Talk:Bellingham

The following discussion is an archived 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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No move. There is no strong agreement that the Washington town is *not* the primary topic for "Bellingham" to counter the evidence that suggests it is. It appears that some of the general confusion regarding the redirects is due to the

Bellingham (disambiguation) → Bellingham – Belingham is a redirect to the main article making this page difficult to find. Better to move this page to Bellingham?? Twiceuponatime (talk) 09:22, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: I think that "Belingham" above is probably a typo for "Bellingham", but it seemed a bit rash to correct a typo in the nomination for a move. PamD 19:11, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Support: the American city is known as "Bellingham, Washington", and there are multiple other meanings for "Bellingham" (including my nearest one, in Northumberland, which to me is the only real one, of course!). No evidence that the US city is the primary topic for the undisambiguated base name. The dab page should be at the base name. PamD 19:11, 29 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong, speedy oppose; clear primary topic. over 43,000 views during the past 90 days for the Washington city, versus just 90 for the surname, 300 for the Australian location, 1700 for the neighbo(u)rhood, 1400 for the village in the UK, 600 for the train station, 5600 for the Mass town, 300 for the CDP, and 300 for the MN location. Add those other uses together, and what do you have? An obvious primary topic for
  WP:USPLACE. Also, I think the entire point of the original poster was in vain; did they fail to arrive here because of a misspelling? Red Slash 03:22, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • (Nominator) I was looking for Bellingham, Northumberland and found that I was being redirected to the Bellingham, Washington page. I eventually found the disambig page and just felt it was a bad way of helping users. I am not disputing the primary usage; just the way the redirect and disambig pages are (or are not) helping users. And, I was spelling it correctly (then). Twiceuponatime (talk) 09:06, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • In that case, Bellingham, Washington should be moved to Bellingham to save you the trouble of following a redirect before you get to the disambiguation hatnote. bd2412 T 18:05, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • WP:USPLACE would suggest that the common form includes the state. -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 22:41, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply
        ]
        • Yeah, sorry, Twiceuponatime. There's just no good way around it. The Washington city has several times over the population of the village, and its page was viewed roughly 30x as often. It's unfortunate, but I don't know if there's anything we can do about it. Red Slash 02:22, 31 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • But the figure of 43k above is for Bellingham, Washington. There is no indication how many of the people seeking it looked for Bellingham. Many people creating US placename articles don't feel the need to create a redirect or a dab page entry from the single city name without the state, on the basis that Americans always use the "city, state" nomenclature. So it would seem to make sense to have the disambiguation page here at the base name. PamD 13:40, 31 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per Red Slash. bd2412 T 18:05, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• If there is a move, please
  WP:FIXDABLINKS first. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:59, 31 January 2014 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Support. The discussion above just shows the folly of depending on page view statistics... a practice with no support in the DAB guideline. If there were a primary topic then Bellingham, Washington would probably be it, but considering that it's only a moderately sized city and there are articles for similarly named places in two other countries and two other US states, the case for there being a primary meaning is weak. Andrewa (talk) 20:16, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per Red Slash. With respect to Andrewa, he must have overlooked the very stable pageview criterion at
  WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (which, yes, is on the DAB guideline). --BDD (talk) 00:16, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • That guideline reads in part Tools that may help to support the determination of a primary topic in a discussion (but are not considered absolute determining factors, due to unreliability, potential bias, and other reasons) include:... Wikipedia article traffic statistics... (my emphasis and ... indicates text I have snipped). How can you possibly read that as support for depending on page view statistics? Andrewa (talk) 05:23, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Dude, we're talking about a city of 80,000 against a neighbourhood, a village, a couple tiny towns and a tiny CDP. It's primary topic not just by pageviews but also by long-term educational significance. Red Slash 18:45, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, it's a city of 80,000 (about 80% of the size of the municipality in which I live) against five other locations (taken together, remember). Does it have any particular claim to fame apart from its size? None has been mentioned. Andrewa (talk) 03:07, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I read your comment as suggesting page views were some sort of anomaly with no basis in policy. Perhaps that was an error on my part, but the argument is demonstrably false, whether it's yours or a straw man's. --BDD (talk) 20:35, 8 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That is certainly not what I meant and I don't think it's what I said, so yes, I'd like to regard your claim that I must have overlooked the very stable pageview criterion at

WP:PRIMARYTOPIC

(which, yes, is on the DAB guideline) as withdrawn. What I said was that depending on page view statistics has no basis in policy (my new emphasis), and I'll go further... it is explicitly discouraged by the guideline. Is that your understanding too?

