstream data, it's not like Google Search where clicks generate extra network requests that send telemetry. --Joy (talk) 19:54, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

  A reader types "Pierre" into the search box intending the capital or hotel. They end up on the name article. They then go back to the search box and type in Pierre, South Dakota. Anyway you're statistics indicate the name article is the most common use while my stats indicate it gets less than 20% of total views so it seems on than balance there is no primary topic. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:35, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

  These two navigations would both show up in the clickstreams, no? And, again, a comparison that excludes the bulk of the body of knowledge known as "Pierre" to our average English readers - isn't right. --Joy (talk) 07:18, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

  Would they? How do we know if people found what they want? The page view stats clearly don't support a primary topic. Clearly less than 20% of page views is no way a primary topic. I don't think we should mainly pay attention to the clickstream data and ignore pretty much everything else. If the name is the primary topic then why doesn't it get more views than the other topics or at least closer to that? Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:28, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

  OK but if you're questioning whether some part of WikiNav is actually repeated views by the same people still looking, that goes for all such stats equally, so it's not possible to take those stats with certainty, just like I'm saying we can't take the selection of page view stats with certainty. The name article here primarily functions as a navigational aid (yet, again, not doing great because the most popular topics aren't getting particularly well navigated to; we should address that instead of burying them further). --Joy (talk) 19:09, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

  Neither method can be taken with certainty which is why I'm suggestion the DAB at the base name. One test (pageviews) suggests the city may be more primary and one method (Wikinav) suggests the name may be more primary. Putting the DAB at the base name seems the bast choice. Readers looking for something like the city or hotel have to go to the DAB then go to the intended article which means they have 2 clicks. The proposal here means all readers will have 1 click to find all ambiguous topics, yes people looking for the name will then need a click and people looking for an individual with the name will need 2 but as I've said while people with the name can contribute to the name being primary then themselves are normally PTMs, see WP:NAMELIST so readers are not likely to expect to go straight to a person so the suggested change seems more useful. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:05, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  Exactly, that's where we disagree, your change would add additional tax on readers where the navigation method to the largest body of knowledge about topics named Pierre is already not great. This idea that "because a list is long, just move it away from view" leads to good navigation outcomes for the average reader - is not known to be based on anything other than conjecture. --Joy (talk) 19:11, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  The cost of being taken onto the wrong article is far greater than going to the DAB and choosing the article. When different stats show different primary topic possibilities the best outcome is to have no PT. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:18, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  OK but that's like saying all statistics are equal in value and whaddayagonnado. We're supposed to interpret the entire set of factoids and decide what it all means, not cherry-pick some stats and then throw our hands in the air :) --Joy (talk) 23:50, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support. Very clear absence of primary topic here.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:45, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Amakuru This is another case of the name list being ostensibly a primary topic article but its function is mainly as a navigation element, and the alternative way of navigation would be better for the letter of the guidelines but worse for actual navigation. We currently don't have a proper way to handle this situation in the documented guidelines, please see Wikipedia talk:Content assessment#Request for comment for more information. --Joy (talk) 08:55, 12 January 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.