Talk:Prime (disambiguation)

Untitled

Prime is an alternative term for the Golden Number.

For proof, read the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England (preface, Easter part), or the Annexe to the Calendar Act 1750, or the Statute Law Database (when corrected); or Google for "Golden Number, or Prime". 82.163.24.100 21:32, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't also the prime grade of beef be in here? -t —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.91.48.153 (talk) 18:30, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages are not intended for every connection the term might appear in. They are an aid to locate the right Wikipedia article and finding beef should not require a link from here. PrimeHunter 23:55, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Personal prime?

Shouldn't there be an entry for prime in the context, for example, of being "in one's prime"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.71.245.81 (talk) 02:26, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a dictionary and disambiguation pages are not intended for every connection the term might appear in. They are an aid to locate the right Wikipedia article and I don't think there is a meaningful article to link to, or that people will search on "prime" when they are looking for information about that meaning. PrimeHunter 03:30, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

What about an entry for prime as used in the context of contracting with the U.S. government, for example, "Company A is the prime contractor on the space station"? Jonsmith1000 (talk) 14:48, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Prime contractor already redirects to General contractor where the meaning is explained. Copying from my reply above, Wikipedia is not a dictionary and disambiguation pages are not intended for every connection the term might appear in. They are an aid to locate the right Wikipedia article and I don't think people would search for "prime" alone when they want information about prime contractors. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:56, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Cycling prime

A Wikipedia cycling prime article needs to be created and listed on this page. Kent Dominic·(talk) 13:09, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Redirect Prime (cycling) to Criterium unless you think it could become more than a stub. Just plain Bill (talk) 14:51, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

A {{redirect with possibilities}} tag on the suggested redirect article would hit the spot for now. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:38, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

JMF, I second your idea, so why don't you do it? I don't know the nuances of that template. Kent Dominic·(talk) 20:39, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Good idea, Bill, but there are primes in road races, too. I was about to create an article but real life responsibilities intervened. Kent Dominic·(talk) 20:35, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

I have redirected Prime (cycling) to the existing entry at Glossary of cycling#prime and added an entry here:[1]

• Prime (cycling), an intermediate sprint within a bicycle race

PrimeHunter (talk) 21:00, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

{{R with possibilities}} now added to redirect article. No nuances. It is really just declaring to the rare bird that bother to look that this is a real topic (as opposed to a spelling variation or alternative name, which have their own {{R ...}} templates. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:42, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Should Prime be a WP:D page (Prime (disambiguation)), or be a redirect to Prime number?

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.

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Prime (disambiguation) → Prime – Starting the conversation here (WP:DR)
My original argument goes: "Given the increased awareness of Amazon Prime, Prime (drink), and other Primes - this article should redirect to Prime (disambiguation) rather than Prime number as it's no longer the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "Prime")
I believe that this is still the case. --- Tbf69 P • T 08:53, 14 February 2023 (UTC) (Converted to a true RM at this point.) Steel1943 (talk) 14:03, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Amazon Prime is already self-disambiguated (not called just "Prime" unless the context is already clear). Prime (drink) is just a load of hype, a manufactured "scarcity" story for the gullible; it will disappear into marketing history with a year or two. No convincing case that I can see. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:45, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

  See this tool: [2] --- Tbf69 P • T 13:56, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Comment: I converted this to a true RM since there was a bit of edit warring over the title about a day ago, and this needs to be listed at WP:RM or WP:RFD to form consensus, and the former is more appropriate with this request. Steel1943 (talk) 14:03, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks 👍 --- Tbf69 P • T 14:17, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. As noted, no need to disambiguate Amazon Prime, since that is what it is known as, and I see absolutely no evidence whatsoever that manipulative social media hype is going to result in the replacement of a mathematical term that has been around since Euclid by a brand of flavoured water as common usage. The suggestion is frankly absurd. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:53, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