Hopefully that is now cleared up. Now, exactly which argument is demonstrably false? And what's this about straw men? Andrewa (talk) 03:07, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We may have gotten hung up on differing definitions of "depending." We can depend (partially) on something or depend (entirely) on it. I believe in depending on page views in the former sense. I don't think anyone would depend on it in the latter. So I think whether DAB supports this depends on your reading. The straw man is my misreading of your comments, and only his argument is demonstrably false. --BDD (talk) 17:57, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I honestly don't have a clue what the deal is here. Five tiny towns and a neighborhood with no real claim to fame, few Google News appearances, no evidence that more than a handful of people have ever cared to read their articles... what is the deal? Why does the size of the city you personally live in have anything at all to do with the page request? I mean, am I supposed to trumpet the significance of a city of 80,000 when faced with a move request that makes no effort whatsoever to provide an argument to overturn the existing consensus? You know what? Fine. Bellingham is most notable for Western Washington University, which is one of only six state universities in Washington and has what, 20,000 students? Bellingham is a port city (historically a very important port city for Washington) with a lovely bay and a long industrial history. It's almost certainly the northernmost U.S. city west of upstate New York with over 50,000 inhabitants (excepting Alaska). Logos Bible Software is headquartered there. It has far more people than all the other places combined (which is just a guess, because some of the other places don't even have their population listed on the WP article). I appreciate your general spirit, Andrewa, but I just am lost a little bit here. Red Slash 20:08, 9 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• (nominator) I was not making any point about what the primary article is (or should be). I am happy to accept the statistics that the place in Washington receives the most visits. The point I was making is that the current setup drags everyone to the Washington page (and increases their statistics) regardless of their real destination. I just think that there has to be a better way of helping the average user. Twiceuponatime (talk) 08:55, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I appreciate the niceness! Here's the thing about the pageviews--even if we assume that every single visitor to any of the other Bellinghams found it by first being dragged to the Bellingham, Washington page, and therefore we discounted those pageviews... 47000 - 90 - 300 - 1700 - 1400 - 600 - 5600 - 300 - 300 still equals a whole lot more than every other topic combined. Red Slash 16:05, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a

requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review

. No further edits should be made to this section.

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: Moved buidhe 21:02, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per nom, no clear
  WP:PRIMARYTOPIC and too many pages that link to the page.--Ortizesp (talk) 19:43, 25 April 2020 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose. I've tried to fix the erroneous incoming links, of which there were only a handful. The Washington city seems clearly the primary topic in terms of usage, long-term significance and the number of incoming links. Boston, Lincolnshire has over 35,000 inhabitants yet the primary topic for Boston is its namesake in Massachusetts.94.21.253.28 (talk) 02:58, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nom. There's no clear primary topic for this name. Move disambiguation page to basename. Paintspot Infez (talk) 20:45, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per nom. No primary topic. The surname is just as notable. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:13, 29 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Just another example of the whole notion of primary topic being counterproductive so far as readers are concerned. Andrewa (talk) 18:32, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Interesting page history of the target:

13:00, 4 September 2013‎ BD2412 talk contribs block‎  36 bytes -5‎  Per WP:MALPLACED, a "Foo" title CAN NOT redirect to a "Foo (disambiguation)" title; reverted per WP:BRD; if you disagree, please initiate a requested move to bring the disambiguation page to this title. 
19:02, 3 September 2013‎ Kevyn talk contribs block‎  41 bytes +5‎  Redirect to Bellingham (disambiguation) 
11:02, 20 June 2009‎ Tassedethe talk contribs block‎  36 bytes -5‎  Undid revision 297528722 by Tassedethe  
10:58, 20 June 2009‎ Tassedethe talk contribs block‎  41 bytes +5‎  temp redirect to aid automatic disambiguation  
22:47, 19 June 2009‎ The Man in Question talk contribs block‎  36 bytes -5‎  ←Redirected page to Bellingham, Washington 
22:46, 19 June 2009‎ The Man in Question talk contribs block‎  41 bytes +41‎  moved Bellingham to Bellingham (disambiguation)

It's the 10:58, 20 June 2009 and 3 September 2013‎ edits that interest me most. Both redirected to the DAB, and would have had the same practical results as this RM:

• The
  destination
  of the base name would be the DAB.
• A bot would have warned editors not to link to the ambiguous term, and other software would have been available to detect and fix possible mislinkings if they did occur despite this.

Better late than never I guess. Andrewa (talk) 18:46, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps one interesting thing is that because of MALPLACED its easier to create a primary topic (autoconfirmed users can generally move) than to remove one (requires page mover) so no one notices if a DAB is moved away from the base name but when someone points the redirect back to the DAB its reverted per MALPLACED if the admin (or mage mover) thinks there might be a case for a primary redirect. I still agree with MAPLPLACED since it allows the DAB to be at the simpler title but without it it would be easier to remove primary topics since one could then just point it to the DAB without MALPLACED users noticing. Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:25, 2 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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.