Talk:Brian Nelson

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was See at end of discussion Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
Brian Nelson (disambiguation) → Brian Nelson — Originally there were only two Brian Nelson's on Wikipedia, so it was decided one would be the primary page, and the second would be disambiguated as "Brian Nelson (descriptor)" with a top hat saying "not to be confused with the other Brian Nelson". There was also a "Brian Nelson (disambiguation)" page created. Then about a month later, a third Brian Nelson was added to Wikipedia. What should happen? My understanding is, the "Brian Nelson" page becomes the new dab page, the "Brian Nelson (disambiguation)" page goes away (redirects to "Brian Nelson" which is now the dab page), and the three Brian Nelson's now all have the format "Brian Nelson (descriptor)". See for example David Thompson. The case where a "Fistname Lastname (disambiguation)" is used are like George Washington (disambiguation), when it is a very famous individual, which is not the case here. No one Brian Nelson deserves special treatment over any other Brian Nelson and so the primary name space should be a dab page. Green Cardamom (talk) 15:29, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Stats from March (before the last requested move was completed) indicate that the screenwriter is a probable primary topic

• 459: http://stats.grok.se/en/200903/Brian_Nelson_(screenwriter)
• 91: http://stats.grok.se/en/200903/Brian_Nelson_(UDA)
• 0: http://stats.grok.se/en/200903/Brian_Nelson_(critic)

--JHunterJ (talk) 15:43, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. Do we have to have a primary topic? Personally I'd rather not have an intermediary dab page since none of the Brian Nelson's are common knowledge or well known outside of special knowledge. If a user types in "Brian Nelson" it's hard to know which one they are looking for. For example, I am a literature person so I would be looking for the critic, even though he registers 0 on this list. The screenwriter might have more since he is a media person, and the Internet is media / popular culture heavy. And for anyone in Britain/Ireland the military person would be more prominent. Green Cardamom (talk) 15:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Disambiguation pages can go at the base name, yes. But if there is a primary topic, then it goes at the base name. And the primary topic is not the one that each individual Wikipedia reader is looking for, just the one most likely to be sought by the Wikipedia readership as a whole. If there is a primary topic, then the people looking for the most likely article save click (they go straight to the sought article) while the people looking for other articles have to spend an extra click (they go to the wrong article, then to the dab, and then to the sought article). If there's no primary topic, then everyone spends two steps: dab, then sought article. So if 459 people save one click and 91 people spend an extra click, the readership as a whole comes out ahead. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:43, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, JHunter, for the links. I had not known about that engine before. It is useful, but not conclusive, else a bot could make this decision for us. A Google search might help as well, and it would take in a larger chunk of time than does grok.se. Yet the latter could be persuasive for some people. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:17, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

• Question There is also a Bryan Nelson, who would be sought by many Floridians (viewed 129 times). How does this man enter the equation? Otherwise, I might tentatively support Brian Nelson, the British Army intelligence agent, as the main page, with wp:hatnotes on all the pages leading to the other Nelsons. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:11, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

  Bryan should be listed on the dab page as a "See also", but otherwise doesn't much impact the decision of whether "Brian Nelson" has a primary topic (unless Bryan is commonly referred to incorrectly as Brian). Unless there's another reason to view the agent as the primary topic, though, I'd say the hit counts indicate the screenwriter is the primary topic or (since all of the hits are so low) that there is no primary topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:51, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment The hits counter shows the hits for March 2009. The Article Brian Nelson was created on 09:23, 10 April 2009 - ie After that. 95 people followed the dead/red link - it does not show how many were knowlegeable enough not to bother. The hit counter is only a useful tool when comparing like for like ie a full months data for a stable article in existence at the time. CyrilThePig4 (talk) 07:06, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for that; I did not check the edit history of the UDA article; you're right, a red-link will naturally get fewer hits. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:36, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

• Brian Nelson is an article about a man, not a redirect. Shall we move it to Brian Nelson (British intelligence agent)? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

That Brian Nelson would be hard to categorize in a parenthetical expression. He might just as well be called "Conspirator to commit murder" or "Intelligence chief of the Ulster Defence Association" (which are actually the reasons he is Notable). I say leave it alone. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 06:35, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed Contributors to this RM should be aware of Talk:Brian Nelson#Requested move. Any move now will need to achieve consensus on a label for the UDA/Army Agent. CyrilThePig4 (talk) 07:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Being hard to describe in a disambiguating phrase is not one of the criteria for being the primary topic. If the agent is not the primary topic, then the article on him will have to have some disambiguating phrase. Making the article on him the primary topic if it is not the primary topic for "Brian Nelson" is a poor solution. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:36, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. It's just a disambiguation phrase, to disambiguate him from other BN's, Brian Nelson (agent) for example, or worst case use his DOB/DOD years to disambiguate. In any case it is a totally separate issue from the primary topic concern. Green Cardamom (talk) 15:15, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Consensus, albeit with the option for this very RM, was achieved at Talk:Brian Nelson#Requested move. I remain concerned that we now seem to be having the same conversations here as the contributors to Talk:Brian Nelson#Requested move had then, but now on a page that may well not be on the watchlist of the majority of contributors to that tortuous RM. So eventually a new disambiguator is achieved such as, for instance, Brian Nelson (agent) - once it is imposed on Brian Nelson will not those contributors cry foul? Green Cardamom, I believe you came to this page because you could not change Consensus at Talk:Brian Nelson. On the subject of primary topic, how often does a critic or screenwriter make front page news? (Rhetorical) - Less often than a mass murderer. Will Brian Nelson (screenwriter) write a block buster before the next press headlines about another extra-judicial murder that Brian Nelson's was involved with?. Dunno - but, if this is a matter of the primary topic, the principal place for the discussion should be at Talk:Brian Nelson. CyrilThePig4 (talk) 17:18, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, nobody notified me (or others, I suppose) about the discussion going on elsewhere. What a bleeping waste of time this has all been. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:25, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

• I have moved page Brian Nelson about the agent/etc to Brian Nelson (1948-2003), which should be adequately neutral. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 05:48, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.