On further consideration, taking into account what other contributors have said, Support, on the basis that there are other legitimate major topics, disregarding the ridiculous assertions about the drink. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:59, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose The drink article is not encyclopedically significant, no matter the one month spike in views. -- Fyrael (talk) 16:19, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
• Support: As shown on the disambiguation page, there are many topics called Prime. Aside from the type of number, the Amazon service and the drink, there are the prime symbol, the prime grade of beef, the prime interest rate, the prime category of loans, and various others. Many people are not especially focused on mathematics (and even within mathematics, there are eight topics identified). I strongly suspect that if the dab page is at the base name, we would find that many people aren't looking for the type of number. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:32, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per the reasons provided by above "oppose" !votes. Moreover, most of the items provided are adjectives or parts of indecomposable phrases. As a primary topic must normally be a noun or a noun phrase, this leaves few other candidates, none of them satisfying the criteria of a primary topic. Also, the mathematics entries of the dab page are all derived from the concept of prime numbers and one cannot use "a prime" or "several primes" to talk about them. D.Lazard (talk) 18:09, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
• Support per BarrelProof. No need for the WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT of Prime to Prime number. Those researching the mathematical term are likely to type "prime number", rather than simply "prime". This dab page was created in 2003 as Prime and remained as such for nearly seven years until it was unilaterally moved to Prime (disambiguation) in 2010. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 23:51, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
• Support per BarrelProof. Amazon's service doesn't play into this at all. There is simply no topic appropriate for the redirect more than any others. -- Netoholic @ 04:44, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
• Sadly we don't have WikiNav data specifically for redirects. WikiNav for Prime number shows the hatnote as the third most clicked link in the list, with 939 outgoing clicks, while the traffic for the redirect Prime shows 1,663 views in the same month. This is moot, but a fair bit suspect. It would make sense to at least temporarily void the assumption of primary topic, so we get the WikiNav data for just "prime". If it still shows most people go to prime number, at least we'll have data to back that up. --Joy (talk) 11:08, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

  Where do people click to once they arrive at prime (disambiguation)? –jacobolus (t) 22:39, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

  I don't know how to find older data, but the most recent flow can be seen here. A lot of people who land on prime (disambiguation) are coming from the Prime number article, which may be an indication that Prime shouldn't redirect there. A lot of them in January were apparently looking for the drink, but the drink article has only existed for a few months, so there's a WP:RECENTISM problem. The drink articles's popularity will probably fade away over time. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 00:00, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

  Okay, 75% of clicks to to the drink, but it appears that this page is overall pretty low traffic. Someone hearing about a massively hyped/advertised thing that didn't used to exist (so obviously nobody knew what it was) is certainly likely to look it up online. But that doesn't seem like a good basis for changing the relevant Wikipedia article titles. The half-life of such hyped topics is typically very short, and most of them flame out and are never discussed again (some obviously manage to become lasting hits). It’s also not clear that the Wikipedia article about the drink really provides all that much concrete value beyond answering the basic question “WTF is this and why are people talking about it”. Looking at the Wikinav data convinces me that it is correct to oppose this change. If we wait (e.g.) 2 years and the drink is still getting a large number of hits, we could revisit the question. –jacobolus (t) 04:57, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

• Support I've never heard prime numbers called just "prime". If someone is typing just "Prime" its likely they're looking for something else. Crouch, Swale (talk) 17:14, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

@Crouch, Swale: You may never have come across the use of the word "prime" alone to mean "prime number", but in number theory the use of just "prime" is certainly far more common than "prime number", and I think the same is almost certainly true in other branches of mathematics where the concept of primality of numbers is relevant. JBW (talk) 20:53, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Most Google results are for Amazon though that is probably also a PTM. While technically correct I don't see the number being primary. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:34, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

The key phrase in the comment above by JBW is the one that frames the context – i.e., "in number theory". It may be sad to say, but the percentage of people who focus on number theory is tiny. In fact the percentage of people who focus on mathematics is also pretty small. Even within the context of mathematics, most areas of study don't involve prime numbers. Practically nobody studying calculus or probability or differential equations or numerical analysis cares about prime numbers. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 04:27, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Practically nobody studying calculus or probability or differential equations or numerical analysis cares about prime numbers – on what basis do you make this claim? It seems self-evidently false to me. –jacobolus (t) 03:29, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

• Support. There is no primary topic here. When I hear "prime" I don't think of prime numbers, I think of the highest grade of beef. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:41, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
• Support, prime number is not the primary topic. As mentioned above the Amazon service is commonly called Prime. Sahaib (talk) 19:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Despite Amazon's attempts at branding, it is still generally known as Amazon Prime and not Prime. The drink is, as far as I can tell, not notable. Thenub314 (talk) 16:29, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  Aside from the drink and Amazon Prime, there is clearly no WP:PRITOP here. Therefore, Prime shouldn't redirect to Prime Number. --- Tbf69 P • T 17:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  Just like prime numbers are generally called "prime number(s)" not just "prime". Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:00, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose – When someone uses the bare word "prime" or "primes" they almost always mean prime number. Other uses are either rare and clear from relatively obscure context (e.g. prime (symbol), prime (liturgy)) or nearly always come as part of a multiple-word phrase with some qualifier (Amazon Prime, prime rib, prime years, prime lens, BBC Prime, etc.). –jacobolus (t) 22:45, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Jacobolus:, how can you argue against multiple-word phrases when "prime number" is a multiple-word phrase. Sahaib (talk) 02:22, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

  The term prime is used constantly in mathematics and other technical fields to mean prime number (often without ever first establishing that meaning; it is a common term universally understood by people with technical training). The same is not true for e.g. prime rib or Amazon Prime. –jacobolus (t) 03:06, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

  I personally don't think the symbol is obscure (e.g., everyone who learns calculus is familiar with its use to indicate a derivative), and clearly the Amazon offering is sometimes described simply as "Prime". Interest rates are described in term of points above prime (as a single word). And there are many other topics. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:30, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

  The symbol is certainly used plenty, e.g. for feet, minutes of an hour, minutes of an angular degree, derivatives, etc. But the symbol itself is not a very common topic of discussion. People just use it as a symbol, without describing or referring to it. Discussions of this symbol per se mainly show up in relatively obscure contexts such as typography or the history of mathematics. Can you find any example discussions of prime meaning the symbol ′ which do not initially print the symbol adjacent to the name or call it something like "prime glyph" or "prime symbol" or the like? I can find you thousands and thousands of technical papers which use the term 'prime' or 'primes' in the mathematical sense and just assume readers know what it means, without any introduction or comment. Note: I think it is entirely reasonable for ′ to redirect to prime (symbol). Anyone who copy/pastes that into Wikipedia is going to instantly get what they are looking for. –jacobolus (t) 03:23, 21 February 2023 (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.

followup to move discussion

https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wiki.x.io&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&start=2015-07&end=2023-11&pages=Prime_number%7CPrime_(disambiguation)%7CPrime indicates that the readership of the disambiguation page mostly tracks the readership of the Prime redirect:

• August 1925 / 1365
• September 1557 / 1308
• October 1406 / 1243

It also -- in logarithmic scale view -- does not match the pattern of organic prime number traffic.

A look into the clickstream archive (the underpinning of WikiNav) says a lot of it comes from the hatnotes:

August:

• clickstream-enwiki-2023-08.tsv:Prime_number Prime_(disambiguation) link 821
• clickstream-enwiki-2023-08.tsv:Prime_number Prime_(drink) other 187

September:

• clickstream-enwiki-2023-09.tsv:Prime_number Prime_(drink) other 153
• clickstream-enwiki-2023-09.tsv:Prime_number Prime_(disambiguation) link 732

October:

• clickstream-enwiki-2023-10.tsv:Prime_number Prime_(disambiguation) link 657
• clickstream-enwiki-2023-10.tsv:Prime_number Prime_(drink) other 145

If we compare the number of hatnote clicks with the traffic for the redirect, it's:

• August 821/1365 = ~60%
• September 732/1308 = ~56%
• October 657/1243 = ~53%

This calculation might not be accurate because there could well be organic traffic that landed at Prime number but still wanted to click the hatnote, just like there's more traffic at the disambiguation page than it comes through this particular hatnote.

https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Prime_%28disambiguation%29 shows a spread of traffic, quite a bit to the drink, but also to a dozen other topics.

It does seem like the case against the term "prime" being a primary redirect is strong, because it seems likely that most of the readers looking for just "prime" are having to use navigation aids to find what they're looking for elsewhere. There's some value in directing readers to the number meaning as it certainly has significance, but this looks like we're pushing into the force-feeding territory. --Joy (talk) 20:34, 18 December 2023 (UTC)